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Praise for Heidi Rice
‘Heidi Rice is simply brilliant when it comes to writing sharp, sassy and sexy romantic novels!’
—www.cataromance.com
‘The amusing opening spins into an emotional and heartfelt story.’
—RT Book Reviews on
Hot-Shot Tycoon
‘I was actually breathless while reading this book….
It’s a sensual ride you won’t want to lose the opportunity of reading.’
—www.thePinkHeartSociety.com on
Public Affair, Secretly Expecting
About the Author
HEIDI RICE was born and bred and still lives in London, England. She has two boys who love to bicker, a wonderful husband who, luckily for everyone, has loads of patience, and a supportive and ever-growing British/French/Irish/American family. As much as Heidi adores ‘the Big Smoke’, she also loves America, and every two years or so she and her best friend leave hubby and kids behind and Thelma and Louise it across the States for a couple of weeks (although they always leave out the driving off a cliff bit). She’s been a film buff since her early teens and a romance junkie for almost as long. She indulged her first love by being a film reviewer. Then a few years ago she decided to spice up her life by writing romance. Discovering the fantastic sisterhood of romance writers (both published and unpublished) in Britain and America made it a wild and wonderful journey to her first Mills & Boon® novel.
Heidi loves to hear from readers—you can e-mail her at heidi@heidi-rice.com or visit her website: www.heidi-rice.com
Also by Heidi Rice
The Good, the Bad and the Wild
On the First Night of Christmas …
Unfinished Business with the Duke
Public Affair, Secretly Expecting
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Cupcakes and Killer Heels
Heidi Rice
MILLS & BOON
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For women who love chocolate and cupcakes
and can live with that extra inch on the thighs!
Like moi!
With special thanks to Lorraine
and the nice peeps at the Lincoln’s Inn Library.
CHAPTER ONE
TAKE a chill pill, pal. This is a make-up emergency.
Pouting into her rear-view mirror, Ruby Delisantro tuned out the blare of a car horn from behind her and concentrated on applying a quick coat of Rose Blush Everstay lip gloss to calm jittery nerves.
She’d had the small but exclusive chain of Hampstead brasseries on her hit list for over a year. It had taken her months to get this afternoon’s appointment with their chef and she wanted to look her absolute best before she started the long search for a parking space.
The squeal of brakes and the teeth-jarring jolt that followed was a little harder to ignore though—as it shot her forty-quid tube of Rose Blush straight up her nose.
‘For Pete’s sake!’
Extricating the lipstick from her left nostril and hastily repairing the damage, she leapt out of her car. Having some bozo rear-end her was not the best way to prepare for her career-defining moment. Plus she’d just had Scarlett serviced and MOT’d at a cost of two hundred and twenty pounds. If any harm had been done to her beloved Bug, someone was going to die.
‘Hey, hotshot. What’s your problem? Don’t you know where your brake pedal is?’ she yelled at the man shielded behind the windscreen of the fancy Italian convertible pressed up against her bumper.
Typical. Only in Hampstead. A boy racer driving a lot more car than he can handle.
Gripping the top of the windscreen, Boy Racer jerked upright and jumped out of his car in one athletic movement. Ruby’s lungs ceased to function and the fervent wish that she’d actually lost the six pounds she’d been debating losing for nearly a decade flitted through her mind.
This was no boy. This was most definitely a man.
A tall, strong, long-limbed, super-gorgeous man with close-cropped dark hair, broad shoulders and slim hips expertly displayed in worn, low-slung jeans. His eyes were disguised behind a pair of expensive sunglasses, but the manly dent in his chin and the shadow of stubble defining chiselled cheeks weren’t doing a thing for Ruby’s breathing difficulties, especially when his head dipped.
Is he checking me out?
‘What’s my problem?’ He threw up his hands, making his muscular torso ripple under a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: ‘Barristers do it on a trial basis.’ ‘What’s your problem, lady? You’re parked in the middle of the road.’
Ruby gulped in air to kick-start her lungs and took a moment to consider her response.
The good news was, Ruby Delisantro loved to flirt. And she was remarkably good at it. She adored the spark and sizzle of sexual attraction, the tantalising tension of verbal foreplay—and a chance to flirt with someone this good-looking didn’t present itself every day. Not only that, but the figure-hugging dress she’d picked up at Camden Market last week turned the extra weight she’d been carrying around since she was seventeen into a major asset.
The bad news was, Mr Super-Gorgeous also had a super-large stick up his backside about women drivers and seemed to be virtually oblivious to her fabulous frock. Which meant he was either gay, a misogynist or didn’t have a sense of humour. Any one of which should have been a major turn-off.
Unfortunately they weren’t. Quite.
Hold it right there, Ruby.
She raised her gaze from her contemplation of his pectoral muscles. What was she thinking? She didn’t have time to flirt with this guy—no matter how spectacular he might look in a dorky T-shirt. She had to see a man about some cupcakes.
‘There was more than enough room to get past me,’ she replied tartly, sending him a hard stare. ‘And anyhow, it was an emergency.’ Sort of.
The direction of his gaze dipped to her mouth. She mentally crossed ‘gay’ off her list as her tongue slid out to moisten lips that had suddenly turned to parchment.
No flirting, Ruby. This is non-negotiable.
He huffed out an incredulous laugh. ‘Since when is putting lipstick on an emergency?’
‘I had my parking lights on,’ she continued, ignoring the jibe. Men were hard-wired not to understand the importance of lipstick, so she wasn’t about to explain how the simple act of putting it on could bolster one’s confidence in a business situation. ‘And you ran into me.’ She strutted towards him, grateful her four-inch heels went some way to correcting the height disadvantage.
Maybe she didn’t have time to flirt. But she certainly had time to make him suffer.
‘And if you had ever bothered to read your Highway Code,’ she added, ‘you’d know that puts you in the wrong. No matter how much testosterone you’re packing.’
She flicked a contemptuous glance at his crotch to emphasise the point. Only to have her gaze snag on the prominent package displayed by the loose-fitting denims. A flush burned the back of her neck, stunning her even more—Ruby Delisantro was not and had never been a blusher.
He stepped forward—making her far too aware of exactly how tall he was.
‘Those are hazard lights,’ he said, the rich, masculine voice low and amused. ‘Not parking lights.’ He crossed his arms, making his biceps bunch under the short sleeves of his dorky T-shirt, and Ruby lost her train of thought completely.
‘And if you’d bothered to read your Highway Code you’d know that,’ he continued. ‘No matter how much oestrogen you’re packing.’
His head dipped again, the glint of August sunlight on the dark lenses of his shades doing nothing to disguise the fact that he was staring straight at her cleavage.
‘And while I can see that’s rather a lot,’ he continued, a superior smile curving sensual lips, ‘it’s no excuse not to follow the rules of the road.’
Ruby’s nipples puckered into hard points and the throb of something hot and uncomfortable swelled between her thighs. She resisted the urge to squirm. Barely.
Okay, this was just plain wrong. He was telling her off and turning her on at one and the same time. She might love to flirt, but she was not a masochist.
She slapped a hand on her hip.
‘I don’t do rules,’ she purred, pointing a coral-tipped nail at the centre of his chest. A muscle in his jaw clenched and power surged through her. ‘It makes life so dull, don’t you think?’
She lifted her finger, satisfied she’d won, only to gasp when his hand shot out and long fingers clamped on her wrist. He pulled off his sunglasses, and she shivered involuntarily, stunned by the deep forest-green of his irises.
‘Sounds to me like you need more than just driving lessons,’ he murmured, the emerald stare so penetrating her thigh muscles turned to mush.
She tugged her hand free, hoping he hadn’t felt her pulse hitting warp speed under his thumb. ‘And like all men, I suppose you think you’re man enough to teach me,’ she scoffed. So what if she was playing with fire? She could see the heat smouldering in his eyes, making the rush of adrenaline so intoxicating it didn’t leave much room for caution.
He gave a gruff chuckle. ‘I’m not like other men,’ he said softly, his confidence matching those come-to-bed eyes.
Ruby rubbed her wrist where the skin sizzled. ‘That’s what they all say.’
‘No doubt,’ he said, not sounding daunted. ‘But I can prove it. The question is are you woman enough to let me?’
The husky invitation detonated the heavy weight already pulsing at her core.
Ruby blinked, and stepped back.
Whoa there, Ruby. Slow the hell down.
The situation had spiralled out of her control, and she wasn’t sure how.
She might be an incurable flirt but she wasn’t about to date a guy after knowing him for approximately ten seconds—even if he did have the uncanny ability to short-circuit her hormones.
Plus her sixth sense was yelling at her that this guy was nowhere near her type. Beneath those mouth-watering pecs and that sexy, laid-back self-confidence, Ruby detected a control that was unnervingly focused and intense.
She flicked her long curls of chestnut hair over her shoulder. ‘What a tempting offer,’ she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. The guy’s ego was enormous enough already. ‘But I’ve already got a date this afternoon,’ she said, ensuring her appointment with the chef at Cumberland sounded personal. ‘And I don’t do threesomes.’
The rich, resonant sound of his laughter rippled up her spine as she waltzed back to her car. She sashayed her hips—to make it clear this was a dignified retreat, and in no way a surrender.
‘Pity,’ he called after her. ‘And there I was thinking you were a bad girl.’
She glanced at him as she opened the door. ‘Wrong again,’ she shot back, stifling the twinge of regret. Did he have to look quite so spectacular leaning against his sports car, the sun turning his short dark hair to a gleaming ebony and the challenge in those striking green eyes all but irresistible?
‘I’m not a girl. I’m a woman.’
Callum Westmore laughed as the statuesque young beauty climbed back into her fire-engine red car. ‘You got that right,’ he murmured appreciatively.
The car suited her, he thought as it puttered to life. With its classy curves and bold, in-your-face style. He winced at the crunch of gears. And like its owner, it wasn’t used to being driven.
As the car pulled away she flicked her hand out of the window in a flippant wave. He chuckled and sent her an equally flippant salute back. Not easy with the heat pulsing hard in his groin.
A slow grin split his features. And the heat pulsed harder.
Wasn’t that a surprise?
When had he ever found a firebrand like her so tempting? And one who had given him the brush-off for no good reason. Because he’d bet a month’s salary the date she’d mentioned didn’t exist. He’d seen the way her glaze faltered—the classic tell for an unreliable witness.
His smile died as her car paused at the end of the leafy London lane, and he noticed the cracked brake light and the tilting bumper. The car turned onto Hampstead High Road and he read the words ‘A Touch of Frosting: Bespoke Cupcakes’, a web address and a telephone number written in glittering pink lettering on the door.
She disappeared into the traffic and he turned to examine the front of his own car, astonished to realise he’d been so distracted by their sparring match he hadn’t checked to see if there was any damage to his treasured new Ferrari.
Luckily there was only a small scuff mark on the bumper. He rubbed it with his thumb, then climbed back into the car and retrieved his phone from the glove compartment.
However much he might have enjoyed arguing with the girl, the fender-bender had been primarily his fault. She might have been double parked, but he’d taken the corner too fast and run into her. And as she’d pointed out so provocatively, the Highway Code was fairly clear on the subject. He keyed her number into the phone.
Cal always played by the rules. The law wasn’t just his profession, he demanded order and accountability in his personal life too. So he’d have to track the girl down and pay for the damage.
He squinted into the sun and put on his shades, the smile returning.
The thought of seeing her again wasn’t exactly unappealing. He usually preferred the women he dated to be predictable and undemanding. Which made his instant attraction to The Lush Ms Reckless a bit disconcerting. The woman had high-maintenance written all over her—in mile-high neon letters.
But his social life had been non-existent ever since Gemma had called a halt to their occasional sleepovers a month ago—just because he’d refused point blank to let her move in. He liked his own space, his solitude, what was so hard to understand about that? With two high-profile cases lined up already for next month, he’d resigned himself to a celibate summer.
But now the thrill of the chase beckoned—and he had the whole of the August Bank Holiday weekend to play.
Cal tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, remembering the petal-soft skin on the inside of the girl’s wrist, the frantic punch of her pulse and the way her brown eyes had melted to a molten chocolate. The live-wire attraction between them had been mutual. He was sure of it.
Cal’s grin widened as he turned on the ignition. The smashed brake light and damaged bumper gave him the perfect excuse to tussle with Ms Reckless again. And next time she wouldn’t be able to give him the brush-off so easily.
CHAPTER TWO
‘How did it go?’
Ruby glanced up at her assistant Ella’s eager enquiry as she flung her bag and the hefty file folder of product photos onto the brand new leather sofa in Touch of Frosting’s freshly painted reception area.
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.’
‘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 at the prospect of seeing him again?
The bright trill of the doorbell made them both jump.
She glanced at her watch. Five-thirty precisely.
‘That’s him,’ she muttered. Trust him to be ridiculously prompt. Which was another good reason to dislike the man. Promptness was a skill she’d never quite managed to master herself—as this afternoon’s fiasco with Gregori Mallini proved—and one she found slightly intimidating in other people.
‘Do you want me to tell him you’re not here?’ Ella whispered, as if their uninvited guest could hear through walls.
Ruby considered the offer. For about a second.
‘No. He’s probably spotted my car.’ And even if he hadn’t, she somehow knew Callum Westmore would see straight through the ruse. Ella, with her open, uncomplicated nature and big doe eyes, couldn’t lie worth a damn—and, anyway, Callum Westmore clearly wasn’t the sort of guy who took no for an answer.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ruby said, marching out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll handle this.’
She threw the words over her shoulder as she strode through the reception area to the front door of the business unit.
Okay, maybe her attraction to him was a little surprising … and ever so slightly disconcerting. But she had no doubt at all that she could handle Callum Westmore just fine.
He might have the name and the dominating masculinity of a twelfth-century Scottish warlord, but she was no simpering little virgin.
The prickle of irritation, though, was twinned with the heightened hum of arousal as she spied Westmore’s tall frame silhouetted against the frosted glass of the door. She took a deep breath and turned the knob, secure in the knowledge that no man got to sweep Ruby Delisantro off her feet …
Not unless she wanted him to.
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