Sweet on You Read online

  All’s fair in love and prank wars

  For barista and café owner Sari Tomas, Christmas means parols, family and no-holds-barred karaoke contests. This year, though, a new neighbor is throwing a wrench in all her best-laid plans. The baker next door—“some fancy boy from Manila”—might have cute buns, but when he tries to poach her customers with cheap coffee and cheaper tactics, the competition is officially on.

  And Baker Boy better be ready, because Sari never loses.

  Foodie extraordinaire Gabriel Capras wants to prove to his dad that his career choice doesn’t make him any less a man. The Laneways might not be Manila, but the close-knit community is the perfect spot to grow his bakery into a thriving business. He wasn’t expecting a gorgeous adversary in the barista next door, but flirting with her makes his heart race, and it’s not just the caffeine.

  It’s winner takes all this Christmas. And more than one competitor might just lose their heart for the holidays.

  Also available from Carla de Guzman

  If the Dress Fits

  The Queen’s Game (Cincamarre, Book 1)

  Stealing Luna (Cincamarre, Book 2)

  Chasing Mindy

  How She Likes It

  Alta: A High Society Romance Anthology

  Make My Wish Come True:

  A #romanceclass Christmas Anthology

  Watch out for Making a Scene,

  part of the #romanceclass Flair project,

  coming soon!

  SWEET ON YOU

  Carla de Guzman

  To the #romanceclass community always, forever.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from American Christmas by Adriana Herrera

  Chapter One

  December 1

  To Sari Tomas, finding the right café was like finding the perfect pair of jeans. She loved cafés that welcomed you inside like you walked into someone’s inspiration board come to life, except the coffee was much better, the desserts were delicious, and the music was excellent. If you were extra lucky, there would be food, and that food would be good too.

  After having spent her life in and out of cafés for studying, hanging out with friends, or just spending time with herself, Sari had always longed to open up a little place of her own. Somewhere she could always be useful and needed, somewhere that she could come to every day and work.

  Their grandmother had run Tomas Coffee Co. for thirty-five years. She had done it all by herself, but when Sari, Sam and Selene took over, they decided on a different approach. They agreed to split the business according to the things they were good at, and the things they wanted.

  Selene, the oldest, who loved the idea of running things and being in charge, ran the corporation from Manila. She got the condo in Makati City, with room for her sisters when they needed it, of course. Sam, the youngest, who was only twenty-three then, had no idea what she wanted to do, and was willing to do anything. So she went down to Los Baños to learn agriculture and farming, and took over the Tomas Farm, growing their famous robusta beans.

  And Sari, the middle child, who longed for a café of her own, learned the fine art of roasting coffee, creating signature blends for clients, got Café Cecilia. Named after their great, great grandmother who started the company, the café had been a side project that their grandmother put aside, until Sari picked up the lease from the Laneways and transformed it into her dream café.

  The hundred-square-meter shop was everything she had ever wanted. It had a light, airy ambience thanks to the old warehouse windows that overlooked the Laneways, a carefully crafted mix of eclectic and comfortable furniture after scouting trips to Tagaytay and Ermita, patterned Machuca floor tiles, a two-group espresso machine that gleamed in baby blue, and plants. A lot of plants that thrived in the sunlight that streamed in to the place, and made the café feel a little more welcoming. Sari wanted Café Cecilia to be the neighborhood place, much like the cafés she’d enjoyed in Manila and abroad.

  Every day, Sari would go to the café and spend time on the floor, even when really, the place could run itself by now. But she enjoyed it, and couldn’t bear to stay away for very long.

  And for the next three years, it was perfect. Sure, her food selection wasn’t the best, and her pastries were all pre-packaged from a factory, but it didn’t really matter to customers who were here for the coffee and the vibe.

  Until one day in November, when suddenly it mattered, very much. Sari was very calmly tasting a new coffee blend in her lab on the second floor when she was knocked off her feet by the dull, heavy sound of a hammer. A sharp sound of a drill had followed, then the acrid smell of welding, both coming from the then-empty shop next door.

  A bakery, Ate Nessie had told her conspiratorially. Some fancy boy from Manila is opening a bakery right next to you.

  Suddenly, the food in Café Cecilia was very important, and for the last month, Sari had felt like a headless chicken, running around and sourcing suppliers, only to be met by reasons like “we can’t deliver outside Manila,” “no way you can get it fresh every day,” or “can’t you just make it yourself?”

  Now it was the first of December, and based on surreptitious, totally not constant peeking over the manila paper-covered windows, and the feigned ignorance of the deliveries being made to the shop, Sunday Bakery was ready to open their doors to the world. And Sari was not ready.

  It was competition, after all, and if Sari couldn’t be the best, what was the point?

  “You’re obsessing,” her younger sister Sampaguita singsonged, her arms full of Christmas lights and ribbon as she caught Sari glaring at the bakery’s window. Sari was aware that everyone was getting tired of it, but she couldn’t help it. Every time she stood on the street outside the café and stared down at their doors, so close together they were practically one door, she just...didn’t like it. It made her stomach flip in a bad way, made a sour taste swirl around in her mouth. She couldn’t have that. Not when she made a living out of her own taste buds.

  “It’s Christmas, Ate. Lighten up.” She held up a length of twinkle lights and shook it at her older sister like it was all the Christmas magic she needed. Sari huffed and shook her head.

  “It’s been Christmas since September,” she pointed out. “And I wasn’t obsessing. I was...observing. Scouting the competition.”

  Sunday Bakery looked innocent enough from outside. The aesthetic was half lab, half London Underground, made of all white subway tile on the walls, patterned mosaic floors, neon letters and phone camera-friendly lighting. They had half the seating capacity of Café Cecilia, and not as many plants. Sari was also definitely not alwa
ys thinking about the fact that inside Sunday Bakery was a den of jewelled, sugary delights waiting for the innocent customer to try, test, taste. She’d smelled the butter on the pain au chocolat, seen the perfect frosting swirls on cupcakes, heard the snap of cookies. And while coffee was a jolt to the system, a great dessert was pure sin on a plate.

  Therefore, it was the enemy.

  Sari had no plans of interacting with Sunday Bakery next door. She’d seen the Mummy movies enough times to know that you couldn’t just take jewels all willy-nilly. But the pastries and their other sinful siblings continued to tempt her, tuning her senses to locate them before they came too close. She could smell a baked good from a mile away.

  “In short, you have an irrational dislike of the bakery next door, because you want to try his baked goods.” Her younger sister shrugged, tugging at a tangled string of lights.

  “Sam, don’t make it sound dirty.” Sari frowned, taking the mess of twinkle lights from her sister and carefully untangling it. “All this sugar and sweetness in the air is going to mess with my nose and my taste buds.”

  “I’m just saying. You’ve never liked change, or new things, and this bakery is a new thing.”

  “Can we please focus on what we’re supposed to be doing?” Sari sighed in frustration. “The Christmas decor is not going to put itself up.”

  Technically, Café Cecilia was already behind on their Christmas decor. The other stores on the Laneways—Kira’s chocolate shop, Meile’s flower shop, Kris’ cookies, had all put up their Christmas decor around the same time Sunday Bakery next door started construction. And even that was a little late, as the malls put theirs up in September. One could argue that Halloween wasn’t really a huge holiday in this country. There was little fun in dressing up for Halloween when the malls had already decked the halls with boughs of Christmas sales.

  But Sari was a stickler for tradition, and in the Tomas family, decor was put up exactly on the first of December. While for her parents, that had been a simple, “put up the decor,” to their house help, Sari took a more hands on approach, and naturally recruited her little sister to provide assistance. There were twinkle lights to string across her storefront, deep red poinsettia plants in pots to place in the window boxes, and candy cane coffee to serve. The most serious of café owners would have scoffed at Sari serving something so pedestrian, but she didn’t much care when it came to spreading the holiday cheer.

  Now if only she could feel just as charitable for her neighbor.

  “Parol coming through!”

  For the grand finale of the decorating, Sari rounded up her staff, an electrician, and her sister Sam to make sure the parol was perfectly placed. The parol was a thing of beauty, a five-foot, star-shaped lantern made from capiz shells that cast a soft yellow glow when lit. It was their grandmother’s, specially purchased in Pampanga as a gift from their grandfather. Making sure the parol hung in a place of prominence was one of the many traditions Sari took to heart. So they hung it by the window of Café Cecilia, year after year, guiding their guests into the café like a shimmering beacon.

  Kylo, Sam’s big black rescue who Sari believed was part horse, tilted his head to the side and barked, making Sari jump from her spot on the street where she’d been supervising.

  “Really?” she asked the dog, who seemed to not care that he’d nearly killed his part-owner and flopped to the ground at her feet. Sari rolled her eyes and got back to the task at hand, supervising the perfect parol placement. “A little to the right. Forward. A little more. No, that’s too much.”

  “How about this, ma’am?”

  “That’s perfect.” Sari nodded, bending down and absently scratching behind Kylo’s ears as she watched. “Sam?”

  “Yup!” Her sister called from inside.

  “Turn it on?”

  The parol lit up and the rest of her staff started to clap. Excited chatter filled the space, and people who were casually strolling the Laneways ended up stopping and watching too. Sari’s staff were happily taking photos, posing with the giant parol to post on their social media. Some of them approached Sari joking about Christmas bonuses and how excited they were for the Christmas party happening in a couple of weeks.

  “Relax, guys, it’s just a parol,” Sari laughed, but the sight of the bright star did make her heart feel fuzzy and grow three sizes. Memories of being a little girl looking up at this very same parol, clutching a little cup of tsokolate in her hands as her family sang Christmas carols by the tree filled her, and made her smile. They were old memories, ones that no longer rang true, but the joy she had was still there.

  “We good?” Sam asked, poking her head out of Café Cecilia’s door.

  “Yup. We’re good.” Sari nodded. She was just about to herd the entire group inside, they had plenty of time to pose with the parol later, when “Noche Buena” started to play from unseen speakers. She turned her head in the direction of the music, and two staff members in specially embroidered aprons bearing the Sunday Bakery logos stood outside their shiny, new shop, holding a tray of soft little pillows of mamon that smelled absolutely heavenly and impossibly caramelly for sponge cake.

  “Sunday Bakery’s soft opening! Please try our browned butter mamon!”

  “Oooh!” Sam actually exclaimed beside her sister, her eyes lighting up at the sight of free food. Even Kylo seemed to be sniffing his nose appreciatively in the direction of the baked goods. In her panic, Sari looped her arm around her sister’s, then her free fingers through her dog’s collar. She saw her staff starting to move in the direction of the bakery, and cleared her throat.

  “Okay, everyone inside! Coffee isn’t going to serve itself!” That got their attention. Ordinarily Sari wouldn’t have minded her staff stepping out for a second when there was free food out, or when a huge parol was being put up, but not from next door. “Come on, Kylo.”

  The dog seemed to grumble, but followed Sari inside anyway, after a couple of tugs on his collar.

  The rest of the staff were talking eagerly about Christmas plans, Secret Santa wishes, and possible dance numbers for the Christmas party. They had been like this since September rolled around, but Christmas was so close she could feel it in the air and taste it on her tongue.

  With one last little scowl at the bakery and their mamon, she strode in to Café Cecilia. Now this, this was an area she knew to be absolutely hers. She knew which plants were growing where, which of their dining chairs had a slight wobble, which table got the best light in the afternoon. Sari knew every song on the playlist, every blend they used, remembered how she came up with each one in the coffee lab upstairs.

  This café was home to her. Some days she felt it was the only home she would ever know.

  Sari immediately went back to work, wiping down the countertops, checking the temperature of the pastry case, making sure that the gleam of the robin’s egg blue coffee machine was pristine. As always, she had a peripheral view of Sam as she sat on her usual spot behind the counter. Even Kylo knew where he was supposed to be—at his corner of the café where he didn’t get in anyone’s way. Sari’s regulars started to come in for their mid-morning brews, and everything was as it should be.

  Except she could smell something in the air. A sweet, heavy scent, one that slid lazily across the space where it didn’t belong. Sari wrinkled her nose. She had the sudden image of fluffy pancakes being drenched in golden syrup, imagined a little blob of butter melting with the syrup on the pancake’s warm and fluffy surface. Her father knew how to make his pancakes extra fluffy and bouncy, and the memory of post-fight, post-drama family mornings with pancakes had no business being here.

  “What is that?” Sari asked nobody in particular.

  “It’s probably from next door,” Sam responded, not looking up from her phone.

  “Ugh. It’s making the café smell like pancake syrup.”

  “You’re exaggerati
ng.”

  “When have I ever exaggerated, Sampaguita?” Sari had spotted her sister moving behind the counter to raid the pastry case and handed her sister several napkins for whatever pastry she was about to get. Spillage was inevitable.

  “I have to admit, it’s not like you,” Sam agreed. “I’m taking a cookie.”

  “It’s that bakery next door,” Sari closed the pastry case after her. “They’re overpowering the neighborhood with sugar and gluten and sweetness.”

  “Eugh. This is awful.” Sam swallowed the bit of cookie she already ate and wrapped the rest in the napkin, gently nudging it forward into a space where Sari knew Sam could conveniently pretend it didn’t exist.

  Being the older, more mature sister, Sari decided to ignore the little dig at the pastry. Goodness knows she beat herself up about it more than her sister did. But she sniffed instead. Sari didn’t open her café to peddle pastries, she was here to dispense legally allowable stimulants in proper dosages, sometimes with milk and sugar. She was not supposed to feel bad because her pastries were...average.

  She was a coffee shop, and she was happy with being just that.

  But as a responsible business owner, she really should have known better. This was the Philippines, after all, where market consumerism was driven by trends and the Hottest New Thing that someone copied from someone else. The food industry was a dog eat hot dog world, and when competition came in, the ones left behind were the ones who closed up shop first.

  “Then stop stealing from me.” Sari rolled her eyes. “Do you want coffee?”

  “Always.”

  At least that, she could still do. Sari slipped a saucer underneath Sam’s discarded cookie and handed it to one of her staff to take to the back. When she came back, Sam had just finished rummaging through her gigantic canvas bag for a tumbler, which she held up to her sister with a cute smile that only bunso kids could manage.

  “Do I want to clean this before I put coffee in it?” Sari wrinkled her nose at the tumbler, which had definitely seen better days.