He remembered his devil-may-care insolence and shrugged it on. ‘Sure.’
She made coffee and set a mug in front of him. Only when he’d helped himself to milk and two sugars did she seat herself opposite and add milk to her own mug. The perfect hostess. The perfect princess.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so used to everyone knowing my business that your question threw me for a moment.’
‘I’ve only been back in town for a fortnight.’ And he and she came from two different worlds, even if they had grown up in the same suburb.
Even amid all the disrepair and mess, she shone like some golden thing. Him? He just blended in.
‘I did hear,’ he ventured, ‘that your father had fallen on hard times.’
Her lips tightened. ‘And nearly took the livelihoods of over a hundred people with him in the process.’
Was she referring to the workers at the glass factory? It’d been in the Smythe-Whittaker family for three generations. Tash had told him how worried they’d been at the time that it’d go down the proverbial gurgler, that more unemployment would hit the area. But… ‘I heard a buyer came in at the last minute.’
‘Yes. No thanks to my father.’
‘The global financial crisis has hit a lot of people hard.’
‘That is true.’ He didn’t know why, but he loved the way she enunciated every syllable. ‘However, rather than face facts, my father held on for so long that the sale of the factory couldn’t cover all of his growing debts. I handed over the contents of my trust fund.’
Ouch.
‘But I’ve drawn the line at selling Whittaker House.’
Her grandmother had left it to Nell rather than her father? Interesting. ‘But you gave him your money?’
She rested both elbows on the table and stared down into her mug. ‘Not all of it. I’d already spent some of it setting up my own business. Though, to be perfectly frank with you, Rick, it never really felt like my money. Besides, as I was never the daughter my father wanted, it seemed the least I could do.’
‘But you’re still angry with him.’
She laughed then and he liked the way humour curved her lips in that deliciously enticing manner. Lips like that didn’t need lipstick. ‘I am. And as everyone else around here already knows the reason, I’ll even share it with you, tough guy.’
He leaned towards her, intrigued.
‘Besides the fact he had no right gambling with the factory workers’ livelihoods, his first solution was to marry me off to Jeremy Delaney.’
His jaw dropped. ‘Jeez, Nell, the Delaneys might be rolling in it, but it’s a not-so-secret secret that he’s…’ He trailed off, rolling his shoulders. Maybe Nell didn’t know.
‘Gay?’ She nodded. ‘I know. I don’t know why he refuses to be loud and proud about it. I suspect he’s still too overawed by his father.’
‘And you refused to marry him?’
‘Of course I did.’
He flashed back to the way she’d frogmarched the suit out of her office earlier and grinned. ‘Of course you did.’
‘So then my father demanded I sell this house.’
It wasn’t a house—it was a mansion. But he refrained from pointing that out. ‘And you refused to do that too?’
She lifted her chin. ‘As everyone knows, I gave him the deeds to my snazzy little inner city apartment. I handed over my sports car and I signed over what was left of my trust fund, but I am not selling this house.’ Her eyes flashed.
He held up his hands. ‘Fair enough. I’m not suggesting you should. But jeez, Nell, if you don’t have a cent left how are you going to afford its upkeep?’
The fire in her eyes died and her luscious lips drooped at the corners. And then he watched in amazement as she shook herself upright again. ‘Cupcakes,’ she said, her chin at just that angle.
‘Cupcakes?’ Had she gone mad?
In one fluid movement she rose, reached for a plate before pulling off a lid from a nearby tin. ‘Strawberries and Cream, Passion Fruit Delight, Lemon Sherbet, and Butterscotch Crunch.’ With each designation she pulled forth an amazing creation from the tin and set it onto the plate, and somehow the cluttered old kitchen was transformed into a…fairyland, a birthday party.
She set the plate in front of him with a flourish and all he could do was stare in amazement at four of the prettiest cupcakes he’d ever seen in his life.
‘I do cupcake towers as birthday or special event cakes in whatever flavour or iced in whatever colour the client wants. I provide cupcakes by the dozen for birthday parties, high teas, morning teas and office parties. I will even package up an individual cupcake in a fancy box with all the bells and whistles…or, at least, ribbons and glitter, if that’s what a client requests.’
He stared at the cakes on the plate in front of him and then at the mountain of dishes in the sink. ‘You made these? You?’
His surprise didn’t offend her. She just grinned a Cheshire cat grin. ‘I did.’
The Princess could bake?
She nodded at the cupcakes and handed him a bread and butter plate and a napkin. ‘Help yourself.’
Was she serious? Guys like him didn’t get offered mouth-watering treasures like these. Guys like him feigned indifference to anything covered in frosting or cream, as if a sweet tooth were a sign of a serious weakness.
He didn’t stop to think about it; he reached for the nearest cupcake, a confection of sticky pale yellow frosting with a triangle of sugared lemon stuck in at a jaunty angle and all pale golden goodness, and then halted. He offered the plate to her first.
She glanced at her watch and shook her head. ‘I’m only allowed to indulge after three p.m. and it’s only just gone two.’
‘That sounds like a stupid rule.’
‘You don’t understand. I find them addictive. For the sake of my hips and thighs and overall general health, I’ve had to put some limits to my indulging.’
He laughed and took a bite.
Moist cake, a surge of sweetness and the tang of lemon hit him in a rush. He closed his eyes and tried to stamp the memory onto his senses and everything inside him opened up to it. When he’d been in jail he’d occasionally tried to take himself away from the horror by imagining some sensory experience from the outside world. Small things like the rush of wind in his face as he skateboarded down a hill, the buoyancy of swimming in the ocean, the smell of wattle and eucalyptus in the national park. He’d have added the taste of the Princess’s cupcakes if he’d experienced them way back when.
He finished the cupcake and stared hungrily at the plate. Would she mind if he had another one?
