Free His Command: (Billionaire Bound: Part 1) A Dark New Adult Romance by Ella Slade Page A

apartment building to start heading down the street, walking as quickly as she could without breaking into a run. Even then, the other people on the sidewalk gave her sideways glances, and she tucked her head down self-consciously as she tugged at the hem of her frilly purple t-shirt. It was a new shirt, but after one wash it had already shrunk down enough that it stretched way too tight across her breasts, giving her way more cleavage than she knew what to do with. As if her black trousers didn’t do little enough to slim down her hips.
    It was almost twenty-five minutes before she finally saw her tiny bakery at the end of the street. She was already pretty much out of breath by this point, but she started to move even faster until, after a minute or so more, she could read the shop’s name— Bethany’s Brownie Bakery. She had just had the sign put up a few months ago, but as she got closer, she frowned to see that part of the shimmery gold paint on the cursive letters was starting to flake off. Well, it’d just have to stay that way for a while longer. She couldn’t afford to have it redone any time soon…
    She frowned even deeper when she saw that, despite the fact that the shop was supposed to have opened a good twenty minutes prior, no one was waiting out front. Bethany sighed; she usually had at least a few people waiting for her to open. Business had gotten a little better since she had put in that cappuccino maker…
    Doing her best to keep her breath even, she fished for her keys and unlocked the front door, glancing around inside. It was quiet, of course, and she turned to flip around the OPEN sign as she grabbed for the light switch. Her foot brushed a pile of mail that had been shoved through the slot in the door, and as the bell tingled when the door swung shut, she bent to pick it up.
    For the moment, though, she put the mail on the counter by the register and ignored it, dropping off her purse in the back and bending over the sink to rinse off a bit of sweat from the trek uphill. It certainly got warm in the springtime in San Francisco; it was never this warm this time of the year in Wyoming…
    Accomplishing that, she tied back her hair in a quick bun and moved to one of the refrigerators, pulling out a few plastic containers’ worth of premade sweets to be set out on display. She was glad she had done the sweeping and washed the dishes the night before, at least; not that she had planned to be so late today, but it would certainly set her back getting things baked. Hopefully that custom-order birthday cake would be done in time to be picked up at four…
    This part of her day, at least, was well-oiled, and it didn’t take Bethany long to finish setting up the display sweets, arrange the chairs around the couple of tables she had, and turn on the cappuccino machine. She had time to whip up a quick batch of fresh brownies and put them in the oven before the bell chimed for the first time, and she went to greet her first customer of the day—although she nearly blanched when she saw an elderly woman who looked to be in her nineties.
    “Good morning, ma’am, welcome to Bethany’s Brownie Bakery,” she greeted as cheerfully as she could manage, with a smile on her face as the woman peered at her from behind very thick glasses. “Is there anything I can help you find?”
    “Yes, do you sell caramel candies?” the woman asked instantly, and Beth’s heart sank just a little bit.
    “I do yes. They’re right over here. We have several different kinds—soft caramel, hard caramel, caramel crème…”
    “Just the hard caramel. Can’t have anything chewy with my dentures.”
    “Of course, help yourself.” She watched from behind the counter as the woman picked out five whole pieces of hard caramel candy. She shuffled her way to the cash register with a smile at the young baker.
    “How much for this?”
    “Two dollars and nineteen cents, ma’am,” Bethany told her, stifling a sigh of dismay. No,