Epilogue
Holly
I never thought that I could be this happy. If someone would have told me six months ago that I would be where I am today, I probably would have looked them directly in the eye, narrowed my own eyes until they were thin, constricted slits, and called them all kinds of crazy while also bursting into a huge fit of laughter right there in front of their face. However, I would have been all kinds of wrong…
After Alex surprised me with the deed to the Sanello’s Sweetery, I felt like I had literally died and gone to heaven, I was so overjoyed and surprised. I fought with myself for days over whether to change the name of the bakery to something else—especially since everyone in the entire area already knew it by its original family name, and had probably known it by that name since they were younger. But, in the end, however, I decided to change the name to something more modern and a little bit more snazzy-sounding.
I decided to change the name of the bakery to Home Sweet Holly’s.
Corny? Maybe. But it was my idea and my bakery, so I could name it whatever the hell I damn well pleased. Besides, I figured that the new name was pretty catchy in its own way and that it would also be something that everyone who came to check it out would likely remember.
Alex was a dream when it came to helping me get everything together, obtaining all of the supplies, materials, and equipment, finding and hiring a crew to help me remodel and get the place set up, and providing the support and confidence I never even knew I needed. He was the most wonderful, thoughtful, and supportive boyfriend I’d ever had. And yes, he was officially my boyfriend. We made things official between us the night he surprised me with the deed to the bakery building.
No man I had ever dated had ever been anything quite like Alex Westbrooke. Yes, he was a billionaire, yes, he was incredibly handsome. He was loaded, that’s a fact, but the honest-to-God truth of the matter was, even if he wasn’t wealthy, I would still feel exactly the same way about him. The fact that he was loaded with a practically unlimited bank account was merely a bonus—a huge bonus—but a bonus, nonetheless. I truly believed that even if he wasn’t so blessed with such a huge bank account that he still would have found some way to make my dream a reality just because that was how much he truly loved me.
We had the grand opening exactly six months after the day he surprised me with the deed, and it was every bit as wonderful as I had fantasized it would be. It was a total blast! At least two hundred people showed up all throughout the day. I gave away a free dessert of their choice with every ten-dollar order and it all went down wonderfully, without a single hitch.
Alex took the day off from his office and came down to the bakery to be with me for the grand opening celebration.
What really surprised me the most was the fact that Alicia—the woman who I had seen with Alex—came to the grand opening of my newly purchased and remodeled bakery. At first, I wasn’t quite sure why she had shown up, and my heart started beating faster and my palms began to perspire.
She was wearing a powder-blue sundress that dipped down into a U-shape around her huge, perky, obviously-augmented breasts. I could tell immediately that she was wearing a push-up bra underneath her dress because her tits were pressed tightly together and her cleavage was pretty fucking close to popping all the way up out of the top. She also had on a matching straw-like sunhat that hung down over her blond bangs, which dangled loosely next to the silver and blue-framed sunglasses she wore.
Her strappy, backless five-inch stiletto sandals were the exact same shade of blue as her dress, glasses, and hat, and she also had a silver and blue purse draped over her right shoulder as she walked into the front entrance of the bakery with a huge grin on her flawlessly made-up, photo-shoot-ready face.
“Congratulations,” she said in a pleasant tone of voice as the smile on her face widened even further. “This place looks absolutely amazing! You guys have really done an incredible job!”
She looked around the large front area of the newly-remodeled bakery with seemingly genuine awe. Her stilettos click-clacked against the tile floor of the shop as she approached the front counter, where I was standing behind the cash register with Alex by my side.
“Thank you,” I said with a somewhat forced smile. “Can I get you anything in particular?”
“Actually, yes. I’d like ten dollars’ worth of cannolis please,” she said, pointing to the freshly-made desserts sitting behind the glass. “And for my free selection, I’d like one of those macadamia nut cookies.” She looked at me, then glanced over at Alex, and then looked back at me again.
“Certainly,” I replied and proceeded to fill her order.
“Hey, by the way,” she said, gazing intently into my face. “I wanted to apologize to you, Holly. Please believe me, I honestly never meant to cause any confusion between you and Alex. I totally misconstrued the situation that night, and I wanted to apologize to you in person for the problems that it caused.”
I was literally blown away. I could hardly believe that she had actually come right up to me and apologized to my face. Perhaps she really wasn’t one of those stuck-up, conceited, thinking she’s God’s-gift-to-every-man kind of chicks.
“Oh,” I said, taken off guard. I glanced over at Alex, who had a pleasant smile on his face. “Thank you so much for that, Alicia. Apology accepted. Water under the bridge.”
I returned her smile as I handed her a bag with all of her items in it.
“And thank you for coming down to help us celebrate,” I added.
“You’re very welcome! See you at the office, Alex,” she said before turning around and heading back out the front door.
“That was very classy and mature of you,” Alex said with a grin.
“Well, she did apologize,” I said, returning his grin with my own. “That was pretty classy, too. Did you put her up to that?” Suddenly, I was wondering if he’d had anything to do with her showing up unexpectedly like that.
“Of course not. But would it really make any difference if I had?” he teased, wrapping his strong, masculine arms around my waist.
“I don’t know, maybe,” I said, throwing my arms around his neck.
“You know what I think?” he asked playfully.
“What?”
“I think it’s time we closed down for the night and christened this place,” he said with a wink.
“I think you read my mind,” I replied, pressing my lips to his.