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Sugar Sisters

作者: Bonnie Jay
last update 最終更新日: 2025-08-10 04:39:53

By the time I got back to the bakery, the weight of the entire day had settled in my shoulders like wet sand. I didn’t remember walking the last two blocks from the train station. Didn’t remember crossing at the lights. My body moved on autopilot, but my brain hadn’t caught up.

Damian Sterling’s words still clung to the walls of my skull. “Move in with me.” Like he was offering to board a stray.

I didn’t know what was worse. The proposition itself, or the fact that, for a split second I’d considered it.

The bell above the bakery door jingled as I stepped inside, the sound warm and familiar.

It smelled like cinnamon and melted chocolate. Like sugar-crusted nostalgia and early mornings. Like mine.

This space...this crooked little building with its paint-chipped windows and scuffed wood counters...was the only place that ever felt like it belonged to me.

And tonight, I needed it more than air.

“Wow,” came Rosa’s voice from behind the display case. “You look like a mood that filed for ban
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  • The Baby Clause   Playing House

    The ceiling was unfamiliar.Smooth. Ivory. Too perfect.No cracks. No flickering water stains or angry ceiling fans groaning with age. Just silence; still and expensive, like even the air had been ironed.I blinked against the softness of the sheets, the crisp linen that smelled like it had never been used. My hand slipped against satin-trimmed covers. There was no dent beside me. No warmth. No sounds from the street.Not home.Not even close.The guest room was larger than my entire loft. Pale greys, soft creams, warm wood furniture arranged with surgical precision. Not a single scuff or sign of life. Not even a misplaced throw pillow.A hotel, I thought. A luxury suite designed to look lived-in, but the soul never caught up.My fingers curled under the blanket.I should’ve been relieved. Safe, even. No leaky faucets. No flickering lights. No counting pennies to buy prenatal vitamins.But the truth settled into my chest like lead.This wasn’t mine.And no matter how soft the sheets w

  • The Baby Clause   A Conditional Yes

    Damian's POVThe whiskey burned where it hadn’t even touched my lips.It mocked me from the edge of the desk, gold and cruel in the glass, catching the overhead light like it had something important to say. Something final. I ignored it. Just like I ignored the time blinking past midnight, the ache building between my eyes, and the pressure stacking behind the pixelated faces staring back at me through the screen.“Damian.” My mother’s voice, crisp as cut crystal, sliced through the static. “You can’t keep stalling. This alliance was your idea.”I leaned back slowly in my chair, stretching the tension out of my spine like it would help. It didn’t.Richard Belcourt adjusted his tie and didn’t bother pretending to be patient. “If we miss the quarter-end cycle, we lose control of the narrative. Sabrina starts looking like she’s chasing you. Investors panic. Shareholders start asking questions. Questions we don’t want to answer.”“Optics, Damian,” my mother said, tone flatter than her smi

  • The Baby Clause   When Pride Fails

    The nights stretched longer now.Or maybe it just felt that way, like time was molasses and I was the one sinking in it.Sleep didn’t come easily, not even when exhaustion tied itself around my limbs like lead. When it did come, it came with dreams that weren’t dreams at all. Just flickers. Smoke. Heat. Screams muffled behind glass. A door that wouldn’t open. Me...holding a cupcake tray and watching the oven catch fire.I woke up with sweat in my hair and a scream stuck in my throat.Always silent.Always too late.And in the stillness that followed, I’d reach instinctively for my phone.Not to call anyone.Just to… hold it.Scroll.Flick past useless emails. News alerts. Denials from grants and aid programs that read like corporate apologies. Until my finger hovered over one contact.Damian Sterling.I never saved it under his name. Just a blank line. No label. No emoji. Not even an initial.But I knew it. Knew the number like I knew the address of the bakery. Like I knew the face of

  • The Baby Clause   Smoke Without Fire

    The second I stepped back into Rosa’s apartment, I realized just how small everything felt.The couch was still there. Still lumpy. Still pressed against that same crooked bookshelf that smelled like cinnamon and old wood glue. The throw blanket lay folded neatly at the edge, like it had been waiting for me.And Rosa was standing in the kitchen, one socked foot tapping nervously on the tile as the microwave beeped behind her.She turned the second the door clicked shut.“Jesus, B,” she whispered, eyes scanning me like I was a wounded animal. “Are you okay? Where the hell did you go? You scared the absolute shit out of me.”I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then shrugged out of the blazer Damian had wrapped around my shoulders.“I fainted.”“You what?”“Collapsed,” I corrected. “In his office.”Her eyes went wide. “He...Damian Sterling? You fainted in his...holy shit, are you okay?”“I’m fine,” I muttered, which was the biggest lie I’d told all day and that was saying something.She rushed

  • The Baby Clause   Recovery Room

    Damian's POVShe collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut.No warning. No cry for help. One moment, she was arguing. eyes blazing, voice like fury dipped in grief...and the next, she crumpled.I moved before thought caught up. Caught her mid-fall, arms locking around her just before her head hit the marble.“Brielle.”No response.Her skin was clammy. Pulse fluttering like a trapped bird. Her breath, shallow.Not fainting. Not exhaustion. Something deeper.I lifted her easily, cradling her close like something fragile and priceless. She didn’t stir.And just like that, all the restraint I’d carefully stacked between us, every line I’d drawn, every wall I’d built to keep myself from reaching for what I had no right to want, shattered.I didn’t think. I just acted.I bypassed the company medical wing entirely. My private car was waiting in the underground bay. Within seconds, I was in the backseat with her head against my shoulder, barking orders into my phone.“Get Dr. Em

  • The Baby Clause   The Paperwork Trap

    There’s nothing like wearing your only decent outfit to remind you how broke you are.The black slacks were too tight around the waist now. Pregnancy bloat. Or stress. Probably both. The white blouse had a faint coffee stain near the hem, but I tucked it in and pretended it was part of the design. The charcoal gray blazer I bought on clearance at a thrift store two years ago still held its shape. Barely.I’d added a coat of mascara. Concealer under the eyes. Lip balm. Not lipstick. Lipstick felt like a lie I couldn’t keep up.Standing in front of the mirrored elevator doors at SterlingTech, I looked like a woman in control. Sharp. Capable. Almost put together.Almost.But inside?Inside I was cracked open and leaking everything I’d tried to bury since the fire.The building was all glass and steel and soft-footed silence. Receptionists with teeth-whitened smiles and headsets that looked surgically attached. The air smelled like lemon-polished ambition and filtered money.I gave my nam

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