IN HER JAM JAR

“Greatly enjoyed the book and would 100% recommend this to anyone looking for laughs, off-the-chart sexual chemistry, and a sweet romance.”-- Lavanya, Goodreads

 “Laugh out loud funny, sexy romance with lots of unexpected twists in the plot that keep you guessing, and a happily ever after.” --Laure, Amazon

 “A funny, emotional romance that’s the perfect escape for everyone!” --Melinda, Goodreads

 “I love all of these stories but I think this one might be my favorite yet!” --Diane, Goodreads

 “Every one of these books in this series is a winner! LOVE them ALL!” --Margis, Amazon

Prologue

Zoe

High school. I would rather be on a suicide mission to Mars than sitting in a classroom with no AC next to some of the biggest douches in rural upstate New York.

Yep, while high school was terrible, a small-town high school was its own special blend of incestuous drama and petty, closed-minded individuals.

The worst? Weston Svensson. He lived in a big house with his rich older brothers, drove the fanciest cars, and had all the popular girls in school drooling at him and following him around like horny sheep. With his blond hair, gray eyes, and personality that screamed “future billionaire sociopath,” I stayed away from him and all his groupies.

And, no, I totally didn’t fantasize about him from afar, because that would totally be beneath me.

Okay, maybe I did a little. But only in the safety of my own bedroom. Definitely not in school and definitely not when he was paired with me for the afternoon in our home economics class.

Normally, my home ec partner was my bestie, Elsie, but she was out that day for a doctor’s appointment. Since Weston’s partner, the meanest, prettiest girl in school, Sharla, was gone as well, it meant I was stuck with him.

Even though he was a teenager, I could still see his features shift and settle periodically to give me a glimpse of the man he was going to become. He would add a few more inches to his height, his jaw would get stronger, he would grow broader in the shoulders, and his blond hair would darken a bit, but his eyes were going to stay that same steel gray.

Er…I mean, gross! Rich boys, amiright? Ahahaha...

Weston furrowed his brow and glanced at me. I gulped, hoping he didn’t realize I had just been thinking about him.

You need better taste in men, I chastised myself.

Weston blew out a breath. “Fuck, home ec is so stupid. Why do I have to learn how to cook?” he complained. “Why is this a mandatory class? This sucks. It’s so dumb. When I get older, I’m going to be a billionaire and pay people to do this type of mundane work.”

“Cooking is not mundane,” I snapped at him. “Everyone has to eat. You might as well make it something delicious.”

Weston rolled his eyes at me and leaned on the tall counter of our kitchen pod. He clicked absently through the text messages on his flip phone.

“Cooking is for people, especially women, who have nothing better to do with their silly little lives.”

My nostrils flared. “People make money cooking.”

“No, they don’t,” Weston scoffed, walking over to me.

My heart jumped for a moment. I half thought he was going to kiss me but then realized, in my teenage hormone-addled state, that actually, no, he was just reaching for an apron. And besides, there was no way a guy like him was going to kiss a girl like me in the middle of class with fifty other people in the room.

Weston put on the apron. My hormones were bouncing all over the place. Even though I totally did not stalk him from afar, being this close to him and having him talk to me…well, it was enough to make me almost forget that he was a spoiled rich boy.

“What are you doing?” I squawked as he scooped up a cup of flour. He didn’t even use a knife to scrape and level the mound before he dropped it into the mixing bowl with a white puff.

Weston sighed in annoyance. “I’m making a fucking cake, because for some reason, we get a grade on whether or not we can make dessert.”

“You have to sift the flour,” I cried, trying to stop him before he cracked two eggs into the bowl, shells shattering in the batter. “You can’t do it like that!” I protested.

Weston ignored me and started blending the batter with a whisk. I should have tried harder to salvage the mess—I did want to be a chef when I graduated—but I was hypnotized by his forearms as he mixed up the batter by hand. Then Weston dumped it into a pan and shoved it into the oven and went back to his phone.

I was dizzy and leaned against the counter to try to gather myself. I need to make a new cake, I thought, but all my brain could concentrate on was Weston just a few feet in front of me—the way his blond hair fell over his forehead, the way the muscles on his chest rippled slightly as he breathed or shifted.

Get it together! I mentally slapped myself. He was so hot I could practically smell his clothes burning.

“Shit!” I yelled as smoke started pouring out of the oven.

Weston looked on, bored, as I grabbed a metal spatula and hastily tried to scoop out the smoldering batter that had overflowed onto the bottom of the oven and was happily flaming away.

“Help me, you big, dumb idiot!” I snapped at Weston.

He plucked the mixing bowl that was half filled with dirty water from the sink then dumped the whole thing all over the oven—and me.

I screamed and jumped up, water dripping down the front of my Good Charlotte band T-shirt.

“Mr. Svensson and Ms. Roberts!” the home economics teacher declared, marching over to us.

“I don’t know how to cook, Mrs. Miller. I’m so sorry! My partner said I was doing it right.”

With his pretty face and wide-eyed look, Mrs. Miller bought Weston’s innocent act hook, line, and sinker.

“You’re my prize student,” she admonished me. “Why did you let him do that? I put him with you because you know how to cook and could look after him.”

“He’s practically an adult,” I protested.

“You both need to stay after class and clean this up then bake a new cake. You can leave it here, and I will grade it in the morning,” she told me.

“But it’s last period, and I have to go to work after this,” I pleaded.

“But cooking is important,” Weston said in a mocking tone.

“I know it’s important,” I hissed. “I’m going to work at my grandmother’s restaurant.”

“Chop, chop!” Mrs. Miller clapped her hands.

I dripped and seethed as I waited for the oven to cool down so we could clean it.

“I hate you,” I told Weston under my breath. “You did this on purpose.”

“Me? I can’t think that far ahead. I’m a big, dumb idiot, remember?” Weston said snidely. “Though,” he added, lowering his voice, “I do like that I can see your nipples through your wet T-shirt.”

What the fuck?

***

Everyone had left by the time Weston finished cleaning out the oven and I finished the new cake batter. I poured it into the pan, trying not to think about the fact that Weston had said he could see my nipples through my shirt. My pussy was practically dripping wet as I imagined him thinking about me like that.

You have issues.

I wished Elise were here. She was no nonsense and would have set me straight. But as it was, there was only Weston, hovering behind me.

“How much longer?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes after I slide the cake into the oven.”

Weston huffed out a laugh.

“That is not an innuendo; don’t you dare make a sexual innuendo about cake,” I ordered.

“I wasn’t going to make an innuendo. I was going to blatantly ask if you wanted to fuck while we wait.”

My mind blanked. “Ah wha fu wha?” I stammered unintelligibly.

Weston pulled a condom out of his pocket and waved it at me. The rational part of my brain had jumped into the oven with the cake, and the horny virgin in me was ready to lose her V card to the Viking god in front of her.

“What do you say?” Weston all but purred.

I could barely manage a coherent “Okay” before things were happening. It was rainbows and explosions and diamonds and sparkles. It was better than eating a whole pizza and a cake and French fries and watching Pride and Prejudice.

I clung to Weston when it was over, panting.

He grinned. “You’re pretty good at that.”

“Ah hah, yeah,” I said weakly, suddenly feeling awkward. I adjusted my clothes.

“You want to do it again?” he suggested.

“Er…” I was feeling… everything too much.

Ding.

Saved by the bell. I swung away from him and wrenched open the oven door. Then I set the cake down on the cooling rack, turned off the oven, grabbed my bag, and walked out.

***

“And you guys just did it right there in the home ec room?” Amy asked again early the next morning. In my post-sex delirium, I had not frosted the cake. I had to finish it before Mrs. Miller arrived.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get caught,” Elise admonished. “Honestly, that’s the last time I leave you to your own devices.”

“But you guys, maybe this means he likes me!” I said. “Maybe this is my moment. I could be homecoming queen.”

The sports teams had early-morning practice, and the athletes were already roaming the halls of the school, bored hall monitors ignoring their antics. There were knowing grins and laughs as my friends and I walked down the hall. One guy wearing a varsity football jacket made a fake porn-star orgasm noise.

Oh no. He didn’t.

“Did he videotape it?” Elsie whispered in horror as I bent my head to scurry past the gauntlet. All my earlier reveling in the fact that I was no longer a virgin had fallen by the wayside. I wished I had never met Weston Svensson.

“Oh my God!” Sharla’s high-pitched giggle rang down the hall. “You should have heard her. She sounded just like a dying seal. Weston said he was so shocked that he almost didn’t finish when she let out that noise. Mary Coleman, play the audio again. It’s a good thing he’s about to graduate early. He said he had PTSD from listening to her.”

I needed to get out of here, cake be damned.

But there were people behind me, crowding me toward Sharla as she took Mary Coleman’s phone and triumphantly hit the play button. The sound of me losing my virginity echoed around the halls, accompanied by laughter. I was too shocked and humiliated to cry. Elsie and Amy grabbed me and half carried me to the home ec room.

“I’m going to kill him,” I sobbed as Elsie slammed the door shut and locked it behind us. “I’m going to ruin his life. Weston Svensson is going down. He’s going to pay for this!”

Chapter 1

Zoe

There’s a funny thing about bullies. Everyone tells you to ignore them, that their time is coming, that karma will get the best of them, but it’s not true. It’s a lie that those of us who were viciously mocked for their last two years of high school tell ourselves to keep us from consuming copious amounts of junk food and desserts to stave off the humiliation-induced depression.

You want to know what happens to your high school bullies? They start billion-dollar companies. They attend fancy Ivy League colleges, paid for by their rich families, and live in quaint historic dorms. They travel to exotic locations on a whim. They stay trim and healthy and pretty. They have lots of friends. Everyone loves them.

Unlike the bullies’ victim, aka me, whose life went swirling down the toilet after the incident. I had stress eaten myself to a double-digit dress size. I did not go to a fancy university and instead attended a mediocre community college culinary program. I had also failed to make it big as a chef in Manhattan. Instead of living my best life, I had had to move back to Harrogate, apron in hand. I was not only working at my grandmother’s failing restaurant, Girl Meets Fig, just like I had in high school, but was also now living in the laundry room of my grandmother’s dilapidated cottage, because clearly the world only existed to make me miserable.

“It’s not fair,” I said to Amy. She and Elsie had started their company, Weddings in the City, a few years ago, and they spent their days planning weddings for the wealthy and powerful of Manhattan. Amy was the florist and used flowers grown at her grandfather’s farm for her magazine-worthy floral arrangements. It meant she was in town a lot and stopped by the restaurant often.

“At least you have space here,” she complained. “I want to move, but I have no savings. My apartment is way too small. When I lie on my bed, I can reach out and open the fridge door.”

“I mean, is that a bad thing?” I asked as I cut up tarragon for a grilled fish salad. Girl Meets Fig was one of the original farm-to-table restaurants in the Hudson River valley. However, with the influx of people attracted to Harrogate by the jobs and high-paying tech industry, which had been spurred by the Svensson brothers, there was a lot more competition. We were struggling to pay the mortgage and property tax.

“Sharla just landed a sponsorship deal with lululemon!” I complained as I took the plate over to the couple on their date. “Her Instagram account is to die for. She already has a sponsorship with that eco travel agency. I wanted her to be married to some gross dude and be working at a job she hates. Instead, I have the terrible life I had wanted her to suffer with.”

“But you have a giant kitchen, and you made jam yesterday,” Amy said. “All our brides love your preserves; we put them in the gift bags.”

“I wish I hadn’t flamed out in Manhattan.”

“It’s hard to make it as a chef,” Elsie reassured me. “Honestly, it’s hard to make it as anything.”

“Harrogate is nice,” Amy told me. “The air is cleaner, there are more parks, and you have a yard.”

“I don’t have a yard. My grandmother has a yard. And the fresh air only does so much for you when you’re five hours into berry picking on the side of the road and have to haul buckets full of blackberries to town on your bike.”

“But it’s the best blackberry jam ever,” Amy said, dumping a spoonful on a cracker holding cheese and prosciutto.

“You need to find the positive in your situation,” Elsie reminded me. “Use this time in the countryside to refresh and regroup.”

“Yes!” Amy said around her mouthful of food. “Give me three positive things about Harrogate. Go!”

“Uh, well…” I thought for a moment. “Food is cheaper, I’m not paying rent, the internet is weirdly faster, and there’s no Weston.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“You haven’t seen him when he comes home to visit his brothers?” Elsie asked me.

“Nope. I haven’t seen him since that day.”

My friends went silent.

I had never gotten my revenge. Weston had somehow managed to graduate early—he probably paid someone off. Then he went off to Harvard and started some sort of billion-dollar consulting firm.

I had a block on my internet and phone so that nothing related to him or his company would come into my news feed. I was already in a precarious place emotionally. Surprise good news about Weston’s life would have been enough to send me over the edge of wine- and fried food–saturated self-care.

In the first few years after the incident, I had indulged in extravagant fantasies of revenge. Now I was just resigned and in survival mode. Weston and I did not move in the same circles at all anymore, if we ever really had. I was never going to get revenge for what he had done to me. I had to accept that.

The bell over the front entrance dinged.

“Oooh, it’s busy tonight,” I said sarcastically to Amy and Elsie as I grabbed menus. “We have three whole tables full.”

In the low light of the restaurant, I blinked at the couple. They seemed as if they were on a first or second date, still giddy and not displaying the entrenched resentments of couples in year seven.

“Hi, I’m Zoe. Welcome to Girl Meets Fig, where we serve rustic, local, tasty food and drinks. Would you like to sit out on our back patio?” I chirped. Then I did a double take.

What?

No.

As much as I complained about Harrogate, the restaurant, Girl Meets Fig, was my safe space. I hated to admit it, but I enjoyed cooking rustic entrees, setting the tables, tending the plants on the patio, and making jam. It was my little oasis.

Now it was being defiled by none other than my sworn enemy number one—Weston Svensson—and my sworn enemy number two: Sharla. She was giggling, hanging onto him, and running her hands inside his fancy-pants custom suit.

And he looked…Well, Weston looked hot—way hotter than when he was a dumb high school kid. Now he was a man—one who had ruined my life.

I swallowed. I needed them outside, because I could not be in the same room as Weston fucking Svensson.

“There is a fire pit out on the patio,” I croaked.

His gaze rested on me. I blanched, waiting for the mean comments.

But would he recognize me? I’d let myself go and lost the admittedly much skinnier build that I had had in high school, and I had given up on wearing makeup. I had also dyed my hair bright blue, and I didn’t bother to wear contacts anymore, not having the energy to force them into my eyes every morning.

I blinked behind my glasses, not daring to breathe, but there was no glimmer of recognition on Weston’s face. I was irate.

Are you fucking kidding me? He literally came inside me, and he has no idea who I am.

“We also have a nice fountain to help with the summer heat,” I said, gesturing to the doors that led to the back patio that wrapped around the side of the building to meet the sidewalk.

“Outside will be nice,” Weston said, arm draped casually around Sharla’s waist. It was a gesture that teenage me had always fantasized about having a man, maybe even that one, make toward me.

I ducked my head and led the billionaire and bitchy high school bully through the small restaurant out to the back patio. Amy and Elsie gave me shocked looks as we passed.

“I’ll grab some waters,” I mumbled after I pointed them to a reclaimed-wood table with several succulents and candles on it for decoration.

“What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck,” Elsie hissed when I came back in.

I sagged against the bar. Amy poured me two ice waters to take out to the happy couple. “This is literally my worst nightmare. I can’t face them.”

“You could put rat poison in her food,” Amy suggested.

“I can’t do that!” I exclaimed, grabbing the drinks from her and taking them out.

Weston and Sharla were too busy flirting to notice as I slipped the glasses onto the table. “She’ll have a vesper martini, and I want a scotch on the rocks,” Weston said. His eyes met mine. Again, there was no recognition.

I nodded and hurried away.

“He doesn’t even know who I am,” I told my friends as I made the drinks.

“Nothing?”

“Are you sure?” Amy asked.

We stared at them through the window.

“They look so happy and beautiful,” Amy said wistfully. “I wonder if she lets him give it to her in the back door. Probably not.”

“Amy!”

***

Weston and Sharla stayed for appetizers and another round of drinks. Then Weston ordered an entrée, and Sharla basically just picked at the rest of her appetizer.

“She won’t even eat like a normal person,” I complained as my friends and I watched the couple through the window.

The other patrons had paid and left. As soon as Weston and Sharla were gone, I was closing up early. I needed pie and wine and Netflix and a bath.

Finally, Weston was done eating. I had made him a steak, rare, with fresh broccoli rabe from my granny’s garden and cheesy garlic mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy. It was the type of dish you might make your husband after a long, hard day’s—

“Ow!” I yelped as Elsie rapped my knuckles with her fork.

“No,” she scolded as I rubbed my hand.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” I whined.

“You were fantasizing about him. Weston. The guy who literally ruined your life in high school. Do you remember? Do you remember the seal noises people would make when you walked down the hall? I remember. You cried every single day. You didn’t even make it to graduation. You dropped out to take joint classes at community college so you wouldn’t have to go to high school. Weston literally ruined your life.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him like that,” I lied.

Elsie glared at me and shook her head. “Let me hear it.”

I looked up at the ceiling. “Weston is scum on this earth; he is used gum on the bottom of my shoe. He is maggot-infested roadkill,” I recited.

“And?” my friend prompted.

I blew out a breath. “And I am a queen deserving of a man who respects and values me as an individual.”

Amy applauded then went back to eating her bowl of fresh-picked strawberries, frozen whipped cream, and homemade sugar cookies.

“This is amazing, by the way,” she said.

“I guess I better see if our esteemed patrons want dessert,” I said.

Of course, they didn’t. Sharla acted as if I was going to poison her when I offered the dessert menu.

“Just the bill,” Weston said, leaning back in his chair.

You are scum on my shoe.

I walked outside, back straighter, with the check. I ran a restaurant—for now, anyway. It wasn’t a billion-dollar company, but we had a decent Instagram following.

“Do you take checks?” Weston asked me.

“Sure,” I replied, and he proceeded to whip out a fancy leather checkbook and a pen that probably cost more than a week’s revenue at the restaurant. He scrawled out the payment while I waited. If this had been the fancy restaurant I used to work at in Manhattan, the maître d’ would have scolded me for making the customer uncomfortable. But I didn’t care if Weston felt weird. I didn’t want him to come back. Ever.

He handed me the check.

“Thank you,” I said with fake customer service brightness. “Please come back and see us!” Not.

They headed out onto the street from the patio stairs. As soon as they were gone, I ran into the restaurant, grabbed Amy’s dessert, and scarfed the rest of it down.

“Oh my lord,” Elsie exclaimed.

“I stress eat!” I shrieked, crumbs spraying out of my mouth.

“No, not that,” she said and tapped the check.

I peered at it in the low light. “What the fuck? What kind of narcissist has his own face printed on his checks?”

Chapter 2

Weston

“Damn, that was the best food I’ve eaten in a long time,” I told Sharla.

“Really?” she wrinkled her nose. “It seemed a little rustic.”

“That’s the best kind,” I raved. “I’m so glad I moved my company back to Harrogate. And just in time for all the festivals.”

“I thought you were going to keep a ThinkX office in Manhattan,” Sharla remarked.

“Just a small one,” I told her.

She wrinkled her nose.

“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me you don’t love it here,” I exclaimed.

“It just feels like being back in high school,” she said.

“Harrogate has changed since then,” I told her. “Besides, you and I just randomly saw each other today walking down the street. And now we’ve had a chance to catch up. That doesn’t just happen in Manhattan.”

Sharla kissed my cheek then stepped into her little yellow sports car. I waved as she drove off.

I supposed anyone else might have been livid about moving back to their small home town, but not me. I loved Manhattan, and the city had helped me turn my boutique consulting firm into a billion-dollar juggernaut, but the hustle and bustle were starting to wear on me. When my brother and cofounder, Blade, and I had run the numbers and realized we could save a fortune by relocating our headquarters, I jumped at the chance.

The small, quaint town of Harrogate was about as far away from the international airport as Manhattan when one accounted for traffic in the city. The majority of our employees traveled most of the time anyway, and they were all excited about the better schools, natural surroundings, and cheaper property in Harrogate. Plus, with my other brothers’ companies located there, the small town was booming. Harrogate was a great place to raise a family. A number of my brothers were already shacked up.

My bright mood dropped a bit. My Irish twin, Blade, had recently found the love of his life. I’d played third wheel a bit—Avery was nice and fun and didn’t want to come between my brother and me, but it wasn’t the same.

It was dark as I drove back to the estate house. I had my own apartment in town, but I wanted to see my family. All my little brothers lived in Harrogate, and I was happy to be able to spend more time with them.

Thunk.

“Shit!” I yelled as the high-pitched hiss of a busted tire sang out over the music on the car radio.

I stepped out of the car to inspect the damage. I had hit the gnarliest pothole ever, and my tire was shredded. Fuck. I was only a few yards away from the front gate of the Svensson estate too.

A car pulled up behind me, and my older brother, Hunter, stepped out. “It’s that fucking pothole,” he yelled.

“Hello to you, too.”

“I fucking hate this town,” my older brother growled.

“It’s not the town’s fault…” I began.

“Meg is doing this on purpose. I have filed so many complaints about this pothole,” he interrupted, tapping a number into his phone and angrily waiting for the person on the other end to pick up.

“So I guess you’re not helping me change my tire,” I said to the sky. “Great.” I took off my suit jacket as Hunter paced around in the light from the car headlights.

Another sleek black Tesla pulled up in front of me. Garrett opened the driver’s-side door. “Why did you run over the pothole?”

“I didn’t know there was a pothole there,” I seethed as I dragged the spare tire out of the trunk of the car.

“Everyone knows there is a pothole in this location,” Garrett said in a monotone, walking over to me.

“I haven’t driven here since Christmas,” I reminded him, trying to find the car jack.

“That’s no excuse. This pothole has its own Facebook page. We are low on cars as it is. You cannot tear up another car.”

“This is my car,” I said as I finally found the jack.

“Yes, but now you will have to borrow someone else’s car while we wait on your car to have maintenance done,” he continued. “You’re not borrowing my car.”

“I didn’t ask to,” I said.

“Yes, I’m calling for the mayor,” Hunter’s voice broke in. “No, I don’t want to talk to…” He cursed then stood up straighter. “Hiii, Meg. I called to speak to Mayor Barry. Yes, I know it’s dinnertime. That’s not…” Hunter paced angrily. “The pothole, Meg! My little brother almost died because of the pothole that you refuse to fill. Put Mayor Barry on. I don’t care if he’s eating. This is a travesty. I pay taxes. I—hello? She hung up on me!”

“Imagine that,” Garrett said, watching me struggle with the spare tire.

I grunted as I slid the new tire onto the axle and bolted it into place.

“Your shirt is dirty,” Garrett told me, stepping back into his car.

“I love my family,” I chanted to myself as I followed him down the drive.

Hunter was still complaining about the pothole as we walked inside. I was immediately bombarded by my little brothers.

“Weston! Weston!” they yelled. Around two dozen or so of my youngest brothers lived at the estate house. Originally built in the Gilded Age by the Harrogate industrial scions of old, it now held my family—well, parts of my family, ranging from the smallest, cutest preschoolers to my older, more trying brothers.

The younger ones, with their chubby cheeks and big eyes, were all my half brothers, products of a polygamist cult-leader father and his many wives. The adult ones were my full brothers.

Remy was the oldest and sported a bushy beard and the scars, physical and psychological, from his time in the Marines. Though Remington—Remy for short—was the oldest, Hunter liked to act as if he was. He was arrogant as a default and could be downright evil, especially now that his unrequited-love situation with Meghan Loring had escalated into a pothole cold war.

Then came Gunnar, who, with his shaggy hair and stoner attitude, was a reality TV producer. The Great Christmas Bake-Off was popular, and now he was busy with various reality TV spinoffs, one of which included a dating show.

The next oldest were Archer and Mace, the twins. Leif Svensson’s genes were strong, and he also only took blond women as his wives. As a result, my brothers and I all looked eerily similar, but Mace and Archer were identical. Though they were twins, their personalities were polar opposites. Mace was the CEO of PharmaTech and straitlaced, deliberative, and irritatingly risk averse. Archer was covered in tattoos and slept until two in the afternoon.

Coming in behind me and scooting an errant child out of the way with his foot was the worst: Garrett. Classic middle child, he was younger than Mace and Archer and older than Blade and me. Chief financial officer of Svensson PharmaTech, he probably had all our phones tapped, deals cut with various government agencies, and multiple parallel plots for world domination. He was, in short, a dick.

Blade and I, owners of the ThinkX consulting firm, were Irish twins—only nine months apart. Blade had never met a spreadsheet he didn’t love, and I was a generous human being who cared about friends and family. In fact, I was regularly told that I was everyone’s favorite Svensson brother.

Then came my youngest full-blooded brother, Parker, who was a know-it-all scientist and CTO of Svensson PharmaTech. He was what might result if 4chan and Reddit had a baby and left it in a dumpster. My youngest brother glared at me over the sea of children.

“Stop looming like a serial killer,” I told him, wading through the small hands that grabbed and begged for candy, money, or food, depending on their age. “Give me a hug!” I told Parker. “I never see my little brother.”

“You saw me last month,” he said, hissing and scooting away from me. “Don’t touch me; you’re covered in germs.”

“And here I thought having a girlfriend would finally make you more like a human being.”

“You need to wash your hands before you start touching everyone,” he said, glaring.

“He’s right,” Garrett added, passing out hand sanitizer. “We all just recovered from a nasty round of colds. I don’t want to get sick again. Mace is unbearable when he’s ill.”

One kid had taken one of the mini hand sanitizer bottles and was proceeding to dump the whole thing in his mouth.

“Dude!” I barked, twisting it out of the middle-schooler’s hands. “You are too old to be eating hand sanitizer. What is wrong with you?”

“I’m hungry!” he gasped.

Several of them threw themselves on the floor, wailing.

“Hungry!”

“Starving!”

“Silence!” Hunter barked. “You all are savages. Mace is making dinner and—”

“I don’t want to eat anything he’s cooking,” Henry announced theatrically, pretending to faint.

“Er, yeah, Mace is a terrible cook,” I said. “Maybe we should order pizza…”

“They can’t eat pizza every day,” Hunter said, scowling. “Besides, Josie cooked and froze a bunch of casseroles, and Mace is just putting them in the oven.”

“Dinner!” Mace yelled, and my little brothers stampeded into the dining room. I followed them in a daze.

“Blade in yet?” I asked Mace, who waved when he saw me. He shook his head then used the spatula in his other hand to herd the kids into a semblance of a line.

I tried not to feel sad. My brother and I had once done everything together. Then he’d met Avery, and now I hardly saw him at all.

Archer popped up beside him, carrying a bowl of salad in one hand. The kids crowded around him.

“Don’t forget,” Archer told me. “You and Blade are supposed to host the meeting about the organization of the Art Zurich Biennial Expo tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Hunter said, glaring at the kids. No one wanted him to lose it, so they all scurried into a straight line.

“We’ve invested way too much money in that conference center and in securing the hosting rights to the Art Zurich Biennial for it to be a disaster. We’re counting on you and ThinkX. So don’t spend your time here chasing girls, drinking to excess, and partying,” Hunter warned me. “This is not Manhattan. There is a decorum here.”

His phone dinged.

“Oh, for f—” he bit back a curse as he looked at his phone. “Meg is acting like the pothole isn’t in the City of Harrogate’s jurisdiction and I have to submit the form through another portal.”

“I told you to submit it through the county-level portal,” Garrett said, passing out bread.

“Aren’t you glad you came back for the great pothole fiasco?” Archer asked me with an eye roll. He took a piece of garlic bread after a tussle with one of the middle school–aged kids. “Also,” he continued, “you better order catering tomorrow. I told Blade, but he doesn’t understand the need for a good meal like you or me. Also alcohol if you can swing it, please and thank you.”

“The meeting is at ten in the morning, Archer, for fuck’s sake.”

“Language!” Hunter barked and held out his hand. “Two hundred dollars. Don’t swear around the kids.”

I bit back another curse. “I thought it was one hundred,” I complained, taking out my wallet.

“I’m here supporting all these children single-handedly…”

Archer mimicked Hunter’s motions dramatically.

“…and I am not appreciated for the sacrifices I make,” he said, turning around to glare at Archer, who laughed.

Archer mimed taking a shot as I handed Hunter two hundred-dollar bills.

“Next time, I’m paying in pennies. And maybe I will buy alcohol for the meeting tomorrow.”

Archer cheered as Hunter snapped, “You better not. Order coffee.”

At the very least, I knew who to call for catering.

Chapter 3

Zoe

A few roaches scuttled out from under the dumpster in the alley behind Girl Meets Fig. I annihilated them with the can of poison. The last thing we needed was the health department shutting us down. I made a mental note to spray the next day too.

“Sorry, Weston,” I told the roach closest to my foot, which was in its death throes. “And sorry, not sorry, Weston the Second and Weston the Third.” I sprayed extra Raid just because I could. I wished I had some spray for the human Weston.

“Are you talking to the bugs again?” Amy asked as I walked back into the kitchen.

“You need to get revenge on the actual man who ruined your life and not name bugs after him,” Elsie said as she tallied up the night’s earnings.

Formerly an accountant, Elsie had left a high-paying accounting job to become a caterer. She ran her business like a, well, businesswoman and not a chef.

“So, how bad is the carnage?” I asked, looking over her shoulder at the computer screen.

“You need to stop accepting bartered goods as a form of payment,” she told me. “Honestly, what are you going to do with a crate of tomatoes?”

“I’m going to make tomato jam, duh. Besides, this is still a small town. My grandmother has always accepted goods in exchange for food.”

Elsie shook her head. “Thankfully, Weston came tonight, because you’re only bleeding about as much as a severed finger as opposed to an amputated leg.”

Amy gestured with a soapy hand from where she was washing dishes for me. Bless my friends. “Show her!” Amy insisted.

Elsie rolled her eyes and swiped to a new tab on the screen.

The headline of the Harrogate Chronicle stated, Weston Svensson’s ThinkX Has Officially Moved To Harrogate.

“Ugh, I didn’t realize that was his company,” I complained.

“He’s going to be here forever,” Elsie said flatly.

My heart sank. The only good thing about having to move home to Harrogate had been that I wasn’t going to run into Weston. Now here he was. To stay. I would run into him at the general store. I wouldn’t be able to visit the library anymore. He would be a fixture at town meetings. And clearly he was going to keep coming to my restaurant.

“Fuck,” I groaned. “Why does my life suck?”

“This is the universe giving you a sign,” Amy said.

“A sign that what, in some former life, I must have done something terrible to deserve this?”

“No,” Amy said, “this is a sign that you are finally going to take charge of your life. You’re going to get your revenge.”

“He doesn’t even remember me.”

“Even better!” Amy said brightly. “You’ll fly under his radar.” Amy pushed Elsie aside, opened a new spreadsheet, and wrote:

PLANS FOR ZOE’S REVENGE.

1. POISON

“Strike that one through. I’m a chef; I can’t go around poisoning people!”

“I know several plants that won’t kill,” Amy said. “They’ll give him mild discomfort and potentially internal bleeding.”

“No. Poison.”

“Oh, I know!” Amy clapped her hands. “Make him fall in love with you and break his heart!”

“Gross. No way.”

“At least then you could get laid!” Amy waggled her eyebrows.

I refused to remember how amazing it had felt.

“The best revenge is a life well lived,” Elsie said sagely. “You need to find a boyfriend—a nice one with a big package. Weston cannot be the only man you have ever slept with.”

“He’s not,” I lied.

Elsie raised an eyebrow.

“I told you, he ruined me!”

“Oh, are we having a Pride and Prejudice drinking session?” my granny called out, coming into the restaurant. Although she was in her seventies, she didn’t act like an old woman. She was spry and had a shock of bright pink hair.

“You didn’t sleep with any of the customers, did you, Zoe?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

Gran was disappointed. “You need to get out there. What else is there to do in a small town than fuck like rabbits?”

Amy nodded enthusiastically. “That’s what I was telling her!”

“I’m not sleeping with the customers, and I’m not sleeping with Weston.” I crossed my arms. “Besides, I don’t have time to date. I’m trying to run this restaurant.”

“This restaurant has been here for thirty-five years,” Gran insisted. “The old girl isn’t going anywhere.”

“Granny.” My shoulders sagged. “We need to look at the accounts. Elsie was generous enough to—”

But my grandmother steamrolled ahead. As usual, she refused to listen to me about how dire the restaurant’s financial situation was.

“I will not have my pretty granddaughter waste her life working all day. You need to meet people. You’ve been here months already,” she chastised me.

“I’m still settling in.”

“You need to join some clubs,” Gran insisted.

“I’ll think about it.”

“You don’t have to. I signed you up for the festival committee.”

“The what?”

“Harrogate is hosting a festival bonanza to coincide with the Art Zurich Biennial Expo and to lead up to the Founders Firelight Festival. You’re on the committee! You know I’m part of the Harrogate Girls Club, but we’re trying to concentrate our effort on town welcoming and beautification. So we spun off the festival committee. We have most of the festival planned. You just have to pull the trigger. But feel free to add some flair. The giant omelet festival is coming up next, and I know you love to cook, so that’s just the thing to get your feet wet. There are other young people on the committee!” she singsonged. “Meeting is tomorrow afternoon!”

I groaned and slumped on a bar stool.

There were a number of things I hated about small towns—the gossip, the fact that the stores all closed early—but most of all, I hated the festivals. Every weekend was an excuse to have a random festival. Then if you didn’t go to the festival—because honestly, why go to the bacon festival when you were just at the pork skin festival last weekend?—people acted as if you had skipped your great-grandfather’s funeral.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really need to brainstorm some ways for the restaurant to attract more business.”

“That’s why I booked a booth for us at every festival. It’s free publicity.”

“I think we need to branch out a little more,” I said weakly. “Like more catering gigs.” I looked hopefully at Elsie.

“We have a few weddings coming up. Once Avery has her Broughton Estate wedding venue up and running later this year, I anticipate more business that I’ll need your help on,” Elsie replied.

After looking at the accounts, I did not think Girl Meets Fig was going to hold on that long.

The laptop dinged.

“Speaking of.” Elsie pointed.

“A catering gig!” I exclaimed.

“See,” my grandmother said knowingly, “it all works out in the end.”

“And it’s a corporate gig,” Elsie said, opening the order form.

I skimmed it. Then I reached the company name. “Oh fuck no! I am not going to be catering a meeting for Weston Svensson.”

“You can’t cancel,” Gran admonished. “You’ll upset the universe.”

Apparently things were not going to work out after all.