Sinful (2 page)

“Excuse me. Did I hear you correctly?” Maymi asked, hoping she truly had misunderstood him. No one could actually be this damn disrespectful intentionally.

“I believe I spoke quite clearly, but I can repeat myself if you need me to,” he said, staring at her.

Maymi’s eyebrows shot up as she tried to tamp down her anger. How dare this man come inside her place of business and speak to her like this! She had worked too damn hard to get here to get slighted by him or anyone else for that matter.

“Listen, sir,” she replied. “You better leave now before I lose my temper. If you can’t find your way out, I’ll be more than happy to show you the door.”

“My name is Jensen Lowe...not sir, and you didn’t answer my question,” he tossed back at her. “What person in their right mind would open a bakery next door to a twenty-four hour fitness club? It doesn’t make any sense. I think you need to pack up your things and move.”

Maymi was so taken back by Jensen’s startling suggestion that she was at a loss for words, but they came rushing back to her. “Either you are stupid or the most self-centered man I’ve had the misfortune to ever meet, but I don’t care about what you think or say. All I want you to do is get the hell out of my bakery.”

Storming around the corner of the display case, Maymi stood in front of Jensen. She tried not to notice how good he smelled up close or how his eyes seemed to be staring straight through her. His ass was going to leave her building one way or another, the choice was up to him.

“Get out,” she demanded, again.

Surprise etched across his handsome face as he stared down at her from his towering six feet five inch frame. “I’m not done speaking with you yet. I need to say a few more things,” Jensen told her.

“Oh, you are done whether you know it or not, Mr. Lowe.”

Storming past him, Maymi went over to the bakery’s door, flinging it wide open. “You can leave now,” she said, waving him out. “Be sure not to come back here again because I won’t be so nice the next time I see you.”

Jensen stared at her a few seconds before he sauntered towards the door. He paused in front of her and waited like he thought she might change her mind about kicking him out of her store. Well, it would be a cold day in hell before that happened.

“You only need to walk about five more feet and you will be outside where I want you, Mr. Lowe.” Maymi glanced at the sidewalk then back at him.

“This conversation isn’t over, Ms. Monroe,” he promised before turning around and storming out the door.

“Oh, that is your misconception but not mine. I’m not ever going to be in a room alone with you again,” Maymi snapped before letting go of the door watching as it slowly closed in Jensen Lowe’s face.

Turning on her heel, she marched back into her kitchen, wondering how such a rude and disrespectful man had the ability to run a gym in the first place. Shouldn’t a person over a people driven business like his have a better personality?

How could someone like him show empathy towards a struggling client who might not be able to lose weight fast enough?

Well, he wasn’t any of her concern anymore.

Thank God she belonged to a gym way on the other side of town. If not, she might not be responsible for her actions if she was inside the same work out facility that Mr. Lowe owned.

Chapter Two

“How dare she kick me out of her bakery like I wasn’t worth her time,” Jensen snapped minutes later, storming into his office as the door slammed behind him. He had gone over to Sinful
hoping to talk with that woman like two adults, but instead Ms. Monroe had acted like a spoiled brat and then tossed him out on the sidewalk.

If she believed he was done with her then she was out of her mind. He wasn’t going to let her treat him like his concerns weren’t important. She could deny the truth all she wanted, but her bakery, with its fattening goodies, would ruin the progress his members were trying to make.

For the time being, he wouldn’t go back over there and confront Ms. Monroe again, but he wasn’t going to back down. One thing was for sure, she hadn’t let him intimidate her. She might have been barely five feet three inches, but for what his neighbor lacked in height she sure made up for it in backbone.

Walking around his office, Jensen thought about another way to approach her. From the way Maymi acted towards him at Sinful, she wasn’t going to box up her mixing bowls and go anywhere which wasn’t going to work for him. She had to leave and he didn’t care how it happened, just as long as it did.

“Fuck,” he cursed, storming over to his desk and taking a seat behind it. He still couldn’t figure out how she ended up with that prime piece of property.

The money amount he had offered the real estate agent was three times what it was worth and his expansion depended on that building. He couldn’t move forward without it. He owed it to the people who paid his membership fee to see that Ms. Monroe wasn’t around much longer to cause them any kind of setback.

Who in their right mind wanted a bakery shop in the neighborhood anyway
?

All of those calories and of course fat was horrible for anyone’s body. Casper might think it was fine she moved next to them, but he didn’t and never would. All of her tempting, delicious smelling products were going to be a bad temptation to his clients.

Reaching for his phone on the desk, Jensen dialed his real estate broker’s phone number because he was going to get down to the bottom of this situation.

“Jensen, what can I do for you?” Paul Williams answered on the second ring.

“Paul, can you tell me how in this hell this woman Maymi Monroe got the building next door to Fitness 24?
I offered a huge amount of money for it but the agent shot me down. I don’t think he even took five minutes to even think about it.”

“We’ve been over this before.” Paul sighed. “Mr. Banks didn’t want the walls knocked down from your business and have it expanding over into his space. I knew as soon as you saw the new owner you would call me.”

Jensen swallowed hard, attempting to control his anger.
Nothing
was going his way today and now he had to deal with this nonsense. He couldn’t wrap his head around the stupidity of it.

“Do you know what the new owner turned the empty space into?” he demanded harshly.

“No, I don’t but I bet you’re going to tell me,” Paul replied with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“A bakery,” Jensen snapped. “How in the hell does that make any sense? One of my members will work on losing calories and then can go right next door and regain them in a matter of minutes after eating a red velvet cupcake.”

Paul’s deep voice laughed in his ear, making him pull it away. He glared at it, not finding one thing funny about this at all. Something had to be done, he just didn’t know what it was, but he would figure it out.

“It isn’t funny,” he snapped, placing the phone back against his ear.

“Sorry Jensen.” Paul coughed, clearing his voice. “But you have to admit there is some humor in the situation. You need to loosen up. Fitness 24 is not going to lose any of it members nor will they gain twenty pounds because of Ms. Monroe’s bakery. Let her know the feeling of success like you did when your gym first took off.

“Listen, if you’re so determined to expand your business, have you thought about looking into that old Armory over on Griffith Avenue? It’s been abandoned for months. I can probably get the keys to it for a walk through.”

The idea of opening a second work-out club in the area hadn’t crossed his mind, but he didn’t have the time to make a list of the pros and cons right now. There were more pressing matters needing his attention and until he had that taken care of, the second health club would have to be put on hold.

“Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you,” Jensen answered.

“Don’t wait too long. It’s the perfect space for what you want done and it will give you the extra space for the karate class you talked about starting,” Paul told him and then hung up.

Jensen placed the phone back into its cradle. He leaned back into his leather chair and spun around so he could look out the window of his office.

He wasn’t going to need to think about buying a second building because he wasn’t going to need it. He never lost a battle and a five feet three inch brown beauty wasn’t going to be his first defeat either.

Chapter Three

“I can’t believe the nerve of that man,” Maymi mumbled to herself, tossing the spatula into the soapy sink water.

Jensen Lowe had walked into her place of business making demands like he owned the building instead of her. How in the hell could she have gotten sidetracked by his attractive face?

Well, his shitty attitude made his good looks go downhill quite fast. He actually implied she wasn’t good enough to be an entrepreneur like him. What in the fuck was he thinking? She could do anything he could and probably ten times better.

Walking over to the table, Maymi opened the drawer searching through it until she found her favorite plastic spatula. She liked using this one when she did her red velvet cupcakes since the icing seemed to go on smoother.

Thankfully, the display case out front was almost completely full since she had come in three hours early today. All of her delicious treats were out there looking tempting and mouth watering.

She could start working on getting all of her cookies and pies together for the extra display case she had placed on the other side of her bakery. A variety of items to choose from would bring in more money for her.

She wasn’t going to allow Sinful to fail for any reason. For almost six years, she worked at a variety of diverse jobs that she hated to save up money for her dream bakery in the city.
Sinful
was her heart and soul. Nothing or no one was
ever
going to take this away from her.

Heading back over to the tray of cupcakes, Maymi opened the white container of homemade cream cheese frosting before picking up a cool cupcake off the rack next to her. Slowly, she started icing the delectable treat, making sure not to get any crumbs into the frosting.

These were her bestsellers anytime she made them back in her hometown. They usually sold out in an hour or less, so she didn’t doubt they would do well for her here as well.

Maymi continued working while she thought about the triple chocolate fudge cupcakes she had been working on as well. Something was keeping them from getting moist like she wanted and for some odd reason she couldn’t figure out what it was. It was out of her reach, taunting her to keep fixing the recipe until she got it perfect enough to put out there to sell.

If her grandmother was still alive, her nana would be able to just take a small bite and instantly know what was wrong with them. Her bakery couldn’t be successful if only one of her cupcakes sold like hot cakes. She needed everything to come together like a dessert lovers’ naughty fantasy.

Finishing off the last cupcakes, Maymi laid the utensil down and picked up the tray carrying it back through the swinging door. She worked on filling up the second shelf on her case, hoping customers would come in and buy everything out.

Since her grand opening six months ago, she had noticed a steady flow of customers coming through the door, but she wanted more than she was getting. She needed at least a twelve to fifteen percent increase or she wouldn’t survive on those kinds of sales; however, she was positive once word got out about how scrumptious her baked goods were, she wouldn’t be able to keep the cases filled.

Placing the tray down near the cash register, Maymi walked around the front of the case to get a better look at everything. All of them looked very enticing, but the counter itself was unappealing.

Tonight, when she was at home, she would sketch out a design for the front window and the counter as well. Sinful
was missing a logo to set it above the rest of the businesses on this block. She needed something more than good smelling desserts to make an individual stop and come inside. She had to make something eye catching enough from the outside to draw them into her world of goodies.

If she accomplished that one huge thing then her business was finally going to make her father respect her decision to drop out of medical school and pursue her own dreams not his personal visions for her.

After her mother’s sudden suicide when she was a little girl, she worked hard to constantly prove herself to her father since he expected so much from his youngest child. He might own a successful medical practice, but she could be equally successful if he only had more belief in her skills as a baker.

However, nothing she did ever seemed good enough for Doctor Raymond Monroe. She could have earned two medical degrees and he would have still found something to criticize her about over and over again.

More than anything she wanted to gain her father’s love and respect. Yet, all of his titles hanging up on his office wall meant more to him than her or anything she had accomplished over the past several years.

He would rather do something with her older brothers because they shared the same interests and circle of friends. They could never do anything wrong in his eyes. Her brothers always treated her with love and respect; they even came to help her pack up her things to move out here. Yet, they didn’t seem to understand how their father loved them more than her and sadly they probably never world.

None of the cooking awards she won over the past two years would hold a candle to hearing those words. Yet, her father cared more about prestige and status to ever come to any of the cooking shows she participated in.

Blinking back sudden tears, Maymi took one last look at the cupcake case before going back around the counter and picking up the tray she had left there.

Damn Jensen Lowe for coming into her business and making her think about her failed relationship with her father. She hadn’t heard from him since she packed up and left Savannah, Georgia to move out here.