Sugar Rush Read Online Free

shortly after that.
    It had been a time full of transition and change, but also one of promise and excitement. Lani’s best friend had been launching her career in earnest while Lani was grabbing the chance to learn at the hands of Europe’s best. For her dad, it had been retirement from the D.C. police force and taking on a very different challenge in Georgia ... and for her mom, who’d grown up in Savannah, it had been a chance to go back home again, to a place she’d always missed dearly.
    Lani and Char had kept in touch throughout that time, their friendship only deepening as their separate experiences widened their respective paths and boosted their dreams. When Lani had come back, Char was still in New York, having already worked her way up to executive pastry chef at the same hotel. Franco was on board by then as her right hand and had quickly become Lani’s other best friend. Lani had gotten an offer in the city, as a staff baker for a well-known restaurant in a five-star, Upper East Side hotel. The same hotel that had just brought on board the hottest import from the U.K. America was the new playground for the young and impetuous, and ridiculously charismatic Baxter Dunne.
    He’d risen quickly, and had taken Lani with him, plucking her from the ranks to make her his personal assistant and pro-tégé when he’d opened Gateau a miraculous eighteen months later. His had been a rare, meteoric rise in a very challenging and competitive industry. By the time he’d made his move to the television cooking world three years later, his immediate dominance hadn’t surprised anyone.
    Lani blinked away mental images of him, how he’d been then, how totally infatuated she’d been with his charisma and his talent almost from the moment she’d first set foot in that Upper East Side kitchen. Okay, the lust had started before then. She’d known a lot about him, more than most, having heard quite a bit during her time in Europe. He was three years younger than her, and light years ahead in every way measurable in their field. The baker in her wanted to be him when she grew up. And, the woman in her wanted to be with him as a grown-up. It had been harmless idolatry and fantasy.
    Then she’d gotten the opportunity of a lifetime.
    She’d been convinced the heavens and fates were sending her a direct message when she’d tried for, and gotten the job working under him.
    Under him.
    Lani made a face at that unfortunate double entendre and moved to a fresh rack of cupcakes, forcing her thoughts back to the job at hand.
    The pathetic irony was that she’d wished she had been under him. In every possible sense. Then everyone else had speculated, quite nastily, that the very same thing was actually happening. When it wasn’t. Lose-lose.
    The competition in any kitchen was fierce, but with a rising star like Baxter running the show, the battle to dominate his kitchen was downright apocalyptic, the chance to make a name and launch huge careers the spoils of winning the war. He was the epitome of the golden boy, from his looks to his demeanor, to his unparalleled talent. The speculation regarding their relationship was the hot topic of the day, every day. Fueled by jealousy, fear, and paranoia, the chatter was nasty and vicious. And not particularly quiet.
    In order to keep up with the chaotic pace and the insane demands, every kitchen had to work like a well-oiled machine, which meant teamwork in the most basic sense. It was a close, if not close-knit, environment, where you worked all but on top of each other. There was no place to go, no place to hide. And certainly no place to speak privately. Not that the gossips would have bothered to, anyway.
    Every chance they got, at least when Baxter didn’t have her working right by his side, they’d done everything they could to undermine her.
    As her esteem had risen in his eyes, and he’d given her more and more preferential treatment, the gossip had just gotten uglier and uglier.