Page 54
It caught me off guard, just like that little mouth-twitch throws me off kilter, and I find something loosening in my chest.
He drops his palms on the counter and drums his fingers. “Does this mean you’ve changed the plan?”
“Oh, no. Nothing’s changed. I just know how to bake.”
“Well, lead on, expert. I’ll gladly take orders from you.”
He smiles, and my goodness, but the way his eyes crinkle in the corners nearly knocks my socks off.
It takes every ounce of willpower to look away from that smile. “Okay, first preheat the oven to three seventy-five.”
“Got it. What’s next?”
“Let’s grab the dry ingredients. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder.”
Rhett grabs the ingredients while I pull out the bowls. I start to measure out the sugar and stop.
“What is it? Something wrong?”
“No. An idea came to me.”
I glance at the other couples. They’re all working hard, heads down, talking and moving in sync. Even Clarice and Beau. They, for once, are talking.
“Salt,” I murmur.
“What’s that? I’m not following.”
“We want to lose, so I’ll use salt instead of sugar.”
A flicker of disappointment crosses his face before he replies with “That’s brilliant. That’s how we’ll throw this round.”
“Exactly. We won’t win if our cookies taste terrible.”
“We sure won’t.”
I measure a cup of salt and hold it over the bowl for half a second. Should I really do this? Should I really exchange salt for sugar?
Do I want Glen to harass me for money if he thinks I have some?
No, I do not.
Problem solved. Before I dump the salt, I make sure the phone camera isn’t on us. Mina’s assistant is focused on Callie and Jeff. I take a deep breath and let the salt cascade into the bowl and continue with the rest of the ingredients, not bothering to look back even once.
When the cookies are out of the oven, you can’t tell that they’re full of salt.
Other couples taste their cookies, to which Rhett lifts a brow and whispers, “You think they’re gonna know something’s up if we don’t taste ours?”
The closeness of him makes my head spin. I grasp the edge of the counter until my knuckles are white and reply, “Nope. They won’t think anything other than I’m on a diet, and you’re too cool for school.”
“You got a point there,” he says with a wink, and I laugh, beside myself.
While the cookies cool, we whip up the icing. It’s two colors, yellow and white.
Rhett gets some on his thumb. He brings it to his mouth and licks it clean. His eyes close for just a second. “Oh, that’s good. Really good.”
He dips his finger in and offers it to me. “Try it. You’re gonna like it.”
My gaze drops to his finger, lifts to his eyes, where he’s watching me with a smirk. I will not—I repeat, will not—fall for this man, not even if he’s offering for me to suck icing from off his finger.
