It would be trial by public prosecution, and on a much bigger scale than before.
She couldn’t do this again. She’d barely got through it the first time, and she certainly wasn’t going to lose everything over a man for a second time.
Which meant it was over.
She felt a whip of sadness and dropped the phone onto her lap. He’d made her feel so … And she’d thought he’d been so …
She remembered his incomplete sentences just before they’d slept together, and the way his eyes had said everything his mouth had not, and she pressed her eyes shut.
She’d really liked Dillon. Before she’d realised he was a liar and millionaire playboy. Now she just … missed the Dillon who hadn’t been those things to her.
Dillon would expose her. He would undo all of the work she’d done to disappear. All of her mistakes and choices would be subjected to scrutiny and discussion on an enormous scale via his social media platforms. And he, with his relationship history and his disgust towards infidelity and dishonesty … They’d both been dishonest with each other, hadn’t they?
Abigail barely saw a customer for the rest of the day. She kept a low profile in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the five-foot cake stands that she’d created for the Wheels event, then bought blank sticker pages on her lunch break and designed the sticker template in the afternoon. She kept herself busy and focused, and after a while, she didn’t want to cry every time she thought about how stupid she’d been. And how happy.
Brittany squealed when the first sticker page rolled out of the printer.
‘Word of mouth,’ she said, enjoying the play on words, and Abigail laughed.
They hadn’t spoken about Dillon again, for which Abigail was grateful.
Abigail said, ‘Speaking of mouths’. She opened the gallery on her phone and pushed her phone across the counter.
She’d been so excited to share her lip boucake creation with Brittany, it felt like a week since she’d first made it. First with the weekend, then with Brittany being sick and now all the distractions of this morning—this was her first chance since Saturday, but it turned out to be perfect timing.
Just as expected, Brittany squealed. And even though Abigail had been expecting it, Brittany’s squeal was so loud Abigail still jumped in surprise. Brittany slapped a hand over her mouth. Hungrily scrolled to the next image, then to the next, then slapped her hand over her mouth again.
Abigail grinned and lifted the device free. ‘So you like it, then?’
Brittany dropped her hand away. ‘That was amazing! How did you do that? Will you teach me?’ Her feet began to move. Up and down, a rhythm-less jig. ‘Did it take long? Could we make some for today?’ She discarded the question at once. ‘No, not today. We have to advertise!’
Abigail flinched when Brittany whirled and dashed away.
‘What do we need?’ Brittany called back to her. ‘We’ll make a batch! Was that on a miniature cupcake?’
How ironic that Abigail’s inspiration had come from the very man who’d disappointed her today. That she’d burst out of this shop and into his arms to thank him for it. She thought of the women on his profile. Of the booze and the parties, and the places his lips had been before they’d been on hers.
Her Hooker’s Lips were a mockery now.
Lucky she had Brittany’s Christmas-level enthusiasm to keep her from feeling sorry for herself.
The next hour was a whirlwind of mixing, baking and prepping. They scraped existing icing off old cupcakes destined for the bin, and Abigail showed Brittany how she’d made the lips as they waited for the fresh cupcakes to cool.
Two hours later they had a lips boucake, and they were making each other laugh with preposterous ideas for the product name.
‘Suck and blow,’ Brittany said.
‘Pucker Sucker.’
Brittany laughed. ‘I don’t even know what that means.’
There were tears in Abigail’s eyes as she shook her head. ‘Neither do I.’
Brittany straightened. She was abruptly serious. ‘I’ve got it. You ready? The Beaucake.’ She spelt it out. ‘Get it? It works both ways. The Beaucake from your beau, or the Beaucake for your beau.’
Abigail held her hands up. ‘I love it.’
They high-fived.
‘You don’t think it’s too contemporary?’ Abigail asked, writing it down on a notepad and considering it.
‘Beau’s been around for generations, people will get it.’
Abigail conceded this point. ‘Okay, photographs,’ she said, rising from her chair.
Brittany dragged out the homemade lightbox she’d constructed for product photos, and started setting up small table lights around it. It didn’t look like much—amateur at best—but it was effective. Brittany had learned how to make it on YouTube and they’d used it at least a dozen times since.
Abigail began packing their cake tools away. She put the dirty stuff in the dishwasher and retrieved her laptop from under the counter.
When Brittany was done, Abigail showed her the draft poster designs she’d made over the weekend.
It was a joy to delight Brittany. She had a way about her, a boundless gratitude for good ideas and creation that made a person feel powerful and inspiring.
By the end of the day, they’d finalised the promotional material and scheduled a post to go live just as people began their daily commute home. They agreed that an equally vibrant red cupcake wrapper would complement the lips rather than detract from them, and decided on cooked flour icing to go with the red velvet sponge, rather than the typical cream cheese frosting. The cooked flour icing would provide a subtle addition to the lightly flavoured cake, and it would be a good piping consistency for the shapes they wanted to create. Red velvet and cream cheese were such a popular pairing that people would expect it. That it was something else would also surprise people.
They pulled out all the non-perishables Abigail would need to get a batch started early the next morning, then closed the shop with enormous smiles on their faces.
Abigail was floating until the very moment Brittany and Abigail parted ways, then she remembered who had inspired the lips and why his lips were lost to her now, and her smile slipped.
She checked her phone. There was a new message from him, as if her thoughts had conjured him into being.
It read: I miss you. Tea? Name the time and place, but fair warning: ‘asap’ and ‘my place’ are the two best answers.
ASAP sounded about right, but certainly not at her place. She wanted the ability to leave, and not be trapped within her own home with a man who—history had shown—didn’t like taking no for an answer. She replied, giving the address of the hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant near her bus stop, and nominated a time fifteen minutes before her bus was scheduled to pass.
He arrived before her, which meant he’d likely been in the area when he’d reached out to her.
He rose from his seat in the restaurant the moment she stepped inside, and greeted her before the waiter could. She allowed herself to be led to the table, and asked for a lemonade from the smiling man in the white shirt and pressed trousers.
Dillon, wearing a plain black collared shirt and a pair of jeans, looked as divine as ever. But this time she wondered what brands lurked below the collar and waistband. What an illusion he was; casual and laid-back, out for a simple meal before he went home and rolled in his millions.
‘I have something for you,’ he said. He hadn’t let her hand go since walking her to their table, but he let it go now to reach for a poster tube lying beside the salt and pepper shakers. ‘I’m really excited about it. Here.’
She accepted the tube with the same instinct that guided a person to shake someone’s offered hand. But once she was holding it, she wished she’d thought to refuse it.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Logos,’ he said.
She was pleased that he didn’t make her open it to see for herself. She only ha
d fifteen minutes after all.
He pointed. ‘They’re for your van. For the loan van. So you can continue to advertise while we wait for your van to be fixed. They match your logo perfectly. Steve called the shop when I knew you were out and got Brittany to send through the design files.’
Abigail set the tube down. It was thoughtful. He’d been sweet to think of it. But this is what she got instead of honesty? Grand gestures and generosity?
‘Dillon,’ she began. Her throat felt tight, so she swallowed and tried again. ‘Dillon, I want to thank you for everything good that you’ve done for me. And for all the laughs. I’ve had fun with you.’
She paused when Dillon’s expression changed. She knew the precise moment that he realised what was coming, and despite her disappointment in him, she felt sorry to have caused that slice of pain and surprise.
‘But I don’t want to see you anymore.’ She thought of the Lamborghini event and added, ‘Romantically.’
She waited a beat, but it was clear he was speechless. The relaxed, self-possessed smile he had greeted her with was long gone. She doubted she’d ever see it again.
‘I live a very small, very private life. I literally ran away from a life I don’t want to find me, and—’ she gestured between them, ‘—it turns out you’re a bit more high-profile than I can handle.’
He leaned forward in his seat, his expression pinched. ‘Is this about that photo of us? I can take it down. I’ll take it down right now.’ He sat back abruptly, reached for his phone and began hurriedly tapping the screen.
She didn’t interrupt him. Truth was, she wanted the image gone. Not that deleting the source image would delete all the retweets and social media ripples, she knew that. But she didn’t want her photo on his kind of profile. She got the vague feeling that being on his feed sort of meant she endorsed his feed. That she was fine being associated with everything he’d posted before, and everything he’d post after.
‘It’s gone,’ he said. His voice was saturated with panic. ‘It’s gone, I swear. Look.’
He held the screen out to her, and the image was indeed gone. All the other problem pictures, however, were not.
‘It’s about your lifestyle,’ she went on. ‘All the parties and the women. All your lavish choices and all the excess. That’s not my world. I could never be part of that world, particularly not now.’
‘That’s not my world anymore.’ Now his voice was earnest. ‘Not since you.’
She shook her head. ‘That was your world as recently as last week.’
‘And we became exclusive the day after!’
The waiter reappeared and placed a glass near Abigail’s cutlery. The condensation and the clink of ice made the drink almost irresistible. Her throat was dry and she longed to drown the words in her mouth, but she forced herself to continue.
‘I’m all about reputation. It’s all I’ve got here. It’s all I think about sometimes. I need people to look at me and find me above reproach. I need to be the best, the fairest, the nicest. I need to be all of those things because I was none of those things once, and I can’t go back to that.
‘I can’t have your reputation being associated with my business. I can’t have my face all over the internet, and—’ last but not least, ‘—I can’t be with someone who lies to me.’
Yes, she was a hypocrite. She’d lied to him through omission. But that didn’t matter anymore.
‘I didn’t lie to you,’ he countered. He was past earnest. Now he was desperate.
‘You let me think you were someone you’re not. I don’t want you to change for me. I don’t want to change for you. I need honesty and discretion and normality, and I’m not going to find that here.’
The watch on his wrist was angled just right that she was able to check it without being obvious. If she timed it right, she could run outside and straight onto the bus, no awkward waiting at the stop.
Dillon was staring at her, mouth open and the beer on the table forgotten. He leaned forward again. ‘You’re judging me for keeping secrets?’ He laughed, and the raggedness of it made Abigail wince. ‘You’re like a fuckin’ priest in a confessional! Nobody gets anything out of you!’
‘I’m private.’
‘You’re closed off!’
She looked away, and contemplated how many steps there were between her seat and the front door.
Dillon’s voice became wheedling. ‘Don’t let this be it. We’ve got so much to learn about each other and I have changed—already! I barely drink now.’ He held his glass up then thumped it down. ‘Only socially with you. I don’t want to party like that anymore, I want to hang out at your place and watch movies with you and Tolkien. I want to inspire your cupcakes and explore this city with you. Please, I want to dance with you at night markets and watch you put together those crazy window displays. I want to find all those Space Invaders with you.’
Abigail remembered the myth of the seven noses of Soho, and the joke she’d made about preferring happiness wealth over money wealth. He’d put #satisfaction after that Instagram post of them looking for those things. Had he been making fun of her ignorance?
The thought embarrassed her.
‘I wanted all of those things too,’ she said honestly, ‘but not like this. I can’t be with someone who trends on social media. My reputation is all I’ve got, and I have to protect it.’
‘I wouldn’t be bad for your reputation,’ he said, but his protestations were losing fervour. He was crumbling under the weight of her rejection, and that both broke her heart and relieved her.
‘Your reputation and my reputation are two things best kept apart. I’m truly sorry,’ she added, and god she meant it. ‘But I have to protect myself.’
He hung his head, and it took a moment for her to realise that she’d seen his eyes for the last time that night. He was defeated, and it was time for her to go.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, rising to her feet. She left some coins on the tabletop to pay for her drink, then hurried out the front door.
The bent, broken man did not pursue her.
Chapter 17
Dill and Dom
‘She was perfect,’ Dillon announced, for what felt like far from the first time tonight. The music was obnoxiously loud, so he leaned forward and shouted, ‘Perfect!’ and didn’t sit back until a redhead with thick eyeliner and wildly oversized earrings nodded to show she’d heard. He slumped in his seat and stared at his phone screen. Abigail stared back at him, smiling broadly and cheek-to-cheek with the luckiest guy in the world. There was a squashed little nose on the wall behind the pair, and Dillon would have given all of his extensive assets to be that guy again, next to that woman, doing that funny little treasure hunt for the first time.
In his little do-over fantasy, he came clean about his murky past and deleted all of his social media accounts as she watched on and clapped.
‘Perfect,’ he murmured, except that she wasn’t, and he’d really liked that about her. She’d been private as hell, often distracted and wildly distrustful, but she’d also been sweet and quirky, and strong-willed and endlessly creative. She’d been a tourist in her own city, classically beautiful, all kinds of damaged, and for a little while, she’d been his.
For exactly one week, the man who seemed to have everything truly had had all that his heart had desired. But now here he was again, surrounded by stuff and expense, glamour and noise. Rich with shallow acquaintances, and doors that opened to him and those who trailed behind him.
As far as Dillon was concerned, he’d been pitched back into poverty. Because all of this was worthless.
What wouldn’t he give to see Abigail fold icing into a rose once more?
No-one was talking to him—he hadn’t been much fun anyway—so he didn’t feel bad about staying on his phone. He opened Instagram and searched for Boucake’s profile, intending to watch one of her creation videos. And stared.
She’d made it. Launched it. No—would launch it. The kiss cake.
The lips. The very ones he’d inspired. The latest post was of a flawless set of shining red lips atop a small cupcake. There was a text ribbon along the bottom of the picture which read ‘Available from 8.30am!’ The caption read, A Beaucake for your beau? Exclusive from Boucake in Neil’s Yard, Covent Garden.
Boucake. Beaucake. Beau. It was clever. He would have pressed the little heart to show his support if he hadn’t been dumped from her life mere hours ago.
The next photo was of a bunch of lips cakes—Beaucakes—arranged into a bouquet. It had the same caption, and it looked bloody amazing. It was the kind of wild, ostentatious thing he would have bought her as a gift, had she not invented it.
The picture had hundreds, maybe thousands of likes.
Which meant she was probably going to be too busy to miss him much over the next few days. Because she would miss him. He was drunk and depressed, but he wasn’t oblivious: Abigail Mullins had really liked him for a while there. Enough to date him. Enough to find a Space Invader for him. Enough to sleep with him.
The memory of their bodies entwined created a ball of warmth low in his gut, but the memory of that Space Invader … well, that wrecked him. No-one had ever done something like that for him before; listened to his interests and … and made his life better by exposing him to more of the things that he loved.
No-one at this table knew much more about him than what got touted online. They knew his approximate net worth, his approximate type in women (and there were a few of those here tonight, smiling at him over the rims of their drink glasses), but they knew very little beyond that. He was an experience to them, and a way to leverage more experiences.
He stared at a writhing, curling dancer standing on a mirrored podium in the centre of the room, and thought about Circus. It hadn’t been the best date of his life, but it had been with Abigail, and that alone made it an infinitely better night than the one he was having now.
Have Your Cake Page 18