Hart,’ she began.
A finger touched her lips briefly, silencing her. She trembled at the contact.
It had been a long month since they had last communicated, since she had last felt the bliss of his skin touching her lips or touching her anywhere. A long, long month.
‘Don’t speak yet, Ms McLaughlin,’ he warned.
She was obedient and said nothing.
She basked in the gruff growl of his Northern brogue.
‘We’ve both been in the wrong here.’ His broad Yorkshire accent made the words come out as wev barth bin in t’wrong ’ere. Trudy had missed hearing his impenetrable voice over the past month. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears of relief that now threatened to flood from her.
‘I can see now that I was wrong for being so resolute about your involvement with Sweet Temptation,’ he admitted.
The situation had been messy. He had issued an ultimatum. She could either work with him at his restaurant, Boui-Boui, or she could try to pursue a career in online catering with her friends in their start-up business, Sweet Temptation. Bill had vowed they would have no relationship if she attempted to do both.
‘I was in the wrong,’ she insisted. ‘I should have told you that Donny was no longer involved with Sweet Temptation. I should have made that clear.’
‘We’ve both been in the wrong,’ he repeated. Wev barth bin in t’wrong.
She sniffed back a tear when she realised how much she had missed hearing his voice. It took an effort of will not to reach out for him, hug him and hold him and promise that they would never be parted again.
‘I think there’s a way for us to make amends,’ Bill confided.
He flicked a switch. Trudy was momentarily blinded by the excess of light. Blinking, her eyes became used to the brightness and she saw he looked as handsome as she remembered. There was a familiar steel-grey shadow bristling his lantern jaw. He looked comfortable yet smart in the sports jacket he wore over his T-shirt. His diamond-blue eyes sparkled as he smiled down at her.
In his hands he held a large wooden spoon.
‘There’s a way for us to make amends,’ he repeated. ‘I think one of us needs to be punished.’
She beamed.
The familiar thrill of arousal and excitement was already fluttering slickly through her sex. Her heartbeat quickened as she understood what he was suggesting. She stood up, turned around and bent over the table. Her backside was pushed out, ready for him. She glanced over her shoulder and stared meaningfully at the wooden spoon in his hand.
‘Punishment?’ she murmured coyly. ‘Yes, please, Mr Hart.’
She could see another woman in Bill’s arms. No. Not just one other woman. There were six of them. She clenched her teeth and pretended to smile.
Trudy had not been happy to see six near-naked women in Boui-Boui. They all had slender waists, long long legs and far too much bare flesh for Sunday afternoon in a Michelin-starred restaurant. It was a display of thongs, bellybuttons and nipples that should never have been visible in public. Trudy wrinkled her nose as she watched Bill trying to accommodate all six of them in his embrace. With three on either side, blonde-brunette-blonde to his left, blonde-redhead-blonde to his right, his grin was broad, tooth-filled and transparently false.
Her muted mobile buzzed. The display screen said she’d received a text message.
She ignored it. She was in no mood to communicate with anyone while she endured this torment. She couldn’t even concentrate on the half-consumed coffee and pumpkin-pie-spice muffin in front of her. And the muffin was a quandary that had been puzzling her for the best part of a month.
Something wasn’t quite right with the flavour and she was determined to work out what was missing. It didn’t taste unpleasant. The sharp tang of the coffee and the blend of bittersweet spices seemed to be working effectively. Some of those who had tested the muffins – friends, kitchen staff and colleagues – said it was the best thing she had yet produced in the kitchen.
But it wasn’t quite the flavour Trudy wanted. The taste lacked the indefinable quality that would change it from enjoyable to an eating experience beyond incredible.
Her brow creased as she brooded on the problem.
She’d used her own pumpkin-pie spice: an even blend of ginger, allspice, nutmeg and cloves, combined with a subtle dash of fresh crushed cinnamon. She’d spent time blending the ingredients to an ultra-fine powder, ages grinding the cloves with a pestle and mortar. She’d worked on the cloves until her bicep throbbed from the effort. But she hadn’t begrudged a single moment of the hard work involved. Making her own pumpkin-pie spice was one of her favourite chores in the kitchen.
The results were like alchemy.
Aside from the task being so arduous that it made her feel like she’d enjoyed a good workout, the medicinal tang of the cloves provided a rich and intense scent that always filled the room. That fragrance alone would have been harsh but it was softened and sweetened by the rest of the aromatic ingredients. It was a labour of love, made easy by the fact that the bouquet of the pumpkin-pie spice was so easy to love.
But the muffins still weren’t quite right. Something was missing. Something extra was needed. Or something additional needed taking away. She didn’t know which. She just knew the flavour wasn’t quite right.
She stopped herself glaring at the muffin. Glaring at pastries seldom helped. It would be more productive, she knew, if she paid attention to the people around her in Boui-Boui, but that could be dangerous.
She glanced up from the muffin in time to see Bill squeeze three of the near-naked women more tightly into his embrace.
Trudy’s glare turned into a glower.
She supposed models were meant to be constantly smiling for the camera, but she thought these six women looked like they were enjoying their work a little too much. Their smiles were eager. The brunette kept grinning at Bill as though she shared a secret with him. One of the blondes, the one with a yin-yang tattoo on her shoulder blade, kept touching him on the backside.
‘For God’s sake, stop grinning, Billy.’
The call came from Harvey, Bill’s agent. He was sharing table thirteen with Trudy and her friends Charlotte and Daryl. Harvey was a handsome man of a similar age to his client, with a loud voice, a brash sense of humour and a shrewd eye for opportunity. He had become a regular visitor at Boui-Boui over the past few months and Trudy was beginning to understand why he was one of Bill’s oldest and closest friends.
He had a cheeky sense of humour.
‘Stop grinning, Billy,’ Harvey repeated. ‘If you keep grinning, your fanbase won’t
