Finlay asked her about the article and she admitted it was only half written. She thanked him for his help and was about to hang up, anxious to complete the piece for Harvey and get on with preparing herself to meet Donny, when a thought crossed her mind.
‘Is Imogen going to visit Boui-Boui this week, do you know?’
Finlay West sucked his teeth. She could almost hear him shaking his head on the other end of the line. He lowered his voice when he replied. ‘Imogen is a proud young woman. That’s not a good thing. Even worse: she comes from a family that’s not known for its common sense.’
Trudy smiled at that. She could imagine Bill scowling reluctant agreement.
Her computer notified her of an incoming email. It was an untitled message from Daryl. There was a huge attachment on the email and Trudy guessed it was one of the muffin pictures she had requested.
‘Imogen worries,’ Finlay explained. ‘She thinks, if she goes to her father’s restaurant, it will look like she’s taking the first step towards reconciliation. It’s not that she doesn’t want a reconciliation. It’s just, it’s obvious to her that Hart’s in the wrong.’
Trudy nodded to herself. She had thought as much. Imogen and Bill didn’t seem to have much in common but the pair shared a family trait of stubbornness so severe that it bordered on being pathologically self-destructive.
‘Could you ask her to call round on a day when Bill isn’t in the restaurant? Thursday, Friday or Saturday. I’d love to chat with her.’
‘I can ask her,’ Finlay said. His tone of voice said he thought it unlikely Imogen would accept such an invitation. ‘Why is this so important to you?’
She was quiet for a moment, collecting her thoughts. When she did reply her voice was softer but more serious. ‘Bill’s a nice man,’ she explained. ‘I like him and, although he hasn’t said anything specifically to me about it, I get the impression he’s been very upset by losing contact with his daughter. He’s missing out on seeing her and he’s not getting to see his grandson growing up.’
‘Hart can make all of this up to her if he wants,’ Finlay broke in.
She stopped herself grinning. Finlay sounded like he was defending Imogen. She admired his loyalty and chivalry to his employee.
‘This is true,’ Trudy admitted. ‘He could make it all up to her, if he wanted. But, as you say, neither he nor Imogen are known for their common sense. If it’s possible, I’d like to help Bill and Imogen start talking again.’
Finlay was silent. After a moment’s consideration he asked, ‘Does Hart know how lucky he is to have you in his life?’
Trudy thought of that morning in the kitchen.
Her backside had been reddened. Bill had been clutching her hips tightly as he took her rudely from behind. When his length had been filling her, pushing deep into the darkest confines of her sex and then erupting in a delicious explosion of satisfaction, it had proved to be the perfect start to the day. Even though she was now alone in her office, and had said nothing about the incident, she blushed at the idea of thinking about something so personal while she spoke with Finlay.
‘I think Bill and I are lucky to have each other,’ she told him.
She thanked Finlay again for his help, reminded him to mention her invitation to Imogen and, as soon as she had finished the conversation, got back to writing the article.
It was not a difficult task.
Before speaking with Finlay, Trudy understood she was simply telling the story of how she’d had an idea for a flavour of muffin, and she was giving the reader a loose description of the journey she’d travelled trying to identify that flavour.
There had been mistakes along the way. The first batch had been calamitously inedible: too much spice and not enough muffin. In the fifth batch she’d forgotten to include coffee in the coffee-flavoured muffins. Bill had laughed at that batch and suggested they called them ‘de-coffee-nated’ muffins. Because it was such a ridiculous oversight, Trudy could understand his mirth. One batch, a batch with more cloves than any other spice, had smelled like hospitals. They hadn’t bothered tasting those.
She had tried variations in the muffin components. Double cream made the blend too firm and the results were too crumbly. Regular milk made for a mix that was too light for the heady flavours she wanted to use. Trudy had eventually settled on buttermilk for a balanced light sponge.
Even though the journey to find the flavour had finally proved successful, Trudy reached the end of the article and frowned. She was sure the piece needed something more but she didn’t know what. If she’d been presented with a newspaper or magazine this story wasn’t the sort of thing she would have chosen to read.
But she couldn’t explain why.
She opened her emails and revisited some of the links Harvey had sent through. He had said the articles would show her something about the style and structure of the writing, but Trudy wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
Rather than looking at what the celebrity chefs had published, Trudy considered the other pieces. She didn’t want to come across as someone who was copying her idols. She wanted to be seen as someone original. The first article she read was a piece about an actress who was trying to negotiate childcare and filming schedules: she had a film due out later that month. The second story came from a politician, a female MP, writing wittily about the weary processes of government.
While Trudy enjoyed reading both pieces, neither gave her the inspiration she needed to finish the piece she had written. She drummed her fingers on the desk. Admittedly, they both seemed complete in their way, and relevant to the person writing. But Trudy couldn’t think how she could get anything from them for her own article.
She checked the email that had just arrived from Daryl and saw, as she’d suspected, it was a proof photograph of the coffee and pumpkin-pie-spice muffin.
It looked glorious.
The muffin was torn in two and resting on a polished white plate beside a cup of inky black coffee. The muffin’s light sponge interior sparkled with dewy crystals of demerara sugar. The image resolution was so high Trudy could see the pinprick remnants of pumpkin-pie spice within the sponge. The picture was so clear she thought she could almost reach into the screen and touch the pastry.
Trudy acknowledged that part of the reason why the picture looked so impressive was that Daryl was a skilled photographer. She’d managed to get the light at the perfect angle. She’d used an appropriate close-up lens. And she’d staged the scene so that the muffin looked at its most appetising.
But Trudy was also aware that another reason why the muffin looked so splendid was because it genuinely was a glorious creation. The coffee and demerara sugar had combined to darken the sponge’s exterior to the colour of old gold. She swallowed and realised, without exaggeration, the image was genuinely mouth-watering.
She grinned.
If she added the picture to the article, and included the basic muffin recipe, she knew the piece would be complete. Ten minutes later the picture and the completed text were emailed to Harvey. She finished her cooling Earl Grey with a satisfied smile.
Harvey responded with a quick phone call to say he’d received the file and the picture. ‘All I’m missing now is a headshot from you.’
‘A headshot?’
‘A picture of your face. Something that can sit at the top of the article so that the reader knows what you look like.’
Trudy considered this and promised she would see what she could find. There was one image on her phone, a picture Daryl had taken, which Trudy thought showed her in a flattering and natural light. It was a picture that Bill had wanted to have on his phone, and one that she’d kept safe on her mobile. She found the image file and sent it through to Harvey. Checking her watch she saw it was almost lunchtime and, so far today, she had done no work on behalf of the company she owned.
Charlotte knocked at her door.
Trudy called for her to come in, and then realised that she’d locked the door half an hour
earlier. Annoyed with herself, she climbed out of her chair, unlocked the door and ushered Charlotte inside.
‘You’ll need to be setting off soon, hon.’ Charlotte looked apologetic as she explained, ‘You’ve got that meeting with the bastard.’
The bastard? Trudy decided Donny’s new nickname was appropriate.
‘What time am I supposed to be meeting him?’
‘Daryl can fill you in on the way. She’s driving you down there in my car. She’s going to stay as chaperone while the pair of you talk.’
‘You’re not coming?’
‘No.’
She said the word shortly, but there was the suggestion that more needed to be said. Had Donny said that Charlotte wouldn’t be welcome at negotiations? Had he said he never wanted to see her again? Not wanting to make her friend endure the discomfort of such a conversation, Trudy nodded, grabbed her coat and told Daryl she was ready.
Chapter 9
Daryl sat behind the wheel of Charlotte’s sporty Audi convertible. It was midnight black with strips of polished chrome gleaming from a recent wax. Despite Daryl’s reputation for being unfocused, she was a competent driver and handled the busy town-centre traffic easily. She kept her speed sensibly within the limits and wouldn’t let herself be distracted by anything.
Sitting silently beside her, watching the world flow by, Trudy didn’t think she could be in better company. Charlotte, she knew, would have been anxious if she’d been in the vehicle. Worse, she thought, Charlotte’s nervousness would have been infectious. It would not have been possible to distract her with questions about the weekend’s edition of Master Baker or any of her other favourite topics of conversation. Charlotte would have been chewing on her nails, impatiently tapping her foot and constantly asking unanswerable questions like ‘What do you think he wants?’ and ‘What do you think he’ll say?’
They were questions that Trudy refused to brood on, just yet.
She was going to go to the meeting. She was going to find out what Donny wanted. And then she was going to find some way of addressing his demands. Even though she no longer liked having to deal with Donny, Trudy figured this would be the best way of resolving the matter.
At least, she hoped it would.
She wanted to believe the situation would soon be behind them but a part of her suspected, knowing Donny’s penchant for causing upset and trouble, he wouldn’t make it so easy for them.
‘Am I OK to ask a personal question?’
Trudy snatched her gaze away from the stretch of town-centre high street. The roads were lunchtime busy and the Audi was stuck in a long queue of cars waiting to get into a multi-storey carpark. The sounds of idling engines were muted to a background drone beneath the babble of busy shoppers. Trudy had been looking at a row of shops. They were all basking in the noonday sun and filled to bursting with customers. She had been wondering if Sweet Temptation could support a retail outlet on the high street. Online sales appeared to be going well, from what Charlotte had been saying. If sales continued with their current expansion rate it would not be long before they needed to employ a couple more bakers to help cope with the increasing demand for Sweet Temptation pastries. Trudy thought it would be exciting to expand the business into a local pâtisserie. And, she thought, the Sweet Temptation logo would look just perfect above the small double-fronted empty shop they were currently crawling past.
Trudy shook the speculation from her thoughts, aware that Daryl had just asked a question. ‘Can you ask a question? Of course you can. What do you want to know?’
‘It’s about yesterday. At the restaurant. But it’s personal.’
Trudy nodded again and insisted she was fine with personal questions.
‘Were you OK with that photo shoot?’
Trudy’s brow creased into a frown. ‘The photo shoot at Boui-Boui?’
‘Yeah. Were you OK with that?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be? It was just someone taking pictures of Bill.’
‘But you and Bill are together, aren’t you? Despite him being so much older than you, I mean. You’re like a couple. A couple with a huge age difference.’
That was tactful, thought Trudy.
She wondered if she should mention the remark to Bill when she saw him in the evening. She had to stifle a laugh at the thought of his face turning crimson with outrage. It would be prudent and politic, she figured, to not mention the comment.
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘We’re together.’ With only a little grit in her voice she said, ‘And, apart from the age difference, we’re just like a real couple.’ She stopped herself dwelling on that detail. ‘But it was only a photo shoot. Did you think I’d be worried by the models?’
‘There were some really hot women there,’ Daryl said wistfully.
Her smile was momentarily far away. Her eyes had the glassy expression of someone locked in a blissful daydream. Trudy recognised the expression as the one she often wore when thinking about the things she could do when she was alone with Bill. It wasn’t until a car behind them honked its horn that Trudy realised Daryl had briefly lost her focus on the stationary traffic.
Daryl waved an apology and set off into the multi-storey. She was silent for the first two floors as she drove past rows of cars and a worrying absence of spaces. It was only when they reached the third floor that she resumed their conversation as though they hadn’t been interrupted.
‘Some of those models were really exciting,’ Daryl admitted. ‘I got chatting with a couple of them after the photo shoot. I’m seeing two of them tonight.’
‘Seeing two of them?’ It was difficult for Trudy to keep the incredulity from her voice. ‘You don’t mean seeing in the Biblical sense, do you?’
Daryl found a space and parked the convertible. She turned the engine off and turned to face Trudy. ‘I’m just seeing them for drinks,’ she admitted. Then added, ‘Unless either of them are up for a little fun.’ Her grin broadened and she added, ‘If both of them are up for some action then I might be a little late in to work tomorrow morning.’
It was more information than Trudy needed. She didn’t need to think of Daryl’s naked lissom body being pressed between a pair of nubile topless models. It was one of those images that was unwanted and darkly exciting. Shaking her head in disbelief, she said coolly, ‘The answer to your question is a resounding “No”. It didn’t trouble me to see Bill being photographed with those models. I accept that being photographed with models, topless or otherwise, is a part of him being a celebrity. I’m OK with that.’
Daryl nodded but she still looked a little puzzled. ‘I only asked because I thought you and Bill were into heteronormative relationships? I thought you were all about the magic of monogamy. If I’d known you were cool with the group scene I’d have tried to get myself an invitation to your Boui-Boui love cottage one weekend to maybe try and be the slice of meat in a Bill and Trudy sandwich. Maybe I should call in on the pair of you one Sunday?’
Trudy considered this comment in silence.
She sometimes found it difficult to understand the things Daryl said – and sometimes she wished she did. This was one of those rare occasions when there were parts she didn’t get and parts that sounded dangerously clear. Had Daryl just suggested visiting Boui-Boui for a threesome one weekend? How the hell was she supposed to respond to that? This was definitely a comment she wouldn’t be sharing with Bill.
Trudy stuttered for a moment before finding the right words for a response.
‘I don’t think I know what heteronormative means,’ she admitted. ‘But I suppose I am a firm believer in monogamy. I’m a very firm believer in monogamy.’ She wondered if she needed to stress that point any further, then figured she had made it sufficiently clear. Deciding it would be best if she simply ignored Daryl’s suggestion, she asked, ‘Why would you think that my beliefs in monogamy might make a difference to what happened at the photo shoot?’
‘Those women were all topless,’ Daryl reminded her. She lowered her
voice to a conspiratorial whisper and said, ‘They were touching Bill. Beatrice was all over him like a rash.’
Beatrice, Trudy remembered, was the blonde with pierced bellybutton and the yin-yang tattoo on her shoulder. At the time of the photo shoot Trudy had thought Beatrice was a little too tactile. Hearing Daryl say the same thing made her feel as though her fears hadn’t been fuelled by paranoid jealousy.
Making a deliberate effort to appear nonchalant, Trudy shrugged. ‘It was just a photo shoot. He’s not forging a relationship with any of them. They were just posing together. To be honest, he didn’t look like he was enjoying it that much.’
Daryl laughed and climbed out of the car. ‘You’re so chill about this sort of thing. This is why I like working with you. Nothing fazes you. Not even your bloke getting felt up by a half-dozen near-naked horny sluts.’
Trudy got out of the car and fell into step alongside Daryl as they walked towards the carpark’s exit sign. The air was muggy with petrol fumes. The sound of car engines was amplified to a threatening scream by the hollow acoustics of the multi-storey. The exhaust-dirtied walls were scratched with vibrant, menacing graffiti. And, now that the meeting was getting closer, Trudy’s nervousness was beginning to make itself felt. She could have argued with Daryl’s suggestion that nothing fazed her. Right now she felt extremely fazed. Right now she simply wanted to turn around and climb back into the car and drive away to somewhere safe.
They stood in a concrete stairwell outside closed lift doors. Daryl pressed for the lift and Trudy shuffled from one foot to the other as they waited.
Her mouth was suddenly dry.
Her pulse was racing.
She forced herself not to repeatedly curl her hands into fists. They were already aching from the exertion of flexing and unflexing. She’d kept all thoughts of this meeting from her mind on the journey but now her nervousness was taking over.
Turning Up the Heat Page 8