Craving Perfect Read online

  Craving Perfect

  By Liz Fichera

  A Life Less…Hers

  Grace Mills craves being perfect almost as much as she craves raspberry scones. In fact, her life would be perfect if only she could lose ten more pounds, if only the pastry café she co-owns with her sister would turn a profit, if only the hottest guy at the gym would look her way…

  And then “if only” comes true. Grace is suddenly straddling two lives: an alternate reality where she’s a size two, weathergirl celebrity and being chased by the hot guy. Only Mr. Gorgeous isn’t very nice, and she doesn’t get to eat…anything, much less bake!

  In her other life, she’s starting to realize her sister is less than happy running the family café, and hunky Carlos, the gym’s janitor, seems to have a secret crush on her. Maybe there’s more to him than meets the eye…

  Grace is living two lives and it’s beginning to cost her. Is there a way to pick one…that’s perfect?

  76,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I feel as though it was just last week I was attending 2010 conferences and telling authors and readers who were wondering what was next for Carina Press, “we’ve only been publishing books for four months, give us time” and now, here it is, a year later. Carina Press has been bringing you quality romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy and more for over twelve months. This just boggles my mind.

  But though we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary (with champagne and chocolate, of course) we’re not slowing down. Every week brings something new for us, and we continue to look for ways to grow, expand and improve. This summer, we’ll continue to bring you new genres, new authors and new niches—and we plan to publish the unexpected for years to come.

  So whether you’re reading this in the middle of a summer heat wave, looking to escape from the hot summer nights and sultry afternoons, or whether you’re reading this in the dead of winter, searching for a respite from the cold, months after I’ve written it, you can be assured that our promise to take you on new adventures, bring you great stories and discover new talent remains the same.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication:

  For my mother, who always loved my stories, even the truly bad ones.

  Acknowledgements:

  I’d like to thank the hard-working, cool people at Carina Press for believing in me, especially Liz Bass, who helped my novels to shine and always got my jokes.

  Between the wish and the thing, life is waiting.

  —Unknown

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One: Grace

  Chapter Two: Carlos

  Chapter Three: Grace

  Chapter Four: Carlos

  Chapter Five: Grace

  Chapter Six: Callie

  Chapter Seven: Grace

  Chapter Eight: Carlos

  Chapter Nine: Grace

  Chapter Ten: Carlos

  Chapter Eleven: Grace

  Chapter Twelve: Carlos

  Chapter Thirteen: Grace

  Chapter Fourteen: Carlos

  Chapter Fifteen: Grace

  Chapter Sixteen: Carlos

  Chapter Seventeen: Grace

  Chapter Eighteen: Callie

  Chapter Nineteen: Carlos

  Chapter Twenty: Callie

  Chapter Twenty-One: Carlos

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Callie

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Carlos

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Callie

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Carlos

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Callie

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Carlos

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Callie

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Grace

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  From The Scones & Sopapillas Café Cookbook:

  Chapter One

  Grace

  “Grace, can you hear me?”

  They say your life is supposed to flash before your eyes right before you die.

  But what about when you’re spread-eagle at the bottom of a stair-climber at your local gym, wearing an oversized T-shirt and spandex shorts that were designed for women lucky enough to wear single-digit dress sizes? What then? What should flash before your eyes when you’re dying of embarrassment?

  Four faces knelt over me.

  Somehow death seemed less painful.

  “Grace, please! Say something!”

  Just my luck, only two of the faces showed genuine concern: Kathryn, my older sister, and Kathryn’s boyfriend, Eddie Cahill. Kathryn kept stroking my cheek and urging me to speak while Eddie adjusted a towel behind my sweaty head. The third face, the one that belonged to the bleach-blonde, overly Botoxed, ridiculously thin Alexandra Summers, was only concerned that my round torso blocked her ability to use the stair-climber. In Alexandra’s defense, there were only three of these sadistic contraptions in Goldie’s Gym, and they were popular at six o’clock in the morning.

  But only the stunned expression on the fourth face mattered. It was my reason for living. It was the reason I dragged my tired body to the gym each morning before work, and the reason why I’d sworn off onion rings and lattes with whipped cream and starved myself to lose ten whole pounds.

  The fourth face belonged to Max Kramer.

  His face melted me. Even the hint of his smile made my knees wobble.

  Max was also the reason why I had tumbled off the damn machine.

  I’d been fantasizing about him as I did every morning whenever I watched him bench-press 250 pounds. Each glorious purple vein and arm muscle bulged magnificently with every lift, and I wondered what it would be like to squeeze his biceps or brush my fingertips across his sculpted chest. His sleeveless, black T-shirts were always the perfect combination of too snug and dreamy. And don’t get me started on what I believed existed beneath his shorts. I drank him in each morning, top to glorious bottom. Max Kramer was the best-looking thirtysomething I’d ever seen. Unfortunately, I was a twentysomething with absolutely no nerve and another ten pounds to lose.

  Well, better make that fifteen, to be safe.

  I even adored Max’s faint Philadelphia accent, not that he’d used it much on me, although one morning he did say “excuse me” over my head when he accidentally elbowed my ear as we both reached for a clean towel at the front desk. That single moment lifted me for a whole week. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, analyzing it, replaying it in my mind and remembering how the sunlight from the front glass doors had spilled across his golden head like caramel sauce. For one, glorious moment, he’d been all mine. It didn’t matter that he’d snatched the last towel and I had to wait ten minutes at the front counter for the next clean batch.

  I played this little game with myself each morning, a game I knew I’d win most of the time. If I spotted Max at the gym, I’d reward myself with one of the raspberry scones I made at the Desert Java, a small café in Tempe near the university I owned with Kathryn. And if Max didn’t show for his morning workout, I’d force myself to run an extra fifteen minutes on the treadmill. Truth be told, I would much rather enjoy Max and a raspberry scone, in that order. Stat.

  Now that I’d fallen off the stair-climber, Max looked at me like someone studying a beached whale. That was why I’d have given anything to curl up and die and pretend my fall didn’t just happen in front of his size twelve Nikes.
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  Unfortunately, you don’t always get what you want when you’re me.

  “Gracie, are you okay?” Kathryn brushed a cool hand against my cheek. A whiff of lavender perfume lingered on her wrist. “Jeez, Grace. Say something!” She started to pat my hand like a nurse, even though she knew nothing about first aid. Kathryn could barely apply a Band-Aid, and if my head hadn’t throbbed as though it was inside a blender, I might have smiled. Kathryn could be such a drama queen.

  “Should we call 9-1-1?” Eddie’s gaze darted between Kathryn and me.

  “Do you think we could move her a little to the right?” Alexandra asked as she glanced at the black sports watch wrapped around her professionally tanned wrist. She tapped the watch with one of those perfect white-tipped fingernails that I always wanted but was too cheap to get. It didn’t make sense to get a manicure when your hands were rolling cookie dough every day. Alexandra’s voice whined, “I’ve got to be at work in an hour.”

  I cringed inside.

  If I were only a few inches to the right, Alexandra would probably have crawled over my stomach and cranked up the machine, undoubtedly to the fastest speed, given her long and lean legs.

  I finally blinked and tried to raise my head.

  “Oh, thank God.” Kathryn’s breath hitched. “Grace, are you okay? Please say you’re okay.”

  A fifth face knelt over me, a face I vaguely recognized. His skin and hair were darker than the others, but his face was mostly a blur.

  “Here, take this.” His voice was soothing, like melted chocolate. My head rested against something hard. His knee? He tipped a water bottle against the edge of my lower lip. A few drops dribbled out.

  I blinked again and tried to focus on his face, but it didn’t help that the back of my head felt like it’d been filleted. “Thanks.” My voice was raspy, in an unintentionally sexy sort of way. A few more water drops found my lips, helping me focus. The second time I blinked, I was able to raise my head and then my shoulders. The numbness in my arms and legs began to fade.

  I was alive, unfortunately. Today wasn’t my day to die. No dear departed relatives would welcome me into a white light.

  It was just another day to be humiliated. Typical.

  “Want to try standing?” Kathryn grimaced.

  I nodded as Kathryn and Eddie each grabbed a sweaty arm and lifted me to my feet. As I stood, my knees wobbled. I almost fell backwards again, but a third pair of hands reached for my shoulders just in time. They felt cool and solid through my threadbare T-shirt and I wondered if—no, I prayed—the hands belonged to Max. This would make the whole embarrassing moment worthwhile. It might be the only time in my entire life that Max Kramer would intentionally touch me.

  “I think I’ll be okay,” I whispered to Kathryn as I reached behind my head, wincing, and rubbed a bump the size of a hard-boiled egg. “I just want to go home.” I darted a sideways glance at Kathryn. My bottom lip quivered before I had a chance to bite it. I couldn’t let myself blubber at the gym, especially in front of Max. I absolutely would not cry like a child.

  I had survived enough embarrassment for one morning, and Kathryn knew me better than anyone.

  Kathryn tilted her head and sighed, a relieved smile lifting the corners of her rosebud-shaped mouth, revealing an adorable Shirley Temple dimple. Of the two of us, Kathryn had always been the prettier sister. She had the long legs, the thin graceful arms, the beautifully thick, blond hair, the outgoing personality, the adoring boyfriend. In short, she was the polar opposite of me. Bookends? Hardly. If she weren’t the best sister ever, I would have found a reason to hate her.

  “You got it, Gracie.” Kathryn flashed a relieved smile. “Let’s go home.” In my periphery, she glanced across my shoulders at Eddie and nodded her head.

  Together, they helped lead me to the door. Kathryn knew that if she asked me how I felt one more time, I’d burst into tears on the spot.

  And she couldn’t let that happen. I’d kill her first.

  That was because Kathryn knew all about Max.

  Chapter Two

  Carlos

  “Shit, did you see that chubby chick crash to the floor this morning?” Max asked his weight-lifting partner, Devon Frye, as they changed clothes inside the locker room after their workouts.

  My body froze. Listening, I approached from behind a set of metal lockers. I caught their reflections in the wall mirror.

  “Are you kidding? I think I felt the ground shake.” Devon chuckled. “She really hit it hard.” He ran a towel over his bald black head, flicking a water spray across the mirror that I’d just cleaned. “Wham!” He laughed, pounding the wooden bench between the lockers with his hand. “Who is she, anyway?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Max said as he reached inside his gym bag. He pulled out a tube of deodorant.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”

  “Oh, I have.” Max paused long enough to roll his eyes at Devon. “I’ve seen her in the mirrors in the weight room. She’s always staring at me. Hard-core psycho chick.” He made a circle with his forefinger next to his ear. “Potential bunny boiler.”

  “Too bad she’s not your type.” Devon grinned, arching an eyebrow. “Plus-sized. That could be fun.”

  “No fucking way.” He made a face like he just bit into a lime. “You first.”

  “Me?” Devon pointed to his bare chest in mock surprise. “I’ll stick with da sistas.”

  “Hey, you got an extra towel?” Max glanced toward the doorway.

  “No, sorry dude.”

  “Where’s José when you need him?” Max padded toward the showers. His bare feet slapped against the wet floor. “Shit!” His voice echoed in the tiled room. “I’m gonna be late for work.”

  “That his name?” Devon called after him.

  Max stopped and turned. “Who?”

  “José?”

  “I don’t know.” Max smirked. “Does it matter?”

  My fists clenched as I listened to their voices echo. Like most of the members, Max and Devon didn’t know I was around. They only found me when they needed something—towels, water bottles, someone to clean a plugged toilet. Then they tried to talk to me in broken Spanish, even though I spoke perfect English. No one ever remembered my name either, mostly because they never asked. And I never offered.

  I was the janitor at Goldie’s Gym. My younger sister Elena and I have managed the gym’s cleaning contract for three painfully long years, although we didn’t waste time complaining. No time. And it would do until we could get started on the rest of our lives. Being janitors forever wasn’t part our long-term plan. I refused to watch Elena grow old hovering over other people’s piles of dirty towels and toilets like our mother did. Like me, Elena had big dreams. Hers was to open a restaurant, and after I graduated from law school next year, I’d make certain that dream got a serious kick-start. Some days dreams were the only thing that kept me going.

  If only Mamá were still alive. She was always able to lift our spirits right before they threatened to nose-dive, even with just her smile. Pop—well, he hadn’t been the same since she died.

  Max saw me. “Hey, José.” He didn’t try very hard to mask the irritation behind his grin. “Clean towels, por favor?”

  I turned, slightly. I couldn’t smile at him. I was just as tall and strong, probably stronger. And right now I wanted to wipe the annoyed grin off Max’s pretty face with my fist. I’d love to go a few rounds with him in a ring. See if he could fight like a real man, not a pretty boy who could only lift weights in front of a mirror and make fun of girls who fell off stair-climbers.

  “Hey, toalla, dude,” Max said impatiently, shifting from one foot to the other on the cold tile.

  I felt my jaw harden.

  “Toalla?” Max repeated. Then his expression changed. “Hey, what is your problem?”

  Without a word, I hurled a towel at his chest from the cleaning cart as if it was a baseball.

  Big-mouthed, smart asses lik
e Kramer got on my nerves. They think everyone should be grateful just because they share the same air. I especially wanted to kick his ass for how he talked about the girl. She could have broken her neck when she fell. If only I’d reached her in time. She might not have hit the floor so hard.

  I’d seen her before at the gym. There was something sweet about her face that made the room freeze all around her, like a camera flash, whenever I looked out across the aerobic room and saw her. Worst of all, I couldn’t figure out why she stared so much at Max Kramer. They obviously weren’t friends. What did a nice girl like her see in an asshole like that? Part of me wished she’d look at me with the same turquoise eyes that she wasted on Kramer.

  Whenever she got close, like when we passed near the front of the gym, for some reason my heart beat faster and my palms always turned clammy. It was embarrassing. But then I’d remind myself not to get too attached, that I didn’t have time to get involved with anyone, not with graduation finally within my reach, and especially not with someone who for some strange reason thought that Max Kramer was someone special.

  But then she had to go and fall today, leaving me no choice but to help her. To touch her.

  “Gracias, amigo,” Max said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm when he caught the towel.

  I blinked.

  Without waiting for my response, Max turned back toward Devon. For such a tough guy, he seemed eager to get away.

  “I’m not your amigo, asshole,” I muttered as I pushed my cart back toward the shower stalls. It was seven o’clock.