The elevator came to a jarring halt, and she closed her eyes. Gabe was everywhere. Kissing her neck. Running his fingers across her collarbone. Gripping her buttocks as he pressed his erection into her hot center. His body creating a delicious friction that sent her careening over the edge. She blinked her eyes open and released the emergency stop. The elevator resumed its ascent, and she rested her forehead against the wall.
That part of your life is over.
While she had nothing to show for her time away from Langley Park, Gabe Sinclair had made it big. The first time she’d seen him on television, she thought she was dreaming. But there he was, demonstrating how to make an apple strudel, of all things, on national TV.
The only thing Oma had ever mentioned about Gabe over the last twelve years was during their first telephone conversation four days after she’d left Langley Park. She had just arrived in Paris, and the permanence of her situation had hit her like a one-two punch. She’d asked about him. She couldn’t help herself. Once she saw the Eiffel Tower, all she wanted to see next was Gabe standing beside it with a picnic basket in his arms. The only thing Oma told her about Gabe was that he too was pursuing his dreams. She’d had no idea he had become a world class chef until she saw him smile into the camera a few years ago and that damn dimple melted her heart.
Their lives had gone in opposite trajectories. She had started at the top and had fallen spectacularly, while he started at the bottom and worked his way up to stardom.
The last she’d seen of him was in some tabloid magazine. He’d been spotted on the streets of Paris with some young model.
Anger, frustration, and humiliation wound themselves around her heart, squeezing and tormenting her. It’s what she deserved, right? She had left him for greener pastures. It was karma’s perfect recipe that left her a penniless nobody, and him, a well-to-do rising star in the culinary world.
The doors to the elevator opened and a sea of people talking and laughing filled the area around the entrance to the labor and delivery wing of the hospital. Monica kept her head down and weaved her way to the nurses’ station.
“I’ve got a cupcake delivery for the two women who went into labor during their wedding.”
The nurse looked up from her computer screen. “Yes, Donna just called up. It looks like they’re both in room four seventeen at the moment.”
Monica nodded and headed down the hall. She found the room and stared at the door. “I’m back to being the bakery delivery girl,” she mumbled. But what the hell else was she qualified to do?
She removed the cupcakes from the bag and opened the lid. The new parents wouldn’t need the bakery’s box and bulky bag crowding the room. She set the discarded items against the wall and lifted out the tray liner. She paused and listened to the low hum of voices and the sound of the babies’ sweet coos coming from inside the room.
She plastered a smile to her lips but kept her gaze on the cupcakes. She balanced the tray in one hand, knocked once, then opened the door. “I don’t mean to interrupt. I’m from the bakery. The baker, my grandmother, heard both brides went into labor. The events director from the gardens called and said you didn’t get to have any of your cake, so my grandmother wanted you to have these.”
The murmurs of conversation stopped, and Monica looked up. Her gaze locked onto a woman in one of the hospital beds with chestnut brown hair.
The woman’s face lit up. “Junior kids’ camp counselor, Monica Brandt, is that you?”
Monica gasped. “Lindsey Hanlon!”
Monica had met Lindsey during that summer she’d worked at the rec center. She had liked Lindsey from the start, and, even though Lindsey was two years her senior, the two had quickly struck up a friendship. Lindsey wasn’t from Langley Park. She’d been sent to stay with her godmother in town for the summer and didn’t know anyone, and Monica was in the same boat. No kids from Sacred Heart or All Saints worked. Their summers were already filled with yachting and European adventures.
Lindsey gave her a bright smile, and her gaze flicked up to a man holding a baby swaddled in a pink blanket. “I’m Lindsey Kincade now.”
Monica stared at the man holding the baby, and a shot of recognition passed through her. “You married Brad Pitt and Justin Timberlake’s lovechild! Congratulations!”
Monica met Lindsey’s eye, and the women laughed. Lindsey had married one of the rec center’s dreamiest camp counselors, Nick Kincade. Monica had given the handsome, brooding Nick the Pitt-Timberlake moniker, and it still applied today.
Nick gave her an amused nod, but his attention was quickly pulled back to the bundle in his arms.
Monica glimpsed around the room. She didn’t recognize the woman with fiery red hair and piercing blue eyes in the hospital bed next to Lindsey. But as she took another look, she nearly dropped the tray of cupcakes on the floor. Gabe’s brother, Sam, and his cousin, Michael stood there. Michael had a baby in his arms wrapped in blue.
They all looked so happy, so content, so settled. They were delivering babies, and she was delivering cupcakes. Shame and embarrassment twisted her gut.
“When did you get back to Langley Park? I didn’t hear you were coming home,” came a woman’s voice.
Monica turned to see Gabe and Michael’s friend, Zoe Stein. The petite brunette looked different. Back in high school, Zoe had a funky style with a pink-tipped bob haircut and a snarky, endearing attitude. Now, it was her warm gray eyes that took center stage.
Zoe walked across the room and sat on the corner of Lindsey’s bed. “Monica grew up in Langley Park. She and Michael’s cousin, Gabe, used to—”
But before she could finish, the door to the room swung open. Monica turned to see who was there, and the breath caught in her throat.
12
Gabe rubbed at a kink in his neck, shifted his shoulder bag to his other side, and tried to muster an ounce of enthusiasm as he stared at the door to room four seventeen. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be here. He loved his cousin. He couldn’t be happier that Michael was now a husband and a father. But the last twenty-four hours had been a complete shitshow. On top of his outburst at Bread and Vine going viral, his fucking flight had been delayed. He’d landed in Kansas City five hours late and was met by a barrage of pissed off texts from his brother.
Where the fuck are you?
Wedding started 5 minutes ago.
Nix going to the gardens—Em’s gone into labor. Just meet us at the hospital.
Babies are here. Everyone is fine. WHERE ARE YOU, BRO? Maybe if this was an interview on some food network you could have made it on time!
After last night’s fiasco, he didn’t need this shit. He hadn’t wanted his flight to be delayed. Would it have been smarter to fly in a day early? Probably. Things had been so tense with Sam over the past few years, the last thing he wanted to do was spend the night in his childhood home with his brother.
Thank Christ he didn’t have to deal with his father. After he’d moved to New York, his old man had sold the moving company and left Langley Park. His dad now lived in Arizona with a woman he’d met online. At first, the whole thing sounded sketchy as fuck. But several years later, his father and Sheila were happily growing cacti and doing whatever the hell people do in Arizona. He checked in with dad every few months. The man was happy, and he couldn’t fault him for that.
Gabe pulled his gaze from the hospital door and glanced down at his phone. He’d texted Eddie, but he hadn’t heard back.
He knew the reason.
Leo Russo.
According to an email from Corbyn, Chef Russo had informed the Bread and Vine staff that he would be running the show until Chef Sinclair’s return. The sous chefs were under strict orders to maintain radio silence. Until he returned, Chef Russo was in charge of every aspect of Bread and Vine.
Gabe’s skin prickled with agitation. The kitchen had been his entire world. When he wasn’t filming a spot or guest judging a cooking competition, the kitchen was the only place he found
solace. If he could have set up a cot in his office at Bread and Vine without looking like a complete lunatic, he would have done it. His sterile Tribeca loft was too quiet, and the sickening silence became the nesting ground for all his insecurities. He was at the top of the culinary world, but that wasn’t enough to chase away the memory of the woman who had rejected him.
You were never good enough for her.
You’ll always be that pathetic paperboy watching her from afar.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Reminders of Monica were everywhere in this damn hospital. He tried to push the memory of their kiss in the elevator out of his mind, but all he could picture was that sunflower dress as he inched the fabric up her thighs and thrust his cock against her. He inhaled. He exhaled. Even over the disinfectant aroma of hand sanitizer and hospital astringent, he could smell her warm apple-cinnamon scent.
He rolled his shoulders like a prize fighter preparing to enter the ring, put on his best happy face, and opened the door. “I’m here. I’m so sorry I’m late. My flight from New York got delayed.”
He glanced around the room. His cousin’s wife, Em, was saying something, but he couldn’t concentrate on her words. Standing smack in front of him and looking as beautiful as the first time he had ever laid eyes on her was Monica Brandt.
Christ, he wasn’t prepared for this! What the hell was she doing here? He figured she was off married to some billionaire, lounging on the deck of a luxury yacht off the coast of Monaco. Isn’t that where most supermodels ended up?
He met her gaze. He needed to say something, but his mind had gone blank. Here he was, a chef who could manage the chaos of a bustling kitchen with military precision, but he couldn’t put two words together if his life depended on it.
He was drowning—drowning in her blue eyes. The same damn eyes that haunted his dreams. She held his gaze, and everything faded away. The hospital. The people. Even his self-doubt dissolved into thin air. Being close to Monica made everything seem possible. He was like an artist reunited with his muse. Everything in his world was brighter until her gaze darkened.
Monica held a tray of pink and blue cupcakes. She set it down and picked up a pink one. It was a strawberry lemonade cupcake. He was sure of it. He could picture the ingredients for the buttercream frosting: unsalted butter, sitting on the bakery’s butcher block table coming to room temperature. Strawberries, sliced and drying on sheets of paper towels. Halved, juicy lemons waiting to be squeezed, and all that powdered sugar, white as fresh, fallen snow.
Monica narrowed her gaze, raised the cupcake, and smashed the little fucker into his face. While the room had already quieted at his entrance, now it seemed no one was breathing. Even the babies were silent.
He stood there, utterly dumbfounded. Before he could say or do anything, Monica turned away from him. She tossed the crushed cupcake into the waste bin and rubbed the crumbs off her hands.
She pasted on a plastic smile. “Congratulations on your weddings and your new babies.”
Monica was trying to hide it, but he could hear the shake in her voice.
Without another word, she turned on her heel and left the room.
Gabe wiped a glob of frosting from his cheek and found six pairs of adult eyes trained on him. He glanced at the babies, swaddled and silent in their father’s arms. Even the newborns seemed to sense some heavy shit just went down.
He tried to play it cool, but that was hard as fuck to do covered in strawberry buttercream. He grabbed a tissue from a box on the table, made a few swipes across his face, then resurrected his version of the plastic smile. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
He opened the door and caught sight of Monica racing toward the elevators. He ran down the hall behind her. The doors were just about to close, but he was able to squeeze in before they shut.
Her eyes widened. A cross between rage and shock flashed across her face. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? How about we start with the cupcake you just smashed into my face for no good reason!”
Monica jammed her finger into the button for the lobby. “Oh, I have my reasons.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” he said under his breath.
The doors opened to the lobby, and she was off again.
Those goddamn perfect, long-as-fuck legs switched from a walk to a run as she powered through the hospital’s main entrance and sprinted through the parking lot.
Dammit!
He picked up his pace. It wasn’t easy running with his travel bag slapping against his thigh with each stride, but that pathetic paperboy who still lived inside him would not let him stop running.
She sprinted down the Boley Lake trail like a thoroughbred hitting its stride. He was right on her tail as she veered off the path and entered the botanic gardens. It may have been over a decade, but he remembered each twist and turn of the place. Monica passed the pavilion, and he knew where she was going. A wave of heartbreaking nostalgia swept over him.
Why would she go there?
What fucking mind game was she playing at?
Monica weaved her body through the blue spruce and disappeared into a veil of blue-gray needles. He pushed through the branches and skidded to a stop in front of her. The space had remained virtually unchanged. The same crumbling stone bench sat with a backdrop of the prairie gold aspens fluttering in the breeze. He stared at her. She responded by crossing her arms like she needed an extra layer of armor. He tried to meet her gaze, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“Why did you come here, Monica? Why did you come to our place?”
He heard the catch in his voice. It took everything he had not to glance down at their initials that he would bet his life were still carved into the trunk of one of the aspens mere inches away from where they stood.
“This was my place first,” she said in a tight, angry whisper.
Her words cut straight to his heart. They raked over him like a bed of rusted nails.
She brushed her jet-black bangs to the side. Dried tear stains trailed down her cheeks. “You love seeing me like this, don’t you? Back in Langley Park. Stuck in my grandmother’s bakery. Admit it!”
Over a decade’s worth of hot, writhing anguish built up, layer upon layer, in his chest like a geyser about to blow. “I don’t know the first goddamn thing about your life, Monica! I have no fucking clue why you’re so mad! You left me, Monica! You. Left. Me.”
“You never tried to find me,” she said on another tight whisper. But this time, the words were laced with pain instead of fury.
He took a step toward her. “Neither did you. I spent years working myself like a dog. Sixteen, eighteen hours a day in the kitchen perfecting my skills, doing fucking anything to distract myself from thoughts of you! Do you know what it felt like to read that Dear John letter and then to have to sit across from your grandmother while all I wanted to do was find you, to make you try and see I never wanted to hold you back.”
She shook her head, a brutal twist of her neck as if the action alone could shield her from his words. She lifted her head and met his gaze. Her eyes burned into him. “From what I’ve seen on television, it looks like I did you a favor. You’ve got everything.”
Frustration and fury pounded in his chest. “I don’t have everything.”
The words spilled out of him like a confession. He took another step forward and cupped her face in his hands. His mind screamed for him to stop. He didn’t need her approval. He had risen to the top on his own. His brain rattled off a million reasons why he shouldn’t touch her, why he shouldn’t breathe in her scent, why he shouldn’t trace his thumb across the soft skin of her bottom lip. In the battle between head and heart, he’d gone rigid, wound tight, a spring ready to snap.
He stared into her eyes. Her fiery gaze thawed, and a switch flipped inside him.
He crashed his lips against hers, and the heat between them ignited like wildfire. Burning hot and violent, he slid his hands into Monica’s hair and c
hanged the angle of their kiss. She parted her lips, and his tongue thrust in deep, sharp, wantonness blows. He wasn’t sure if he was worshiping her mouth or battling against it.
She released a low moan. The same sweet, breathy sigh he had swallowed with kisses a million times over during their summer together. His cock hardened as it reacted to her touch, her scent, her taste—and fuck, those sounds. With each hum of pleasure, a streak of primal victory tore through him. She gripped the fabric of his shirt, and he slid his hand down her back and pulled her body flush with his. Her soft curves met his hard edges in perfect symmetry.
He lowered his hand and gripped her buttocks. Christ, he’d missed wrapping his fingers around her sweet ass. Monica’s breaths came in tight gasps. She released his shirt and wrapped her arms around him. Her fingers twisted the hair at the nape of his neck, sending raw bolts of lust rocketing down his spine. She circled her hips and rubbed against his cock. The heated friction of their connection left him wanting more, wanting all of her, wanting her right here, right now.
In the blink of an eye, he was eighteen again, sliding his cock inside her for the first time, feeling her hot, wet center grip his hard length. He could hear the shift and rustle of the sleeping bag beneath them. He could see her beautiful face gazing up at him through the candlelight as he thrust inside her.
He kissed a line along her jaw and licked the shell of her ear.
“Gabe,” she whispered. The world floated around them, dancing between the aspen leaves.
He pulled back. He needed to look at her. He needed to see if the girl he had loved was still in there, but she kept her eyes closed.
“Open your eyes, Mon.”
She shook her head as a tear cascaded down her cheek.
“Please,” he whispered.
Monica released a shaky breath but kept her eyelids shut.
He stroked his thumb along her jawline. Every one of her curves fit his touch. He wanted to gather her into his arms and never let go. The heat of her body, the plumpness of her lips, they called to him like a sweet lullaby.
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 90