No Funny Business (The Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy)

No Funny Business


Talia Hunter


Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Also by Talia Hunter
About the Author


Chapter One


Natalie
Kade Lennox was back in San Dante.
Kade.
Freaking.
Lennox.
I was at the window of the café, about to wipe down one of the front tables, when I spotted Kade quite a way down the street. He was walking down the sidewalk with a grocery bag in each hand, coming from the direction of the organic store on the far corner.
He stopped next to a parked car and juggled one of his bags so he could open the trunk. His movements were smooth and effortless. As he put the bags in the trunk, they didn’t rip, and nothing dropped or smashed.
Me? I was dripping water from the wet rag I had in one hand, and the spray bottle I had in the other was slowly leaking over my fingers.
What on earth was Kade doing back in San Dante?
I’d last seen him nine years ago. He’d left my bed with broken springs, and my heart… well, I’d been able to buy a new mattress, but my heart had taken a lot longer to heal.
He was still every bit as gorgeous now as he was then, and I didn’t even have to squint to make sure of it, seeing as I was a sucker for punishment and had never missed an episode of his TV show.
Kade got into the car.
There was someone in the passenger seat. Someone with long, dark hair.
A woman.
She had her sun visor down so I couldn’t see her face, but Kade gave her a beaming smile.
He was dating here in San Dante?
Bringing my hand to my chest, I pressed it over my thumping heart. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten I was still holding the wet rag, and it left an uncomfortable wet mark on my Mack’s Place T-shirt.
Logically, I shouldn’t feel so dizzy or unsettled. After all, I’d been the one to break up with him.
But seeing him with another woman still felt like a Kade-tastrophe.
It was like being clobbered by a train. A real-life version of Murder on the Disorientated Express.
I knew Kade dated a lot, of course, the gossip magazines carried full-page spreads. But it was one thing to see him photographed with a gazillion different women, and another to actually have to see the Kade-inator in action.
He said something to the woman, then laughed. No doubt he’d made a flirtatious joke or complimented her. He had a knack for making people feel good, and I remembered all too well how incredible it had felt to be the focus of so much charm.
Kade’s smile could melt icebergs, and his tongue was made out of quicksilver. He’d made me feel special, like I was the only woman in the world. After all this time, I could still almost feel the pressure of his lips on mine, the way his kisses used to sweep me away.
As he started the car, I could only be grateful he hadn’t leaned over to kiss the woman he was with now, and made the disorientation train run back and forth over my heart a few more times.
He pulled a u-turn and drove away, and it was only when the car was finally out of sight that I noticed the group of customers about to come into the café's front door.
With weak legs, I staggered back to the front counter and stashed my cleaning equipment out of sight while the group came in, chatting with each other and looking at the menu board on the wall. They conferred for a while in a language I guessed was German, then one of them moved to the counter.
“Do you only have fried sandwiches?” he asked in accented English.
I nodded, giving him the brightest smile I could manage. “They come with fries.”
He scratched his head, glancing back at his companions and looking a little bewildered. “Our guide book said this is a café we must visit.“
“Absolutely.” I nodded to the framed photograph on the wall next to the counter. It was a black-and-white photo of the building Dad had converted into his café. It showed a single dusty road stretching away from it and a weary looking horse tied up outside. “The building’s historical. See? That picture was taken before San Dante was even a town.”
The man turned back to his friends and spoke in German with them for a while longer. I figured they were deciding whether to stay and eat or not, but eventually they made up their minds and placed their orders. They already looked disappointed by the limited choices we had available, and I hated that they were almost certain to be even more disappointed when their food arrived.
My current chef was the worst I’d ever hired, but it had proven impossible to find anyone good for the wages I could offer. It was a vicious cycle. Bad food brought in fewer customers, which meant less money to pay for a decent chef.
If I didn’t manage to sell the café soon, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.
“Please sit down,” I said to the German man and his friends. “Your orders will be ready soon.”
Lee, my twenty-year-old chef who’d been sent from the underworld to torment me, was frying bacon in the kitchen. I put the group’s food order on the counter and glanced into Lee’s frying pan with a grimace. The bacon rashers were drowning in oil so hot it was smoking.
“I need eight fried sandwiches,” I told him. “And don’t forget we’ll need to go over the menu options for tomorrow, seeing as we have that large group booked in. Let’s plan something special for them.”
Lee grumbled something that sounded like, “Chicks are bitches,” though it was hard to tell for sure, seeing as he didn’t bother to face me.
I didn’t respond immediately, but took a moment