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simple pasta dish. If she was cooking all day and night for Garth’s Midnight Madness spread tomorrow night, she would have to cancel.
    â€œAnd I also have plans with Aaron, the man I’ve been seeing, and I really don’t want to cancel because a situation has arisen that I need to address with him, and, well, it’s personal and I don’t feel comfortable telling you—”
    â€œFifteen hundred.”
    Oh. My. God.
    â€œOkay, yes! I’ll do it! Just let me call my boss, Sal, and take a personal day and text Aaron to see if he’s okay with me postponing.”
    â€œGreat. We can shop together and I can tell you the kind of menu I’m thinking about, and then you can take the ingredients home and do all of the cooking in your own kitchen and bring it over to the warehouse tomorrow evening.”
    Hayley was bubbling over with excitement. Suddenly the idea of pocketing fifteen hundred dollars for just two days’ work infused her tired bones with a renewed energy.
    She knew Sal would be fine with her taking the day off. It was the week before Christmas and a slow time at the office. Plus she was ahead of schedule on all her office manager duties. Not to mention, Sal owed her for pulling off a memorable Christmas party. She could easily spend the rest of the day and night cooking and then punch in for half a day tomorrow before rushing home after work to heat up the food before Midnight Madness.
    Aaron was not going to be so easy.
    They still hadn’t discussed what went down in Lex Bansfield’s hospital room.
    She grabbed her cell phone and began typing a text: Aaron, I am so sorry.
    â€œHayley! I need you over here pronto to help me pick out apples to roast for the Christmas ham!” Garth hollered from across the produce section.
    Hayley kept typing as fast as she could: Have to cancel dinner tonight. Will call later to explain.
    â€œHayley!” Garth was red-faced and now screeching.
    He didn’t like to be kept waiting.
    Hayley hit send.
    She prayed Aaron would understand.
    And later she would give him fifteen hundred reasons why he should forgive her.
    Hell, forget cooking him dinner.
    She would treat him to a fancy meal at a five-star restaurant after this unexpected payday.

Chapter 10
    The following morning as Hayley sat at her desk, she was downing coffee and slapping herself a couple of times to keep from nodding off to sleep. She was up cooking for Garth until four in the morning and only had managed to get three hours of sleep before her alarm clock buzzed and she was forced out of bed to get ready for work. She was operating on fumes after slaving over a hot stove for the Christmas party and Midnight Madness. But finally there was a light at the end of the tunnel. All she had to do was deliver her food to Garth’s warehouse after work and then go home and collapse into a coma.
    It had been a particularly rough night and not just because she was chained to the kitchen whipping up dishes for Garth. She was feeling blue over a return text from Aaron acknowledging her canceling their dinner.
    Â 
    Okay.
    Simple.
    To the point.
    No fuss.
    No mess.
    Still, it bugged her. It would’ve been easier if he wrote back an angry message: how he was pissed that she promised to cook dinner for him and then wound up disappointing him; how this was not the end of it and they were going to sit down and discuss why she canceled at the last minute, and why Missy Anne Higgins saw her smooching Lex Bansfield in his hospital room.
    She desperately wanted a long, impassioned text from Aaron.
    She wanted him to be infuriated.
    Enraged.
    That would mean on some level he wasn’t giving up on her.
    But all she got was Okay.
    And that frightened her. Because she didn’t want to lose him.
    Hayley also had to deal with her drama queen daughter, Gemma, who was home rehearsing the role of the Virgin Mary for Reverend Staples’s Nativity pageant. Gemma made the mistake