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“Iloatheit,” she growls. “Mike was the last one. I am never falling in love again.”
I don’t bother responding. We’ve been here before, and all I need to do is to listen and tell her what she wants to hear. Tomorrow, she’ll have forgotten all about it.
“I know you don’t believe me, but this is it, Willow. After Mike, I am done.”
That’s what she said with Jack and the bartender guy, whose name she never bothered to tell me because they’d only lasted two weeks before she decided she didn’t like him anymore.
“Hmm,” I mutter, the doubt in my voice as clear as day.
“What? You don’t believe me? I’ll show you that I can be single. I just wish stupid Valentine’s Day wasn’t in a few days. There’s nothing worse than watching couples share longing glances after your own relationship just ended.”
Her sigh is heavy and dramatic as she scrolls through her phone, no doubt cyberstalking her ex-boyfriend. “Can’t we just not celebrate the damned day this year? Or ever again?”
“What, like an Anti-Valentine’s Day?” I say with a laugh. “It could be your very own special day, and you can spend it cursing all the lovers of the world.”
The words are offered in jest, but Nora’s silence has me turning around to look at her, only to find her staring at me intently, her phone suspended in her fingers, with a strange look on her face.
“What?” I ask, unsure what to make of her sudden alertness.
“Anti-Valentine’s Day, that’s a good idea.”
“Uhm, it is?”
“No,” she says more to herself than to me. “It’s a great idea. I need to make a few calls.”
I watch in shock as she jumps up from her seat and heads back to her office. I don’t know what to make of her reaction, but she’s no longer depressed, so I take the win and leave it at that.
CHAPTER ONE
Rowan
It’s been several months since I last set foot in Fine Taste, but every time I come, it feels like the first time all over again.
I am transported to that day, ten years ago, when I stood on this very spot to receive the keys to the place. My hands had been shaky and damp with sweat as I pushed open the door to what was going to be my first-ever business.
Ten years later, I own forty locations all over the country, among other businesses, but this place will always be my first love. Well, that is, if my sister doesn’t run it into the ground.
And just like that, my earlier irritation returns, overtaking the serene feeling this place always offers me. When I got the email announcing an Anti-Valentine’s Day, I’d been so sure it was just a spam email, I’d almost deleted it before I noticed the sender.
Nora is the only family I have left after the death of our mother a few years ago. I’d used the manager position at Fine Taste to lure her into moving closer to me when she finished college. We’re half-siblings; our mother had married her father when I was six. From the moment she was born, I’d been every bit the protective older brother. I’d had to be, given how flighty our mother was and how her father couldn’t be bothered with anything outside of business until the day he died. I’d practically raised Nora, despite only being a child myself.
Lately, we’ve drifted apart as my career has grown ever more demanding. So, I have no doubt that this Anti-Valentine’s business is yet another of her jokes designed to get on my nerves and capture my attention. If that is her aim, then she’s succeeded because now I’m pissed.
I pull open the glass door and walk in. Pushing my nostalgia to the back of my mind, I look around for the brat who’ll be the death of me.
The place is packed, which is good news for me as the owner, but there is no doubt it will be empty after the whole Anti-Valentine’s trainwreck my sister is planning.
“Hi, can I help you?” someone calls out, and I turn to the source of the voice, my scowl in place, ready to demand the whereabouts of the manager, when my eyes meet hers.
And I forget.
It’s as if my brain reboots because I see nothing but her.
Her smile is indulgent. It’s the same smile, I suppose, she offers to all her customers. Pretty enough to please the customers but not so over the top, that they’ll think they are special.
Even so, it sucks all the air from my lungs.
I stand frozen on the floor, my gaze on her large, warm, emerald green eyes. She tilts her head to the side to study me, and a strand of auburn hair falls from a loose bun. I fist my hands, fighting back the need to reach out and push it behind her ear, then trace my finger over her skin.
