Carter walked up to the woman who was standing in front of the counter. “Mrs. Salazar, how are you?” he greeted.
“Where is my cake?”
“I don’t have you scheduled until Thursday to pick up the cake.”
“No, the quinceañera is tonight. I was told the cake would be ready by noon.” Her elevated voice caused several shoppers to turn their heads.
“Why don’t we move over here?” Carter said, gesturing for her to follow him to the rear left side of the showroom, which had been converted into a coffee bar. “Can I offer you something to drink? A latte? Cappuccino?”
“I want my cake,” Mrs. Salazar said.
“I found the original order form.” Monica came up to them. “It has Thursday marked off, but today’s date is written on it.”
Great. Carter bit back a curse.
“So I will have no cake for my daughter’s quinceañera? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Not to worry,” Carter said. “Just tell me where it is being held and I’ll have your cake delivered by five o’clock.”
“Carter,” Monica warned in a low tone.
He held a hand up to his cousin, keeping his full attention on Mrs. Salazar. “You’ll have the cake you ordered. I will see to it personally,” Carter assured her.
The worry lines creasing the woman’s forehead lessened, and a cautious smile relaxed the corners of her mouth.
“Thank you,” she said. She held up her checkbook. “I still need to pay the balance on the cake.”
“No, you don’t. It’s on us.”
“Carter!” Monica sputtered.
“I’m very sorry for the mix-up,” Carter said, putting an arm around the woman’s shoulder and guiding her to the door. “And tell your daughter happy birthday.”
The woman thanked him profusely as she exited the bakery. After she left, he turned and stalked straight to the kitchen, with Monica hot on his heels.
“Do you want to explain to me what just happened there?” she asked him.
Ignoring her, Carter sought out one of the assistant bakers. “Jason, have you baked the cake for the Richardsons’ fiftieth wedding anniversary?”
“Yep, it’s in the cooler,” Jason Parker answered.
“Good. I’m going to have to use it. Can you set it up in my normal work area? And I’m going to need to make spun sugar for the decorations, so can you get me the light corn syrup, too?”
“Would you stop ignoring me?” Monica said. “Now, what happened with Mrs. Salazar’s order?”
Carter whirled around. “You know what happened,” he said, trying to keep his frustration in check. “Somebody dropped the ball, and now I’ve got to clean up the mess. Thankfully, the Richardson event isn’t until tomorrow night. Their cake is the same size and flavor as the Salazar cake.”
“And what about forgiving the balance on her order?”
Carter gritted his teeth. “It’s called keeping the customer happy, Monica. I don’t know who made the mistake here, but someone had to make it right. Now, can you please get out of my way? I’ve got a cake for three hundred that I need to construct and replacement cakes that I’ll have to stay here for hours baking tonight.”
“This should never have happened,” she said.
“Damn right, it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Now move out of my way so I can fix it.”
Carter tore past her and headed for the cooler, pissed that someone else’s incompetence was now on his head. And would he get any thanks for correcting the situation?
“Not in this lifetime,” Carter snorted.
He was so tired of dealing with this crap. He busted his ass in this kitchen, but did he get any thanks for the extra effort he put in?
It was time he faced facts. Nothing he did would ever measure up. He was fighting a losing battle. His cousins would always have a leg up on him.
Carter backed up against the wall of the walk-in cooler and closed his eyes tight.
“Why in the hell am I even doing this?”
Why did he keep coming back for more, like a boxer who kept getting up from the mat after every knockdown, too stupid to leave the ring? It was a question he’d asked himself more than once; he had yet to come up with an answer that made sense.
Chapter 3
“What are you doing? What are you doing?” Lorraine chanted quietly to herself as she walked along Michigan Avenue.
This was a bad idea. She should turn around and go right back to her car. Now. Before she did something she’d regret. Or, even worse, before she made a fool of herself.
She looked up and spotted the ornate gold-leaf lettering etched across one of the huge bay windows of Lillian’s. There was still time to turn back. In fact, she could just keep walking forward, round the block and return to the parking garage.
Before she succeeded in talking herself out of doing it, Lorraine wrapped her hand around the brass-plated door handle and pulled. She stepped into the bakery, taking a moment to breathe in the heavenly aromas of cakes, pies, cookies and coffee. She looked around the showroom, with its crystal chandeliers, marble floors and counters and richly decorated cakes, but she didn’t spot the one thing she was hoping to catch a glimpse of: Lillian’s charismatic cake maker. She wasn’t sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved.
Relieved, she decided. Carter Drayson would have seen straight through her flimsy excuse for returning to the bakery so soon.
“Back again?” came a voice over her shoulder. “Can I help you with something else?”
Lorraine turned. It was the same guy who’d greeted her yesterday. Dre? Drake? She wasn’t sure of his name; she only knew he was a member of the Drayson family.
“Hello,” she said, slipping her hand into her purse to grab the picture she’d brought with her. Then she thought better of it. The picture was the pretense she had planned to use if she’d run into Carter.
“I...I wanted to try a petit four,” she said, stumbling over her hastily concocted excuse. “It wasn’t until I left the bakery yesterday that I remembered that Lillian’s is known for its petit fours.”
“They are the best in the city,” he said.
Lorraine followed him to the glass display case, with its ornate gold filigree and dozens of square petit fours, lady fingers, delicate French lace cookies, fruit tarts and other delicacies.
“Everything looks so delicious,” she said. “I will take two petit fours and one chocolate-dipped shortbread cookie.”
As he packaged her purchase in a brown-and-pink-striped bakery box, Lorraine almost asked if Carter was in the back. She stopped herself just in time.
It was pure insanity, her sudden obsession with this man. She was not some fifteen-year-old with a girlhood crush. She was a grown woman who knew all too well the havoc being a starry-eyed, love-struck fool could cause. As of this moment, her preoccupation with Carter Drayson was over and done. As soon as she got her sweets, she would leave this store and not return. She would simply email him the picture of Trina scuba diving on her trip to the Caymans.
Lorraine took the box from Dre or Drake—she no longer cared what his name was—and headed for the exit.
“Lorraine?”
A bolt of awareness coursed