She kicked off her heels and flopped onto the sofa.
‘Don’t ask,’ Ruby moaned, propping her aching feet on the maplewood coffee table—which she’d splurged on a week ago along with the sofa and paint job, convinced she was going to secure the Cumberland order today.
Ella plopped down beside her. ‘But I thought it was in the bag?’
‘It would have been, if Scarlett’s bumper hadn’t fallen off and made me twenty minutes late for my appointment.’ Ruby dropped her head against the sofa cushions and let out a heartfelt sigh. ‘Unfortunately, chefs with two Michelin stars aren’t known for their patience and understanding. Gregori Mallini refused to see me, then his sous chef gave me a ten-minute lecture about how precious the great Mallini’s time is and informed me he didn’t do business with people who couldn’t bother to be prompt.’
‘Oh, no.’
Ruby swivelled her head to see the sympathetic frown on Ella’s face and the usual dusting of icing sugar on her nose and cheeks—and the tide of guilt almost swamped her. ‘That would be the child-friendly way of putting it.’
Ella’s frown deepened. ‘But didn’t you have Scarlett serviced, like, a week ago?’
‘Yes … but that would be before she got hit on by a swanky Italian sports car.’
And my hormones led me astray with its equally swanky owner.
If only she hadn’t got sidetracked by the guy, she would have noticed the damage to her car … Or at the very least given herself enough time to get to the precious appointment on time.
She wanted to kick herself. And she would have to, if her toes weren’t screaming in agony after racing across half of Camden in the high-heeled shoes she’d bought specially to impress a chef she’d failed to actually meet.
‘You were in an accident!’ Ella gasped. ‘Are you all right?’
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ Ruby said calmly, Ella’s concern making the wave of guilt crest. Her partner in A Touch of Frosting was also her best friend. They’d been BFFs since nursery school. Ella was ditzy, impossibly sweet and a poet when it came to designing cupcake icing. She deserved better than this. ‘I’m fine.’
Or at least she would be when she got over wanting to commit hara-kiri on one of her own kitchen knives. When was she going to start behaving like a grown-up—and stop getting distracted by every handsome guy that caught her eye? She’d been being so good lately, so why the heck had she picked today of all days to fall off the wagon?
Mr Swanky Italian Sports Car probably hadn’t even been all that good-looking. She could see now she had probably exaggerated his appeal because of her nerves over the appointment at Cumberland and the shock of getting rear-ended and having her lipstick shoved up her nose.
Ruby frowned.
Damn.
And here she was obsessing about him again. A guy whose name she didn’t even know. And who probably wasn’t anywhere near as gorgeous as she remembered. When she’d promised herself she was going to stop doing that hours ago.
‘Are you sure you’re okay? You look really upset,’ Ella murmured.
Ruby forced a tight smile onto her lips. ‘If I’m upset it’s only with myself.’ She sighed again. ‘I’ve let you down, El. I’ve let us both down. Getting Touch of Frosting cupcakes onto the afternoon tea menu at Cumberland’s could have put us on the map. The orders would have come flooding in.’ She gave a heavy sigh as she let the dream slip away once and for all.
Blast and double blast.
‘We would have become the queens of cupcake design,’ Ruby added, struggling to find some humour in the situation. ‘A Nobel Prize for Baking would have been within our grasp at last.’
Ella grinned, her round pretty face lighting up as Ruby had intended. ‘Just don’t stop dreaming, Rubes. That’s what you’re good at.’
Shame I’m not as good at flirt control.
Ruby pushed the thought away and sat up.
Ella was right, there would be other opportunities. As long as they didn’t stop dreaming big. And making the best damn cupcakes in the known universe. And beating herself up over Gregori high-and-mighty Mallini and the Cumberland order—and her flirt-control problems—wasn’t 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.’