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“In the main booth, over here.” Daphne ushers me to a booth in the back corner, her hips swiveling in a tempting little manner as I walk behind her.
“And what am I doing?”
“Did you not read the email I sent over?” She looks genuinely upset like this is a life-or-death situation.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Figures,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “This is the main booth where everyone is dropping off their baked goods. You register them and then place them on the tables.”
“Is someone going to be helping me or am I just expected to figure this all out?” She’s getting more irritated by the second, which amuses me.
“You’re a billionaire business owner, Mr. Vaughn. I’m sure you can navigate a bake sale.” I stare at her, waiting for a real answer. “Yes, Matilda Bernard is supposed to be here already.” She glances around the sea of people. “Let me find her and send her back to you.”
“Mr. Vaughn, such a pleasure.” I turn around to see Mr. Fein scurrying toward me, a huge grin on his cherubic face. This guy is nice but damn, is he annoying.
“Rick, good to see you.”
“I can’t thank you enough for your generous offer to auction off a long weekend on your private yacht. It’s going to be such a treat for whoever wins that bid.”
“It’s the least I could do.” I look up to see Daphne hurrying back over to me.
“Mr. Fein, we have an issue. Matilda Bernard apparently came down with the flu so we don’t have anyone to run the main booth with Mr. Vaughn.”
“Oh dear.” He clutches his chest and looks over at me, then back at Daphne as if someone is about to die. “Well, why don’t you do it?”
“Oh no,” she says emphatically. “I’m supposed to be handling the bids for the silent auction.”
“Nonsense. I’ll handle that. You stay back here with Mr. Vaughn.” He waves at someone in the crowd. “Excuse me,” he says before walking away.
“Guess it’s just me and you, kid.” She looks over her shoulder at me with a scowl. “Relax, I promise not to irk you too much.” I wink at her, knowing it’ll probably annoy her all the more.
“Don’t do that. Don’t pretend to be nice just to annoy me.”
We spend the next half hour logging and organizing the baked goods. I write down who brought in what and she places them on the table with a little price sign.
“Now what?” I ask as the crowd dies down and people mill about.
“We wait for people to pay us. They’ll select their baked goods and we take the cash.”
“What was with your pissy comment in my office the other day?”
“Don’t play dumb, Mr. Vaughn. It doesn’t suit you.” She smiles as she takes cash from a woman and places it in the box.
“Thank you, these look delicious,” the woman says, holding up the tray she’s just purchased.
“Can’t go wrong with lemon bars,” Daphne says before taking a drop-off from someone else.
“I’m serious.” I take the tray of cookies she hands me.
“You should really be mindful of what you say in front of children. Your daughter asked me what pissy meant when she was at my apartment and when I told her it was a bad word, she told me that’s what daddy called you.”
I almost burst out laughing but I stifle it, completely forgetting that I had said that in front of her. “Well, if the shoe fits.”
“It doesn’t,” she says defensively. “I’m not normally pissy. I’m actually a very pleasant and fun loving person. You just bring out the worst in me.”
“I won’t argue with that. It’s probably true.” She stops what she’s doing and looks over at me, probably surprised I just agreed with her.
“Thank you for doing this by the way,” she says, her tone suddenly softening.
