Free Just Desserts by Barbara Bretton

an ex-husband who was down in Florida looking for trouble and probably finding it on a regular basis. She worked hard, took care of her kid, and maybe dreamed about winning the Pick-6 so she could upgrade her kitchen.
    Discovering she was the daughter of a multimillionaire rock star could be the best thing that ever happened to her. Tommy would wave his magic checkbook and wipe away her debt. He would see to it that her bakery had the newest and best of everything. Her daughter had talked about Cinderella moments and maybe it would be once the dust had settled.
    One thing he knew for sure: the truth was going to slam into the two of them like a runaway train, and no matter how much he wished he could soften the blow, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.
    Back in New Jersey
    Hayley pulled into the parking lot then looked over at her daughter. “Do you think we should do this?”
    â€œI think we should,” Lizzie said. “I think we earned it.”
    â€œIt’s a major splurge.”
    â€œI think we’d be seriously deranged if we didn’t do it.”
    â€œNo complaining at the end of the month when you balance the books.”
    â€œPromise.” Hayley could see her daughter’s wide smile even in the darkened car. “Besides, this time next week we’ll be rich and famous.”
    She didn’t want to dim Lizzie’s enthusiasm with a standard-issue lecture on counting unhatched chickens but she was a mother. She had to do what she had to do.
    â€œIt hasn’t happened yet,” she said as they followed the Olive Garden hostess to a tiny table next to a huge display of Tuscan wines. “A lot can go wrong between now and next week.”
    The hostess, who wasn’t all that much older than Lizzie, quickly distributed the menus, ran through her spiel of specials, then went back to her post in the lobby.
    Hayley had been running on autopilot since signing the contract with Finn Rafferty. Correction, she caught herself. Finn Rafferty negotiated the contract, but it was Tommy Stiles who had set the whole thing in motion and she still couldn’t figure out why. Rafferty had admitted there was more to this than cake and that admission still had her unnerved hours later.
    â€œI know what I want.” Lizzie turned her menu facedown on the table top.
    Hayley couldn’t help but laugh. “I know what you want too: salad with lots of red onion, no black olives, lasagna with extra sauce and grated cheese, and everything chocolate for dessert.”
    â€œI know what I like,” Lizzie said.
    â€œYou’ve known what you liked since you were six months old and decided it was time to stop nursing.”
    Lizzie’s cheeks flamed. “Do we have to talk about that in public?”
    She kept forgetting that they were sailing into dangerous waters these days, a place where every maternal utterance could stir up a tsunami of embarrassment and hurt feelings.
    â€œGrandma Jane used to talk about placentas at the playground,” Hayley said as she scanned her menu. “I’d be sitting in the sandbox, wishing I could dig my way to China and disappear.”
    â€œMom! Could we not?”
    â€œI’m just telling you that I understand.”
    â€œIf you understood, you wouldn’t talk about stuff like that.”
    â€œWhen you’re a scientist, you’ll be talking about things like that all the time.”
    â€œNot in Olive Garden,” Lizzie said, rolling her eyes. “There’s a big difference.”
    They ate their way through the salad bowl, then threw caution to the wind and asked for a refill.
    â€œIs this the life or what?” Hayley said as she reached for her glass of iced tea. “A bottomless salad bowl, all the breadsticks you can eat, and no dirty dishes to wash when it’s over.”
    â€œMaybe we can do this again next week after we deliver the cake to Atlantic City.”
    â€œI was