going to get it done.
She’d just have to do better next time.
Standing up, Ella offered Ruby her hand. ‘Come on,’ she said, hoisting Ruby off the sofa with one swift tug. ‘I’ve got something for you to taste. I think I’ve found the perfect frosting to complement your new mango-and-passion-fruit sponge base.’
Ruby felt the familiar flicker of excitement as she followed Ella, anticipating their latest culinary delight. Discovering a great new sponge-frosting combo was a lot more fun than contemplating her love life.
If only cupcakes could give her an orgasm—and she could flirt with them—her life would be perfect. She resolutely banished the image of Mr No-Name from her morning fender-bender and the thought that he might be the equivalent of the perfect cupcake in bed. No such man existed.
The usual swell of pride tightened Ruby’s chest as she strolled into the kitchen she and Ella had mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy the leasehold on two years before.
This was where she belonged. This was what mattered in her life. She adored the quick heady rush of falling in love, but she’d learned to her cost that it never lasted long—and then there was always the sticky business of falling back out of love again to handle. Love was fickle. It had certainly never been able to provide the same constancy or depth of satisfaction as her state-of-the-art catering kitchen. Tucked away in a Hampstead backstreet, the light, airy space with its utilitarian stainless steel surfaces and sink, the open shelves stacked with cake-baking equipment, the two top-of-the-range ovens, and its wardrobe-size cold room, probably wasn’t most women’s idea of bliss. But it was everything she wanted in her life. Because she and Ella had built it themselves from the ground up. And they got to call all the shots.
As long as she had her business, she was perfectly content to do without Mr Right. For the time being at least. Maybe one day she’d be ready to start searching for him, but she’d never been great at multitasking—as Johnny, her latest Mr Not Quite Right, had pointed out six months ago when they’d parted ways. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but she had. Being cast in the role of femme fatale wasn’t high on her list of experiences to repeat any time soon, so she’d made a conscious decision not to get involved again for a while. And so far that was working out fine—give or take the odd hormone-induced blip, like this morning’s.
Ella rushed ahead to the industrial-size mixing bowl and, scraping out a spatula of pale yellow buttercream icing, swirled it on the sponge samples Ruby had baked before she’d left for her appointment.
‘Try that and tell me what you think,’ Ella said, her voice reverent with hope, her eyes bright with anticipation.
The taste exploded on Ruby’s tongue, spicy and citrusy and luxuriously fresh.
She hummed with pleasure. ‘It’s an overused phrase, but that seriously is better than sex.’ Or better than the vast majority of the sex she’d had.
Ella laughed and clapped her hands. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not good, El. It’s orgasmic. I can taste orange and lemon and maybe a hint of cinnamon, but there’s something else there. What is it?’
Ella touched her nose, her grin widening. ‘That would be telling, but it took me two hours of sampling before I figured it out.’
‘Well, it was worth it. We should add it to the menu right away. It’ll be perfect for summer events. Let’s debut it on the cupcake tower at Angelique Devereaux’s wedding.’ Ruby’s mind raced with the logistics of getting the new recipe maximum exposure.
‘Talking of love and orgasmic sex,’ Ella interrupted, typically uninterested in the details that Ruby was so good at taking care of, ‘I had a very nice chat with the new man in your life an hour ago.’ Ella’s grin turned cheeky. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d lifted your boyfriend embargo? If he looks half as good as that delicious voice sounds I’m guessing you hit the jackpot this time.’
‘What new man?’ Ruby said, her whirring mind grinding to a halt.
‘Callum Westmore, that’s who,’ Ella replied easily, obviously still convinced Ruby was keeping secrets.
Ruby searched her inventory of names. She’d gone out with a few guys in the last six months, just to keep her hand in. But she hadn’t agreed to a second date with any of them—always mindful of her new business-first-romance-last strategy. ‘I don’t know anyone called Callum.’
Ella’s brow creased. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I may be flighty but I always get a guy’s name before I date him. It’s fairly essential information,’ she finished wryly.
Ella touched her fingers to her lips. ‘Oops.’
‘Why oops?’ Ruby demanded. She didn’t like the guilty look on Ella’s face.
‘I thought you were dating him. He sounded so confident and … Well, he had this amazing voice. A bit posh but not too posh and really deep and purposeful. And he said he needed to see you. Urgently. So I told him we finished at 5:30 p.m.’
‘You gave him the address to the kitchen?’ It was Ruby’s turn to frown. She had a rule, which Ella was very well aware of, not to give casual dates her workplace info, because it only confused things. ‘Oh, Ella, you didn’t.’
And more importantly, who the heck was this guy? He certainly wouldn’t be the first to try and get her details out of Ella. But no one had ever managed it before. Ella was usually a complete Rottweiler when it came to guarding Ruby’s privacy—because she knew just how determined Ruby was to resist temptation, especially since the messy break-up with Johnny.
So how had Callum Westmore, whoever the heck he was, managed to wheedle the information out of Ella with such apparent ease?
The image of Mr Super-Gorgeous popped into her mind. The man she hadn’t been able to get out of her head all afternoon. Despite all her best efforts.
‘What exactly did this Callum Westmore say? In his sexy voice?’ Ruby asked, but she was already fairly certain. He had to be the one. Who else did she know who would be arrogant and confident enough to ring up and brazenly muscle the information he wanted out of her best friend without breaking a sweat?
‘Just that he needed to see you,’ Ella said carefully. ‘In fact, he sort of demanded to see you,’ she added, as if the thought had only now occurred to her. ‘But to be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind to refuse him. He sounded so sure of himself.’
I’ll just bet he did.
Ruby cursed softly under her breath.
Still, at least she had a name, now. Callum Westmore. It sounded like the name of a twelfth-century Scottish warlord. Which fitted him down to a T. Commanding, completely uncompromising and defiantly masculine—and prepared to swoop down and carry off any female who caught his fancy, whether she wanted him to or not.
The frisson of heat at the fanciful, romantic and utterly un-PC image stunned Ruby for a moment. Callum Westmore was about as far from her ideal date as it was possible to get. She should have found his pushy behaviour exceptionally galling. So why was her heart kicking giddily in her chest
