Cupcakes and Killer Heels

by Heidi Rice

  ‘Good.’ Ruby smiled, handing Mia the punnet of fresh strawberries they’d washed and hulked together. ‘I need you to pick out your favourites, Mia, because only the very best can end up on a birthday cake.’

  The child stopped bouncing and held the punnet as if she had been given the crown jewels. ‘Yes, Miss Ruby.’

  Ruby smiled, her heart melting. According to Maddy, Mia had started nursery a few weeks ago and had got into the habit of calling everyone Miss. It was just one more adorable thing about the toddler. Her live-wire chatter, her cherubic face, the bright green eyes and cap of soft blond curls were a few others. Ruby could see why any mother would forgive her for waking at the crack of dawn that morning.

  Leaving Cal sound asleep upstairs over an hour ago, Ruby had pitched in to help when she’d seen how exhausted both Rye and Maddy were after their early-morning wake-up call—and how much they still had to do to be ready for their daughter’s party at noon. Plus she’d needed something to do, to take her mind off the peculiar way her heart had leapt into her throat when she’d woken up to find herself cradled in Cal’s arms.

  ‘Tell me again how many children you have coming,’ Ruby asked as she swirled the buttercream icing onto the sponge base while her pint-size sous chef plucked strawberries out of the punnet as if she were prospecting for gold.

  Maddy sent her a flustered grin. ‘I’m not sure. All Mia’s friends have older or younger siblings and it felt mean not to invite them too. And…’ she threw up her hands in desperation ‘… basically I think we have half of Cornwall’s under-fives on the guest list.’

  Ruby shook her head, laughing. ‘It’s official. Both you and Rye are completely insane.’

  ‘I thought I had everything under control. But somehow things just sneak up on you. I still can’t believe I forgot the cake.’

  ‘I can,’ Ruby said, marvelling anew at how Maddy could even remember her own name amidst the chaos. Finishing the final swirl of the icing, she placed the cake in front of Mia. ‘Do you want to add the strawberries?’

  ‘Can I?’ Mia said with a reverential breath.

  ‘Whose cake is it?’

  ‘My cake,’ Mia piped.

  ‘Well, then, I guess that’s okay.’

  Mia gave a little hoot and began carefully placing the strawberries on top.

  ‘You’re marvellous with her,’ Maddy said. ‘And that cake is awesome. When you have kids of your own, their friends are going to be begging for party invitations.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ruby brushed off the compliment despite the pang kicking her ribs again. She hadn’t given it a lot of thought. But she couldn’t imagine children being on the horizon any time soon. Why should the thought make her life feel empty all of a sudden?

  She heard a loud sniff from behind her, and glanced round to see a tear slip down Maddy’s cheek. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Ignore me.’ Maddy huffed as she whipped a tissue out of the pocket of her shorts. ‘It’s the pregnancy hormones, they turn me into a basket case.’ She blew her nose loudly, brushed away the trickle of tears. ‘I’m just so happy Cal’s finally found someone like you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ruby’s smile faltered. ‘We’re not exactly…’ She paused, not wanting to ruin Maddy’s happy grin. ‘We’ve only known each other a few days. It’s nothing serious.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Maddy waved the tissue. ‘I’m letting what Cal likes to call my hopeless romantic gene get ahead of itself and probably scaring the life out of you. And I’m sure Cal would throttle me if he heard me saying this. But you’re so perfect for him. It’s hard not to hope for the best for the two of you.’

  Ruby gave a half-smile, her heart galloping into her throat, and had absolutely no idea what to say. Maddy really was a hopeless romantic. The very idea that Ruby was perfect for anyone seemed a little absurd. But perfect for Cal? She doubted that.

  The tiny glimpse she’d got last night of the man behind the confident, charismatic charmer had touched her deeply. Her heart had gone out to that vulnerable little boy, forced to keep such a hideous secret for so long. She’d wanted to reach out to him. To somehow make it right. To break through that cast-iron control that she now suspected was a result of a desperately insecure childhood.

  Then when he’d made love to her, with a raw passion that had consumed them both, for a few blissful moments of afterglow she’d deluded herself into believing it had been more than just sex.

  But as she’d lain awake beside him this morning, watching him sleeping, those long lashes touching chiselled cheeks and making him look young and boyish, she’d realised how ludicrous that was—and had pulled herself back from the brink.

  Cal would probably want to throttle her too if he could have heard the soft, fluffy direction of her thoughts. Both of them were perfectly clear this was a one-weekend fling. Nothing more or less. The idea that he had needed her in some elemental way had simply been a figment of her overactive imagination.

  ‘I don’t understand him at all, you know,’ Maddy said, the wistful note in her voice making Ruby’s heart skitter in her chest. This was not a conversation she needed to be having right now. Trying to figure Cal out was what had made her so delusional last night.

  ‘Men make it their mission in life to be completely obtuse. Cal’s just like the rest of his breed,’ Ruby replied, trying for flippant. And not quite pulling it off.

  ‘I don’t understand why he’s always tried to distance himself from me and my family,’ Maddy continued. ‘And why he never gets close to the women he dates. I think it has something to do with Mum and Dad and the constant rows, but he won’t admit it.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ It was a leading question, which Ruby knew she ought to take back the minute it popped out of her mouth. She shouldn’t be encouraging this. Callum Westmore was a glorified one-night stand. The man and his past and the complex emotions he had stirred in her last night were better left alone.

  ‘Cal says he doesn’t believe in love. That it doesn’t exist.’ Maddy sighed. ‘But I don’t think that’s true. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in love. It’s that he doesn’t trust it. Or rather he’s scared to trust it. Because if he did he’s convinced he’d end up in the sort of misery our parents called a marriage.’

  ‘From what Cal’s told me, it doesn’t sound like your parents ever loved each other.’

  ‘They didn’t.’ Maddy’s eyes rounded. ‘He’s talked to you about them?’

  Ruby blanched, knowing she’d overstepped another line. ‘Only a little bit.’

  ‘That’s amazing.’ Maddy’s face lit with fierce approval. ‘A bit’s more than he’s ever been willing to share with me.’ She took a deep breath, clearly eager to say more, when her gaze shifted and she shot off her chair. ‘Mia, what are you doing?’

  ‘I love strawbrees, Mummy,’ Mia said owlishly, her face and hands covered in the juicy red stains of her crimes.

  ‘I know, but you weren’t supposed to eat them all, sweetie. Not yet.’

  Ruby chuckled, pushing aside the let-down feeling as she helped Maddy clean up the mess. She’d been eager to hear more about Cal, which could not be good. She shouldn’t want to know more; her curiosity had got her into enough trouble already.

  As Maddy scooped up her daughter the little girl squealed and wriggled furiously stretching out her arms. ‘Uncle Cal. My uncle Cal.’

  Ruby watched as Maddy put the toddler down and the child raced across the kitchen as fast as her solid little legs would carry her.

  ‘Hey there, Mia. How’s the birthday girl?’ Cal lowered onto one knee, awkwardly catching his niece as she barrelled into him and threw her arms around his neck.

  As Mia babbled away he sent the little girl a crooked smile and brushed her hair back. But when she buried her face in his neck and he lifted her into his arms, his gaze flashed to Ruby.

  The emerald green glinted with something dark and dangerous, the line of his jaw rigid with tension.

  Ruby swallowed. Exa
ctly how long had he been standing in that doorway?

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Mia,’ he said, passing the child to her mother. ‘I won’t be long, I promise. But I have to talk to my friend Ruby first.’ The frigid anger in his tone had heat prickling the back of Ruby’s neck and rising up her scalp. ‘In private.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘YOU can let go of my arm now. I’m not going to run away,’ Ruby said with strained patience as she was hauled down the last few stone steps to the beach.

  Cal hadn’t said a word as he’d propelled her out of the back door of the house, then marched her down the cliff path. And she’d put up with it. Clearly he was a little miffed about whatever he’d overheard. He’d obviously walked in on her talking with Maddy and he wasn’t too pleased about them discussing him.

  But any guilt Ruby had felt about her curiosity was fast being washed away on a tidal wave of annoyance.

  Finally releasing her arm, Cal strode ahead, then stopped and braced his feet apart. From the rigid line of his shoulders she suspected miffed might be a bit of an understatement. He remained silent, his back to her as the wind whipped her cheeks and the quiet rush of the surf covered the unsteady beat of her heart.

  ‘So what exactly is it that you were so desperate to talk to me about?’ she goaded, unable to wait meekly for the explosion she suspected was coming. She didn’t like being ordered about. By anyone.

  The vicious swear word echoed away on the wind. She flinched as he swung back round and strode towards her. ‘Don’t ever talk to my sister about me again,’ he said, his face thunderous as he towered over her.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, let the indignation stiffen her backbone. Maybe he had a right to be a little annoyed, but this was totally out of order. ‘Don’t bully me, Cal,’ she said, refusing to be cowed by him, or his temper.

  ‘Bully you?’ He stepped closer, gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to face the full power of his glare. ‘What I want to do is bend you over my knee and spank you, so believe me, you’re getting off lightly.’

  Ruthlessly quashing the dark thrill that shot through her at the passion in his words—that definitely was not appropriate—Ruby twisted her head out of his grasp. ‘And there I was thinking you were far too upright to consider sado-masochism as a lifestyle choice.’

  ‘This isn’t a bloody joke,’ he snarled, her attempt to break the tension falling spectacularly flat. ‘How much did you tell her?’

  The words sliced out, volatile with temper. The veneer of logic, of civilised behaviour had been torn away. Ruby struggled to make sense of the sudden firestorm, trying to quell the wild beat of her heart and the sizzle of awareness that arched between them like an electric current.

  What on earth was he so upset about?

  ‘Tell her about what?’

  ‘About what I told you last night. About what I knew. About my father and his mistresses.’ He hurled the words at her, but what she saw in his eyes right alongside the anger shocked her more. Panic.

  Her heart squeezed in her chest, the rush of tenderness painful in its intensity. ‘You never told Maddy?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He turned his back on the question, sank his fists into the pockets of his shorts. His body vibrated with tension. ‘What the hell was I thinking spilling my guts like that?’ he muttered, more to himself than her. ‘I must have lost my mind.’

  ‘I didn’t tell her, Cal.’ Stepping forward, she placed her palm on his back. The urge to touch him, to soothe, overwhelming her. ‘But you should.’

  She felt the muscles on his spine tense.

  He gave a brittle laugh as he turned, dislodging her hand. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Cal, how can you think any of that was your fault?’

  Why was he being so hard on himself?

  ‘Maddy caught him banging his secretary when she was fourteen years old and it nearly destroyed her,’ he shouted. ‘That’s on me. If I’d been able to stop him. If I’d told my mother. If I’d at least let Maddy know what he was really like.’

  ‘It’s not on you,’ she shouted back. ‘Can’t you see, whatever you did or didn’t do wouldn’t have made any difference? Some things you can’t control, no matter how much you might want to. You have to tell her, Cal.’

  The sharp frown of frustration arrowed down. ‘I’m not telling her and neither are you. It will only open up old wounds which have healed.’

  ‘How could they be healed, when you’re cutting yourself off from the only family you have?’

  ‘I’m not talking about me. I don’t have any wounds. I’m talking about Maddy.’

  How could he be so clever with words, so smart and analytical, and yet such a dolt when it came to the simplest of relationships?

  He did have wounds. And ones that went much deeper than Maddy’s, she suspected.

  ‘Maddy’s much tougher than you think,’ she said, trying to approach the problem from a different angle. ‘You don’t have to protect her.’

  ‘And you know this from what? One ten-minute conversation with her?’ he snarled. ‘I think I know my sister better than you do.’

  Ruby ignored the sneering contempt in his voice. He was still angry, still raw.

  ‘How can you know her?’ she shot right back. ‘When you refuse to even talk to her properly?’ She dragged in a breath, determined to hammer her point home. ‘She’s a strong, capable woman who’s building a home here. Building a loving relationship. Building a life that matters. If you’re so well adjusted, why are you so scared to be a part of it?’

  ‘I’m not scared. I just don’t want to be part of it,’ he said, the frustration making a muscle bunch in his cheek.

  ‘Of course you do.’

  He swore loudly. ‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds coming from you? If you really think home and family are so wonderful, why haven’t you built the same thing for yourself?’

  The snarled question had her opening her mouth. Then closing it again.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist, the salty wind tearing at her hair and stinging her cheeks as the strike hit home. ‘This isn’t about me,’ she said, trying for measured and reasonable, even though her insides were boiling, her heart burning. ‘This is about you and—’

  ‘We’re through talking.’ He grasped her arms, hauled her up on tiptoes. ‘This conversation is over.’

  His lips crushed hers, the kiss ruthless, and demanding but so full of desperation, and heat, Ruby felt the response right down to her toes.

  Her head told her to push him away, not to surrender to his attempt to silence her. But her heart and her hormones screamed something entirely different.

  Wrestling her arms free, Ruby thrust her hands into his hair and opened her mouth, letting the rush of heat consume them both. She fed on his passion, his anger, pressed against the solid weight of his arousal—meeting the unstoppable force of his will with the immoveable object of her desire.

  She had no doubt he’d meant to punish her with the kiss, but when he finally lifted his head, he looked stunned and aroused, but the storm of aggression had passed.

  ‘Why can’t you ever do what you’re told?’ he murmured as he touched his forehead to hers, the rigidity of his shoulders softening as his hands caressed her bottom.

  She was fairly sure it was a rhetorical question but she answered it anyway. ‘Because that would be incredibly boring.’

  He gave a harsh laugh. ‘That’s one shortcoming no one could ever accuse you of.’

  The unspoken suggestion that there were several other shortcomings he could accuse her of stung a little, but Ruby let it pass. She cupped his cheeks, met his eyes. ‘Tell her, Cal. Don’t let it fester any longer.’ She thought of her own family and the secret that had eventually torn them apart. ‘Believe me, secrets are never a good idea.’

  He gave a heavy sigh, pulled back. ‘I’ll take i
t under advisement,’ he said.

  It was a concession. A compromise. Maybe he would finally talk to Maddy, let her into his life. And maybe he wouldn’t. But she’d done her best. She had to leave it at that.

  She stepped back too, let his hands drop from her hips, suddenly wary of the intensity of her own emotions. There was something disturbing about the yearning to help, to resolve, to understand this hard, indomitable man that was still lodged in her chest.

  She’d led with her heart, and she refused to regret that, but now she needed to use her head. And back off. For her own protection.

  ‘Good.’ She pushed her hair out of her eyes, let the wind whip the errant strands away from her face. ‘You do that,’ she said, feeling desperately exposed all of a sudden. And more than a little awkward.

  He brushed a knuckle across her cheek, rubbed his thumb across her lip. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a quickie on the beach? To kiss and make up properly.’

  The cheeky suggestion was intended to break the mood, but it still had her heart beating double time in her chest. ‘I’m afraid I promised to make cupcakes to go with the cake,’ she said, determined to ignore the emotion clogging her throat. ‘And I have a rule against doing anything that would risk getting sand in places I may find it hard to get it out of again.’

  He smiled, and made her heartbeat peak painfully.

  Remember, Ruby, this is not a real relationship. And you don’t want it to be.

  She fluttered her eyelashes, wiggled her brows salaciously. ‘But we can certainly take a rain check. As long as you remember to bring your gag,’ she added, trying her best to lighten the mood too.

  Sex was simple—the one thing she could offer him without complications. And it was the only reason she was really here.

  He chuckled, the sound gruff with desire and appreciation. Basking in his approval had been wonderful once, but that too was becoming too much of an addiction.

  Holding her hand, he directed her back towards the steps carved into the cliff-face. Began to climb. ‘Come on, I’ve never been to a three-year-old’s birthday party before. It promises to be quite an experience.’