Just Desserts Read Online Free

that had changed his life, and even though he’d been happy at the time, now he wondered if he’d made the right choice. If he should have pursued other options....
     
    Not that there was anything he could do about it now.
     
    Justin let himself in the back door of the kitchen, where the smell of tomato sauce instantly hit him. It was Sunday and his sister Eden, who moonlighted as a personal chef in addition to her duties with Tremont Catering, would thankfully be busy making a week’s worth of meals for her client families—one of which she’d cooked for since beginning the business and the other brand-new, replacing the family she’d lost after her fiancé discovered they were involved in the drug trade. A tough chapter in both Eden and Justin’s lives.
     
    His eye was still throbbing where Layla had decked him, and he couldn’t say he was in the best of moods after spending a nearly sleepless night at her house. Hell, he could have easily stretched out on the bed beside her and been comfortable, but knowing his luck she would have woken up and smacked him again.
     
    If only she’d had a sofa…which made him contemplate just what kind of person didn’t own a sofa. Well, Layla wasn’t your normal type.
     
    He stifled a yawn as he came into the main kitchen area after kicking off his street shoes and putting on his clogs. He didn’t spend as much time standing in front of a stove as his sisters, but still put in long hours on his feet, creating every flower known to man, and some that weren’t, out of butter cream and a piping bag.
     
    It was a living, and fortunately, since he spent so much time at it, one that he enjoyed.
     
    “You’re here early,” Eden muttered when she looked up from the stove. She blinked when she saw his eye, which had swollen up nicely, but asked no questions. That was a sad commentary on how many times she’d found him in a similar condition throughout their lives.
     
    “Fight in a parking lot,” Justin said. “And no, I wasn’t drunk.”
     
    “Well, you look like hell.”
     
    “I feel like hell.” He wandered over to the stove, breathing in the savory smell of his sister’s homemade tomato sauce.
     
    “Where’s the oregano?” he asked.
     
    “Going straight basil this time.”
     
    “You shouldn’t mess with perfection.” His sister used a perfect blend of oregano, thyme and basil in her sauces.
     
    “There’s always room for improvement.”
     
    Indeed. Justin never stopped trying to improve his technique.
     
    Eden started chopping olives again. “Where’d you have your fight?”
     
    “The lake. It was more of a scuffle, really. I caught an elbow.”
     
    “No arrests?”
     
    “Not that I know of. Then I drove Layla Taylor home and stayed with her for most of the night to make sure she was okay.”
     
    The rapid movement of Eden’s knife had abruptly stopped around the time Justin said Layla’s name.
     
    “Run that by me again,” his sister demanded.
     
    “All of it?”
     
    “No. Just the Layla Taylor part.” Eden set the knife down and brushed her blond hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “None of this makes sense.”
     
    “Sam Taylor called me at the lake and asked me to give Layla a ride. We had a minor altercation in the parking lot with her ex-boyfriend, then she puked and I took her home.” It wasn’t quite the right order, but Justin didn’t think the chronology mattered.
     
    “She puked because she was…”
     
    “Drunk as hell.”
     
    “Layla? Drunk?”
     
    “Mmm-hmm. And for once it wasn’t with power.” Justin went into his pastry room and took a look at the list he’d left himself the night before. He didn’t turn on the music because he knew it wouldn’t be long before—
     
    “I want details,” Eden said, leaning her shoulder against the door frame.
     
    “I wish I had some. I don’t.”
     
    “Wow.” She processed his words for a moment, then slowly turned and went back into the