My Bullies Trashed My Bakery Not Knowing My Secret Husband Owned Their Entire Family Empire
Part 1
I owned the most exclusive bakery in the city, but to the women who bought my pastries, I was just the fat girl behind the counter.
I was a size twenty-two.
My soft belly pressed against my linen aprons, and my round face was permanently flushed from the industrial ovens.
My croissants rivaled anything in Paris, but that didn’t matter to the venture capital heiresses who haunted my shop.
Every Tuesday morning, Heather and her best friend Brenda pushed through the heavy glass doors.
Heather was a size zero, perfectly manicured, and exceptionally cruel.
She loved to rake her eyes over my flour-dusted form, lingering intentionally on my heavy hips.
She would ask if I was doing quality control on the entire borough’s pastry supply.
I always kept my expression entirely neutral.
Growing up with a large body meant developing skin as thick as fondant.
I loved my soft curves.
I loved the way my body felt warm and comforting, but the relentless mocking chipped away at my armor.
What Heather and the rest of high society didn’t know was that I carried a massive, dangerous secret.
I was wearing a flawless, emerald-cut diamond ring on a chain beneath my chef’s coat.
My husband was Craig.
To the public, he was an elusive real estate magnate.
To the FBI, he was the ruthless head of the city’s most feared crime syndicate.
He controlled the underground casinos and the import-export docks with an iron fist.
He was a man made of sharp angles and tailored Italian suits.
Grown men stuttered in his terrifying presence.
And he was desperately, obsessively in love with me.
We were keeping our marriage completely private until he concluded a volatile merger with a rival family.
To the mean girls of the city, I was still just a punching bag.
They were about to push their luck entirely too far.
It happened on a busy Friday afternoon.
I was piping delicate buttercream roses onto a massive display cake when Heather invaded my shop.
She clapped her hands together, demanding my full attention.
She shoved her left hand forward to display a flashy, gaudy diamond ring.
She announced her engagement and demanded a custom, sugar-free cake for four hundred guests by Sunday.
I blinked at the impossible timeline.
I told her I was entirely booked and couldn’t possibly design a massive cake in two days.
Her eyes narrowed into cold, vicious slits.
She told me I should welcome the extra cash to afford a gastric bypass surgery.
The entire bakery went dead silent.
Regular customers stopped talking and turned to watch the unfolding scene.
I felt a hot wave of humiliation rush to my cheeks.
I kept my voice completely steady and firmly asked her to leave.
Brenda chimed in, calling me an arrogant fat cow.
She bragged that Heather’s fiancé was a powerful, dangerous man who ran development projects in Queens.
Right on cue, the glass door swung open.
A man walked in wearing a flashy suit and an arrogant swagger.
I recognized Tyler instantly.
I had seen his face in a dossier of my husband’s lower-level foot soldiers.
He was a small-time enforcer who played the part of a big-shot gangster to impress trust fund girls like Heather.
He sneered and walked right up to the pastry counter.
He dropped his voice into a faux-threatening whisper.
He told me I was going to bake the cake for half price, or my little sugar shop would have a very bad accident with a grease fire.
My heart hammered against my ribs, but I wasn’t scared of him.
I knew exactly who he was, and I knew exactly who I was.
I looked him dead in the eye and said no.
His face twisted in raw, unhinged rage.
He reached across the marble counter and shoved my massive, three-tiered display cake.
It tumbled off the edge and crashed onto the immaculate tile floor in a sickening splat of ruined icing.
Heather and Brenda erupted into malicious, echoing laughter.
Tyler smirked and told me I had some cleaning up to do.
Before he could finish his sentence, the atmosphere in the bakery instantly froze.
Three massive, black-suited men stepped through the front door.
They silently locked the deadbolt and flipped the open sign to closed.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the exit with their hands resting ominously inside their suit jackets.
Heather’s laughter died in her throat.
Tyler’s arrogant smirk completely faltered.
The crowd of terrified customers parted like the red sea.
Craig walked in.
He wore a bespoke charcoal suit, his dark eyes ablaze with a terrifying, lethal fury.
He exuded an aura of absolute power and imminent violence.
Tyler’s face drained of all color as his knees visibly buckled.
He stammered out a pathetic greeting, calling him boss.
Craig didn’t even look at the terrified foot soldier.
His eyes were fixed solely on me.
He took in my flushed face and the ruined masterpiece of a cake on the floor.
A dangerous muscle ticked in his jaw.
Walking slowly past the trembling socialites, his expensive leather shoes crunched over the ruined fondant.
Stepping around the counter to invade my space, he raised his hands and gently cupped my soft, round cheeks.
Leaning down, he kissed my forehead with a reverence that bordered on absolute worship.
Finally, he turned to face the room while keeping one arm securely and possessively wrapped around my thick waist.
His dark, murderous gaze finally locked onto Tyler.
“Care to explain to me,” Craig murmured, his grip tightening protectively on my waist, “why you are threatening my wife.”
