Flavor Of The Month (Kiss & Tell Book 2) (10 page)

Which would probably be never.

She found the purse in question on the opposite bedside table and snatched it up. She opened it, trying to look at it through Ben’s eyes. Vitamins, appetite suppressors, lip gloss, a brush and her address book. Nothing overly personal. Nothing she should be upset at him seeing.

The problem was she was very upset.

And if she stopped by Benardo’s Hideaway on her way home it wouldn’t be for a cuppa, it would be to dump the cup’s contents over his unthinking head.

Oh, God. She rushed for the door, stopping briefly before opening it to gather her wits about her. What kind of damage control could she possibly wield to cover up this one? Tina was probably at the shop just waiting to bombard her with dozens of questions the moment she walked through the door. And Lord forbid Layla, Mallory or Jack happened to stop by this morning for a sticky bun.

And what about everyone at the restaurant? If she showed up in the same dress she’d been wearing the night before, wouldn’t they know something was up?

Of course, they would, stupid.

As she climbed into the shop van, she could only be glad that she’d insisted on driving out to the restaurant the night before instead of having Ben pick her up. At least she’d be able to get home on her own without having to call for a taxi, or worse, call one of her friends to pick her up.

As for Ben…

Of all the arrogant, self-serving, invasively…sweet things for him to do.

As she drove down the road leading back to the restaurant and the highway beyond, she felt a smile creep across her face. How long had it been since she’d slept in? As for the waking to the sound of the ocean part, the answer to that was easy: never. More than six months had passed since she hadn’t gotten up at four-thirty to start baking. And even on Sundays, when she opened the shop later, she was wide awake by five no matter how late she’d stayed up the night before, her body clock refusing to respond to her attempts to smack its snooze button.

The minivan bearing the shop’s name bounced over the dirt road as she drew closer and closer to the restaurant. She noticed an electrician’s van out back. And spotted Ben consulting with Lance at the back door of the restaurant. Her heart gave a thick triple beat as he cupped his hand over his eyes, watching her approach. But as her front tires hit paved road, she accelerated, giving him no more than a brief wave as she sped by.

She’d have to deal with him later. Right now she had bigger fish to fry.
Much
bigger fish.

T
HE DAY ONLY GREW
progressively worse from there. Forget the nonstop questions that Tina pelted at Reilly the instant she arrived to take over for her teenaged pain-in-the-butt niece. Reilly didn’t have nearly enough ready stock on hand to take care of customer needs. Even Efi had called from the pay phone at school to see what all the fuss was about because Ben had called Tina at home and Tina had generously shared that a man had called on Reilly’s behalf, which undoubtedly meant that Reilly had slept at the man-in-question’s house and that this had to be serious. At least that was her sister Debbie’s rationale when she called three times, unhappy with the answers she was getting.

No, she wasn’t bringing him to Thanksgiving dinner at the folks next week. No, they weren’t going to meet him anytime soon, if at all. No, there was no engagement ring on the horizon. No, Tina couldn’t be the maid of honor because there wasn’t going to be a wedding. And, ultimately, no, she couldn’t possibly cater her own reception because, well, there wasn’t going to be one of those, either.

To top it off, it seemed foot traffic was heavier than usual. And considering the display case was emptier than usual, she wasn’t making a good impression on potential regulars. And if it wasn’t one of her sisters or her nieces on the phone, it was a potential client having read about her in the
Confidential
and wanting price quotes. She liked the last caller best. She’d wanted to know if she could make one hundred penis-shaped cakes with fleshlike frosting for a bachelorette party later on in the month.

She’d almost given in to that one, if only to see if she could do it. But ultimately she decided she didn’t want to be known for penis cakes. She couldn’t see herself twenty years from now making penis cakes for bachelorette parties.

And where would she be twenty years from now?

Funny, where once she saw herself with a half dozen shops, having dinner with her friends and living a happy and fancy-free life, now all she drew was a big, fat blank. Well, when Ben’s face didn’t pop up to fill the void, that is.

She took a mixed batch of sticky buns and cream horns minus the cream out of the oven, wiped her hands on her apron and made her way back to the front of the shop.

She hesitated as she took in where Mallory sat at her friends’ usual corner table stirring five pounds of sugar into her ounce of coffee. As she settled back into the seat across from her friend, she supposed the one thing she could be thankful for was that Layla, Mallory and Jack were still in the dark about this morning’s fiasco.

Mallory finished with her coffee then began forking around the edges of a frozen solid slice of chocolate cheesecake that Reilly had ferreted out of the freezer for her for lunch.

Tina had—thankfully!—left for class about a half hour ago. Johnnie Thunder was hooked up to his laptop across the shop. And another customer, a middle-aged male, was sitting at another table reading the paper while drinking an extra large cup of regular coffee, two sugars.

“Oh! I almost forgot why I stopped by,” Mallory said. Before Reilly went to check the oven, her friend had been talking about her lack of luck finding a decent shoot sight for her latest documentary.

Reilly hiked a brow and fidgeted. She had to be the worst liar in the entire world. Not that keeping last night’s activities from Mallory was a lie, exactly. But it wasn’t telling the truth, either. “I thought you came by to raid the display case, as usual.”

Mallory made a face. “How little you know.” She glanced toward the pitifully empty area in question. “Anyway, I’d be sadly disappointed if I had come for that reason. What happened? Did a busful of tourists clean you out this morning or something?”

Reilly scratched her head, wishing she’d had a chance to take a shower before coming down to the shop. She’d combed through most of the products she’d used on her hair the night before, but it was all making her itch something terrible.

Aside from the fact that she was afraid that Mallory would be able to smell sex from sixty paces. “Something like that.”

“Anyway,” Mall said, sticking her fork into the frozen center of her cake then taking a paper out of her ever present backpack. “I picked this up on the Metro this morning. The things people leave on the seats.”

“Mmm,” Reilly absently agreed, never having ridden L.A.’s subway system. But since Mallory’s battle-scarred twenty-year-old car had finally bitten the dust recently, she’d had to resort to alternate modes of transportation. That was when she couldn’t con Jack into shuttling her around.

She realized she was staring at Mallory’s T-shirt, which this morning read, Men is a Four-Letter Word, and shook her head.

The shop’s telephone rang as Mallory looked through the secondhand paper.

“Excuse me,” Reilly said, almost relieved for the interruption and trying not to run away from the table. She was this close to blurting something along the lines of “I spent the night at Ben’s last night and we had the most incredible sex I’ve ever had in my life and then I woke up to find out that not only had he gone through my purse but that he’d called my sister’s house and life has been a mess ever since.” Just like that. Without taking a breath.

She felt Mallory’s curious gaze on her back and wondered if she’d just given up the ghost with the turbo speed she ran from the table. She wouldn’t be surprised if her friend could have intuited what she’d just been thinking.

“Sugar ’n’ Spice,” she said into the telephone receiver.

“And I can personally vouch that the owner tastes like both.” Ben’s sexy voice filled her ear.

Reilly immediately turned away from the sitting area, heat surging to all points south. God but the things he did to her.

She realized she was about to make a humongous mistake by taking the phone into the kitchen with her and said, “Yes, we cater.”

“Excuse me?” Ben said with a chuckle.

Reilly forced herself to face back toward the tables then took her notepad out of her apron pocket. “For a hundred? Certainly. Why don’t we schedule a time for us to go over what you’re looking for?”

Silence.

Reilly smiled at where Mallory was watching her oddly and where Johnnie Thunder’s fingers had frozen over his keyboard.

She said, “Six o’clock tonight? I happen to have that time open.”

Ben cleared his throat. “Does that mean you want me to come over at six?”

“Yes, yes. Very well then. We’ll see you tonight.”

Reilly hung up the phone, pretended to scribble something onto her notepad when she was really using the time to calm her heart and regain control over her erratic breathing. It was natural for a woman to have that sustained, heart-pounding reaction to a man, wasn’t it? Surely at some point she would just smile at the thought of him instead of getting so hot even a cold shower wouldn’t be able to cool her.

Okay, this wasn’t helping. She slipped the pad and pen back into her pocket.

“New customer?” Mallory asked when she sat back down.

Reilly felt every inch of exposed skin grow hot all over again. “Yes. A recommendation from Layla’s stepmother if you can believe it.”

“Mmm. Anyway, this is what I wanted to show you.”

Reilly distractedly looked down at the folded paper Mallory had pushed in front of her. Her eyes widened.

She hadn’t known what she’d expected. A review of one of Mallory’s recent documentaries, perhaps? Or even a copy of one of Jack’s columns that had pissed her friend off—Jack’s male-oriented point of view tended to do that a lot.

What she got instead was a picture of Ben Kane with a drop-dead gorgeous redhead hanging from his arm. Danish model Heidi Klutzenhoffer was how the caption identified her.

Reilly suddenly felt sick.

“It was taken at a wrap party last weekend,” Mallory said, pointing out the date and the details.

Last weekend… Saturday… One of the nights Ben had said he didn’t have plans he couldn’t cancel…. The night she and Efi had gorged on Italian, watched DVDs and moaned about Greek school.

She slowly shook her head, connecting the dots. Friday Ben came by at midnight to feed her dinner and get a gander at her granny panties. Saturday she’d spent with Efi. Then Monday night he’d come by her apartment and she’d essentially mauled him on the sofa.

Between Friday night and Monday night loomed a huge gap that it seemed Ms. Heidi Klutzenhoffer had been all too happy to fill.

She leaned her head against her hand, feeling the hotness of her skin. “So?” she said, trying to play off the event. After all, nothing had really happened between them Friday night. They kissed, petted a little, then she’d pushed him through the door.

Still, it didn’t stop her from feeling…used, somehow.

Mallory made a face. “So maybe I was wrong. Maybe your going out with Mr. Hot Pants isn’t the greatest idea in the world, Rei.”

Too late,
she silently offered up.

“You’re too good for the dog, is all I’m saying. And I’m afraid that if you got involved with him, it would lead to nothing but heartbreak.”

Doubly too late,
Reilly thought.

She offered up a vague smile. “Who said I was even considering getting involved with him?”

Mallory stuffed the paper back into her backpack. “God, Reilly, what are we in high school? I know that’s who you were talking to a minute ago. I also know you weren’t home last night when I called at eleven o’clock.” Reilly opened her mouth. “And that you weren’t down here, either, because I tried.”

Reilly snapped her mouth back shut.

There must have been something on Reilly’s face that she hadn’t meant for her friend to see because Mallory’s expression instantly changed. God, how she hated pity. “Oh, sweetie,” Mall said, reaching for her hands. It was all Reilly could do not to slap them away. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. Neither do Layla and Jack.”

Reilly widened her eyes. “They know?”

“Of course they know. I conferenced with them this morning after I saw the piece. And they’re as concerned as I am.”

Great. Was there a single person on earth who didn’t know she had a mad crush on the high school football captain?

Worse, that she had shoved him into the proverbial back seat at the drive-in? Twice?

Reilly patted Mallory’s hands back then smiled. “I appreciate your concern, Mall. The last thing I intend to do is get hurt by the likes of Ben Kane.” She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. She recognized the defensive action and forced herself to drop her hands to her sides. “I’m no dummy. I knew…know what I’m getting myself into.”

Mallory rolled her eyes. “If you give me that whole ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ mumbo jumbo, I’m going to bean you with my frozen cheesecake.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” She cleared her throat. “What I was going to say is that I’m a consenting adult. He’s a consenting adult. And whatever happens beyond that is between us.”

“Whoa. This is high school.”

Reilly wanted to scream. “No, Mall. This would be high school if I told you I wasn’t seeing him and went ahead and did so anyway.”

“Good point.” She returned to her cheesecake. “Just don’t say I didn’t tell you so, you know, when things take a nosedive.”

“Jesus! Why are you so damn pessimistic all the time? Is it a skill you were born with, or is it something you developed along the way?”

Mallory blinked at her.

Okay, so she never lost her temper. But certainly even she deserved to get pissy every now and again. Years before, food had provided an outlet. In more recent years, running and the shop. Now, there wasn’t anything that could prevent her outburst. How was she supposed to respond to what Mallory was saying?

Damn it, she liked the guy.

Too much.

Mallory regained her composure before Reilly did. “Let’s just say that I’ve had my heart trampled by Ben Kane’s type more times than I care to admit.”

Reilly ground her back teeth. “And you’re convinced that I’m going to end up just like you.”

“No, I’m trying to stop you from ending up just like me.” Mallory sat back and sighed heavily. “Look, if you doubt what I’m saying, ask him about Holly—”

“Heidi,” Reilly corrected.

“Whatever. Ask him about Miss Silicone Danish World and see what he says. If he comes back with some ‘all in the line of business, babe’ answer, then, well, you’ll have yours.”

“And how’s that?”

Her friend looked at her watch. “Because then you’ll know that that’s not the last time you’ll hear that excuse.” She scooted from her chair. “Look, I’ve got to go. Do you have a container for this or something? Maybe it will thaw out on the subway.”

“Just make sure you keep it a long way away from your frozen heart,” Reilly muttered as she slid off her own chair and went to get her a container.

Mallory caught Reilly’s hand after she’d put the cake in a bag then handed it to her friend. “You know, I’m not trying to be a killjoy or anything, Rei. It’s just…it’s just I know guys. And Ben Kane? He’s got nothing but heartache written all over him.”

Reilly felt her eyes burn. Maybe her friend was right. Because what she was feeling right now could be in no way connected to happy. “Thanks, Mall.”

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

As she watched her friend leave the shop, however, she had to wonder how much of the growing pain she was feeling was due solely to her well-meaning friend, and how much to Ben.

Then again, you couldn’t create pain where there wasn’t already fertile ground for it to grow.

She turned on her heel toward the kitchen. For God’s sake, why did Ben Kane choose her damn door to walk through?

She pushed the swinging door open then nearly tripped over the cat that had adopted her. “Geez, Louise! Watch it, Cat.”

After making sure she had her balance, she picked up the ragged black feline. She had been calling it simply “Cat” since she’d found it on her doorstep last week, but he wasn’t responding well to it.

“How about Louise, huh?” She turned him around. Yep, definitely a male. When she turned him back around to face her, she found his eyes narrowed like he was saying, “Having fun back there?” “Louise doesn’t have to be a feminine name. It could be the Mexican version of Louis. Or, more accurately, Luis. How does that sound?”