Bridesmaid For Hire

But that didn’t surprise him. She’d undoubtedly forgotten a great many things about him, Shane thought. And about the two of them.

Things that he couldn’t forget no matter how much he tried.

“Then Cakes Created by Cassidy is your company?” she asked him, not bothering to hide her disbelief.

Gina was having a great deal of trouble processing any of it. Not just seeing him again, but the rest of it, as well.

A cake designer? Really? Shane?

The Shane she’d known back in college had occasionally slipped her notes with drawings of the two of them at the bottom. She recalled that he liked to draw. But back then the only thing he was capable of doing in the kitchen was opening the refrigerator door.

How had he gone from kitchen illiterate to a master baker?

“It’s catchy, don’t you think?” Shane asked. There was a touch of pride in his voice that she found hard to miss now.

“More like incredible,” she admitted.

“That’s a word I usually hear after someone has sampled one of my cakes.” Before she could say anything, Shane changed the conversation’s direction. “When you walked in, you said something about coming here to order a wedding cake.”

She was almost grateful to him. It was as if he had snapped his fingers, getting her out of her mental haze and forcing her to focus on the reason she had come here in the first place. The sooner she stated it, the sooner she could get away.

“Right.” She took out the paper that Theresa had given her. The cake’s specifications were written in the woman’s rather striking handwriting. She focused on it now. “I need to have this cake made and delivered to the Blue Room at the Bedford Hilton Hotel by two o’clock.” Pointing to the line on the paper, she said, “I need it by that date. That’s in three weeks.”

He didn’t bother looking at the paper. “I know when it is—”

“Good then.” She left the paper on the counter for him. “You can send the bill to—”

“—and it’s not possible,” Shane said, completing his sentence.

Caught off guard, she stared at him, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”

“I said that it’s not possible,” Shane repeated in the same quiet, calm voice.

“What do you mean it’s not possible?” Gina demanded. “I’m giving you three weeks’ notice.”

“I know,” Shane responded, unfazed. “And I’m booked solid.”

Was he bragging? Okay, she’d let him have his moment. All things considered, he deserved it. She had never wished him ill. She looked around, noticing for the first time that there were framed photographs on the walls. None of him, she noted, but of some of the cakes he had created.

The one that caught her eye was amazingly constructed in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. How did someone even begin to do that? she wondered, stunned.

She looked at Shane, utterly impressed. “You’re doing well, I see.”

Shane nodded and replied without a trace of bravado, “Very well, thanks.”

“And I’m happy for you,” she told him—and she meant it, aside from attempting to get on his good side for the sake of her client. “Surely you can squeeze in one more cake.”

She couldn’t read the expression on his face. But there was no misunderstanding his words. “No,” he replied flatly. “Sorry.”

Chapter Four (#uf3b324b6-ac13-5ead-a258-20852b7b1262)

He couldn’t be serious, Gina thought.

“But it’s just one cake,” she argued, unable to believe that Shane, or whatever he chose to call himself these days, couldn’t find a way to make this important cake a reality. “It’s not even anything especially elaborate, like that tower or bridge,” she said, gesturing at the photographs of cakes he had made. “Just a lot of tiers and your signature swirl around the edges.” Theresa had told her that Sylvie insisted on the swirls.

But Shane remained steadfast and shook his head again, turning her request down. “Sorry.”

He wasn’t sorry at all, Gina thought. This had to be his way of getting back at her after all this time. Well, she had no intentions of having her client wind up paying for something that she had done a decade ago.

“Why won’t you do it?” she asked. She knew that if she came back and told Sylvie that she wasn’t able to get her cake for the wedding—failing so early in their association—the bride was just going to fall to pieces and most likely fire her. This was becoming a challenge for her. “What if I pay you twice the amount that you normally charge?” Gina proposed. “Will you find a way to do it then?”

But Shane remained unmoved. “Sorry, Gina. You’re going to have to just find someone else to bake your cake for your big day.”

Was that it? Did he think that she was asking him to make her wedding cake? Gina was quick to set him straight. “The cake isn’t for me.”

“Right,” Shane replied sarcastically. “It’s for everyone at the reception.” He’d heard that approach before.

“Well, technically, yes,” Gina agreed. She was right, she thought. Shane did think she was asking for him to bake her wedding cake. She could see how he felt that she was rubbing salt into his wounds, even after all this time. “But if you don’t make this cake, in less than three weeks, there is going to be one unhappy bride who will be having a nervous breakdown because she is going to feel that her big day is just crumbling all to pieces right in front of her.”

Gina saw something in Shane’s eyes that she couldn’t quite make out, and then he shrugged, unmoved. “I’m sorry but there’s nothing I can do for you, Gina. I’m booked solid. You’ll just have to eat someone else’s cake at your wedding.”

A fresh wave of guilt washed over her. Had she hurt him that much? Over the years, when she couldn’t locate him, she’d talked herself into believing that he really hadn’t cared.

But he had, she realized.

“It’s not my wedding, Shane,” she told him quietly.

About to go back into the kitchen area and send out one of his assistants to usher her out, Shane stopped and turned around again.

“Wait, what?” he asked. Was she lying, trying to get him to agree to create one of his signature cakes for her, or was she being truthful?

“I said it’s not my wedding,” Gina repeated, slowly enunciating every word.

This didn’t make any sense to him. Shane was accustomed to having the bride—usually accompanied by the groom—be the one who placed the order for the cake. And this was only after an unusual amount of deliberation and questions, not to mention cake sampling, took place. If Gina wasn’t the bride, then what was she doing placing the order for the wedding cake?

“All right,” he said gamely. “Whose wedding is it?” he asked.

“The bride’s name is Sylvie Stevens,” she answered, adding, “Right now, quite honestly, the groom’s name escapes me.”

Most of the miscellaneous thoughts that usually resided in her head had all inexplicably vanished, leaving her to fend for herself. The reason for that was because she had run into Shane in the least likely place she would have ever thought of seeing him. In a shop that he apparently owned and operated as a creative baker. All of this had left her practically incoherent and totally unprepared to deal with any of this.

“This Sylvie Stevens,” Shane said, picking up on the bride’s name, “is she a relative of yours?”

There was no doubt about it. Shane felt as if he was groping around in the dark, trying to find the door so he could get out.

He was fairly certain that he had met all of Gina’s relatives during the time that they had been together. As he recalled, it wasn’t that big a family. He knew he would have remembered someone named Sylvie.

“No—” Gina began.