by Nina Lane
Sweet
ESCAPE
A Sugar Rush Novel
Book Two
NINA LANE
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Kindle Edition
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SWEET ESCAPE is a sexy contemporary romance by New York Times bestselling author Nina Lane. It can be read as a standalone or enjoyed as part of the Sugar Rush series.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Also by Nina Lane
Prologue
“End of messages.”
The monotone voice of the answering machine ended with a click. Evan Stone rubbed his chest and stared out the kitchen window at the ocean—gunmetal-gray water beneath an overcast sky.
Something was wrong.
The realization poured through him like thick, black oil. His doctor wouldn’t have asked him to come in to the office on Monday if his test results had come back normal.
He turned away from the window. The knowledge of his defective heart always simmered at the back of his mind, but most of the time he was able to forget about it. Dealing with his medical condition was part of his life, almost a routine. He didn’t know life without it.
But he saw life without it. He’d spent many hours in the hospital with a tutor while other kids went to school on the bus. He saw his brothers playing football and baseball, heard about Adam’s treks through the Himalayas and his climb to Machu Picchu, high altitude places Evan might never see.
And every time Evan took off his shirt, every time he showered, every time he swam and caught people glancing at the vertical scar on his chest, he was reminded that his heart, the most vital organ he possessed, was defective but still his.
It was the only heart he’d ever have, the one that had been damaged at birth but repaired, the heart that had pounded nervously when he had a crush on a girl, the heart that had stuttered over exams and competitions, the heart that had both broken in love and soared with happiness. His heart had gotten him to the age of thirty-one and was still beating.
But Evan would never stop wishing his heart was whole.
Chapter
ONE
Six more months of evil whipped cream.
To Hannah Lockhart, it might as well have been six years.
Royal icing? Bring it. Sprinkles? No problem. Powdered sugar, marzipan, buttercream? She was on it. Even delicate, easily torn fondant didn’t faze her. But one look at the stainless steel whipped cream charger with its secret nitrous oxide chamber and specific rules for temperature, shaking, and dispensing, and dread pooled in the pit of her stomach.
She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Keep it together. She had to rally. She was rallying. When you were asked—okay, told—to cater the extensive dessert table at a high-society bachelor auction called “Cream of the Crop,” you had to bring your A-game. Even though Wild Child Bakery’s new pastry chef was sick with the stomach flu, and the coordinator of the event was a massive pain in the ass.
Hannah set the serving utensils on the dessert table, which was draped in silky black cloth and spanned half the length of the wall in the great room of the historic, Spanish-style villa nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Open doors led to the back terrace and majestic courtyard surrounded by wisteria and slender palms. Laughter and conversation flooded into the house as guests floated around the marble fountain in a sea of tuxedos, glitter, silk, and champagne glasses.
Hannah hurried back to the industrial-sized kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She could do this. Pastry Chef Sophie who had actual professional certification in cake decorating and therefore knew what she was doing, had explained everything. All Hannah had to do was pipe a few ribbons, stars, and swirls onto the desserts before bringing them to the display table.
She transferred the multitude of trays and platters from the refrigerator to the granite counter. She’d brought all of Wild Child’s specialties—cream puffs, custard-filled éclairs, layered trifles, mango napoleons laced with caramel sauce, apricot rolls, chilled pineapple mousse dotted with pistachio slivers, hazelnut-praline torte, lemon charlotte encased in ladyfingers, and of course the famous Declairs, the hybrid éclair-doughnut confection her sister Polly had invented before she’d gone off to study with famous pastry chefs in Paris.
“Hope none of the guests are lactose intolerant,” Hannah muttered to herself as she pulled a blackberry pavlova from the fridge and set it on the counter.
Time for a whipped cream throwdown.
She turned to the sink, where the charger parts were strewn like the detritus of a grenade with its chambers and valves.
Dispenser chilled.
Cream poured.
Sugar and vanilla added.
Hannah dropped the piston into the charger, screwed on the head, and inserted one of the gas cartridges into the chamber. She repeated the process three times.
She felt like she was readying for battle instead of piping a rosette onto a mille-feuille. This bakery business wasn’t even her real job. She was just running Wild Child for a few months while Polly completed her pastry-making course and internship. When Polly came back to Rainsville and took over Wild Child again, Hannah would be free to get back to her regular life of travel and blog writing.
But until then, she had to get this done. After inserting the last cartridge, she shook the charger exactly four times, as Polly had instructed her, turned it upside down and squeezed the lever. The canister spat and hissed like the devil.
Shit shit shit.
Cream leaked out of the crack between the head and the base, spilling all over her fingers and the delicate puff pastry. She slammed the canister on the counter—right next to the rubber head gasket she’d forgotten to insert.
Hannah grabbed a towel and wiped her hands. She picked up the dispenser again and pressed the lever to discharge some of the gas. She fucking hated pressurized devices or anything with explosive potential. She didn’t even like balloons.
She carefully twisted the lid. The canister emitted another seething hiss that sounded like air escaping a tractor tire.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Lockhart,” said a male voice.
Hannah looked up irritably. She froze. Her heart bumped against her ribs. Evan Stone, one of the heirs to the Sugar Rush Candy Company, was coming toward her, his eyes narrowed.
And… damn.
Although Evan was the brother of her sister’s fiancé and therefore almost family, Hannah didn’t know him well. He’d come into Wild Child for coffee and a Declair a few times during the three months she’d been in Rainsville. They’d chatted briefly. Exchanged observations about the weather. She’d told him to have a nice day. He’d complimented her muffins.
But—clearly because she had lost crucial powers of perception—not once had Hannah imagined he could look like this. A beautifully fitted tuxedo sheathed his tall, muscular body, and his glossy, dark brown hair shone under the lights. With his strong features and thick-lashed, laser-blue eyes, he looked like a classic movie star come to living, breathing life.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. Heat flickered through her, like the strike of a match. He looked more delicious than an endless bowl of savory ravioli laced with parmesan and accompanied by a robust Chianti.
She could dive into him headfirst, swirl her tongue around his fork, lick up his sauce and—
“Opening a pressurized container can be dangerous,” he remarked.
With effort, Hannah returned her attention to the unwieldy charger. She was an independent world traveler, for heaven’s sake. She had this situation under control.
“I know what I’m doing,” she informed him crisply.
She twisted the lid again. Sweat trickled down her temple, though she didn’t know if she was getting warm from whipped cream exertion or Evan’s sudden and very sexy appearance.
Hormones, she told herself firmly. She’d experienced a whole new meaning of the word abstinence since returning to Rainsville four months ago. It was no wonder her body was reacting with all sorts of inappropriate hot cravings to the sight of Evan Stone in a tuxedo.
And she did not have time to deal with a hormonal surge right now. She had to wrestle the charger into submission, decorate the damned pastries, and get them to the dessert table before the bachelor auction started.
“I’m sure you know what you’re doing.” Evan extended a hand toward the charger. “But can I please help you with that?”
“No, thank you.” Hannah wiped her wet hand on her chef’s jacket and turned the lid again. “I read about how to do this on the internet. If you open it slowly, millimeter by millimeter, the nitrous oxide leaks out gradually and the whole thing won’t—”
Boom!
The lid exploded off the canister. A volcanic spray of cream shot upward. Hannah shrieked and dropped the charger. Splatters of white flew in every direction. Evan darted between her and the spluttering device from hell. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her a distance away.
A dull roar filled Hannah’s ears. She squeezed her eyes shut and dragged in a breath.
“Are you all right?” Evan asked.
“Yes. Just a little… uh, creamy.” She wiped her sleeve across her face and slowly opened her eyes.
Evan was looking at her, runny whipped cream dripping off his hair and onto his immaculate tuxedo.
“Oh no.” Hannah grabbed a dishtowel and scrubbed at the cream on his lapel, which only smeared it over the black wool. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s just a tux.” He released her shoulders.
“But you’re one of the bachelors, right? You have to go onstage.” Hannah hurried to wet the dishtowel under the faucet. “If we get it off now, it should dry by the time it’s your turn.”
She swabbed at the cream on his tux, and then reached up to wipe it off his face and hair. Though she tried to remain clinically detached, she couldn’t ignore the brush of his breath against her wrist, the tickle of his hair on her palm.
She stepped away from him, her pulse racing. Evan took the damp towel and gave her a wry grin.
“Sparkle Pops are safer,” he said.
“What?”
“Just came out last year in a new line of Sugar Rush candy.” He stepped toward her. “A hard-shelled lollipop with a fizzy chocolate center that bursts in your mouth. The beauty of it is that you never know when the explosion will happen, so it’s a surprise.”
“Sounds awful,” Hannah said. Oops, she’d just insulted his family’s candy company. “Er, but I’m sure plenty of people love it.”
He studied her. “You don’t like surprises.”
“Depends on the surprise. Things that explode… no.”
“Hold still.”
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face slightly, then wiped the cream off her forehead and cheeks with the wet towel. Her whole body reacted to his touch with a surge of pleasure. She focused on the crease of concentration between his eyebrows, the impossible length of his thick lashes. He had a straight nose like that of a Roman emperor, and a beautifully shaped mouth that had drawn her attention in the past as he’d licked a speck of chocolate from his lower lip…
Heat bloomed inside her. Hormones, she reminded herself. Plus, she was totally out of her element trying to deal with all these fancy desserts and a whipped cream explosion, so it was hardly a wonder that her defenses were weakened and she was noticing things about Evan Stone that she never had before. Or hadn’t wanted to admit that she’d noticed.
His gaze met hers, the crack of energy jolting heat through her entire body. A flush burned her cheeks as she turned away from him. She forced her attention to the damage wrought by the explosion.
Watery cream dripped off the granite countertops, the stainless steel refrigerator, and spread in a pool across the tiled floor. Some of it had also splattered onto the trays of mille-feuille and Declairs, but thankfully most of the desserts had been spared.
“I hate whipped cream,” she muttered.
“Interestingly, it was a popular dessert in the sixteenth century.” Evan bent to pick up the parts of the charger and toss them into the sink. “There are recipes in the books of several Renaissance chefs about mixing cream with rosewater. It was called neve di latte or neige de lait. Milk snow.”
Milk snow. That was rather charming. So was Evan’s knowledge of the history of whipped cream, even if it was also a bit dorky. Who knew that kind of obscure fact anyway, and why?
Evan turned on the water and wet a couple of paper towels before crouching to clean the spilled cream off the floor.
“I’ll do that,” Hannah said quickly, grabbing the towels from him. “You shouldn’t get any messier. I know you’re expected to inspire some heavy bidding.”
Though she suspected Evan would inspire heavy bidding even if he was wearing a stained T-shirt, parachute pants, and sandals with socks. The Cream of the Crop bachelor auction was exactly that—the most eligible bachelors from the coastal California town of Indigo Bay and neighboring cities were going on the auction block with expensive date packages to raise money for charity.
Hannah was unsurprised that Evan Stone was one of those bachelors. Even if his aunt Julia—the massive pain in the ass—hadn’t been the coordinator of the event, Evan’s most eligible bachelorism radiated from him like heat from a light bulb.
“Aren’t you supposed to be chatting up the ladies at the VIP reception?” she asked.
“Yes.” Evan straightened and wiped the front of the refrigerator. “But I had to escape because I’m being stalked by the lovely Lucy Clements.”
“What’s wrong with lovely Lucy Clements?”
“On the surface, nothing. She’s attractive, educated, and is the daughter of a state representative. She’s very suitable.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“She’s my ex-girlfriend.” His mouth twisted. “Who claims she wants me back, even though we broke up because she cheated on me.”
“Ouch.” Hannah grimaced. “Sorry.”
Evan shrugged and tossed the paper towels into the trash. “We hadn’t been dating long, but I have no interest in dating her again. Unfortunately she has a different idea.”
Hannah couldn’t imagine why any woman would want to cheat on Evan Stone. She could, however, understand why any woman would just want him—either back or for the first ti
me. He was one of the six Stone brothers who owned The Sugar Rush Candy Company, the conglomerate that had transformed the economies of several coastal California towns, including Indigo Bay.
The company, once called Stone Confectioners, had been in the Stone family since the mid-nineteenth century, but within the last twelve years had transformed into the behemoth that threatened the biggest names in the business due in part to their focus on quality and expansion. The eldest brother Luke—Polly’s fiancé—had been responsible for Sugar Rush’s growth.
So aside from Evan’s good looks, his family was both wealthy and, by all accounts, well-respected after having overcome both business and personal scandals. Hardly a wonder that Lucy Clements was still after him.
He nodded toward the splattered desserts that sat waiting for their creamy decorations. “What are you going to do about those?”
Hannah sighed. “I’ll have to bring out my secret weapon.”
She opened the refrigerator and took out one of several cans of Reddi-Wip she’d brought along just in case. If there was anything Hannah had learned from a decade of traveling around the world, it was the wisdom of preparing for a potential emergency. In her case, an industrial whipped cream dispenser definitely qualified.
“If you tell anyone I’m using this,” she warned Evan, “the bakery will be scandalized. Polly is all about using fresh, real ingredients.”
“That’s about as real as it gets.” Evan nodded toward the can. “Remind me to tell you about my childhood whipped cream battles with my brothers. Winner got to down a full can of the stuff.”
“Ugh.” Hannah rolled her eyes and handed him a second can of Reddi-Wip. “That also sounds awful.”
“Explosions aside, you don’t like to eat whipped cream either?” Evan eyed her with mild suspicion as they started piping rosettes and swirls onto the unadorned cakes.
“I don’t like dessert,” Hannah admitted a little warily. Her uncommon distaste of dessert was often met with surprise, if not outright shock.
“At all?” Evan asked.
“Not really. I’m not a fan of sweet things.”