Page 35 of The Cake Fairies
Chapter Nineteen
POLLY
“W
e can make a start on the batter while they’ve gone,” said Alex.
What was Annabelle playing at? How could she do this to Polly? And who did Alex thinkhe was, dishing out orders in her kitchen?
HerKitchen. She ran a bakery – and apparently now a fleet of the things, didn’t he know? So help her, Annabelle was cruising for a hiding. She’d better come straight back, and she’d better have a mighty fine explanation for all of this.
“I’d rather wait for Ivy,” Polly asserted. “She’s part of my team, after all, and you’re with Annabelle.”
“You really don’t think much of me, do you?” Alex lounged against the worktop so she could better drink all of him in. Blimming heck, he was delicious, too. “I’d rather be with you, you know.” He chewed his lip seductively and Polly had to look away quickly.
“I don’t have time for games. Some of us have serious work to do.”
“Who said I’m playing?”
His undivided attention was making her feel muzzy, his self-indulgent smile was casting a spell, not just on her entire being but every implement, fixture and fitting in the darned kitchen. She decided to completely ignore him and make a start on the batter for his pesky cake. She collected flour, eggs and milk. Damn. She hadn’t written the rest of the ingredients down. What were they again? She ambled over to the coffee machine – thankfully the manual for that had been located in one of the ultra-modern drawers. She still couldn’t bring herself to understand the fascination with fiddly types of caffeine, but it gave her something to do, and it might just buy her some time. With any luck the market would have sold out of strawberries and she’d be able to turn the mixture into a perfectly adequate Victoria sponge after all. She made her coffee and tutted with the realisation that she’d now have to offer him one too.
“Please.” He nodded eagerly, those tousled buttercream waves swaying more enticingly than ever. She wondered how many women had run their fingers through them, and then promptly stopped the thought, taking measured, bitter sips from her cup.
“You can add milk, you know. That’s how I’ll take mine, if you don’t mind.”
“I can handle it neat,” she scowled.
“Whatever did I do to you in a past life, Polly?”
He couldn’t know she was from another time and place. That was impossible! She poured his brew, willing her heartbeat to stop betraying her. She’d let him stew on his interrogation. And then the stupid milk-frother jammed. Well, it would do, wouldn’t it?
“Here, let me help you.”
“I know how to work it.”
She fumbled with the handle, cursed her stupidity, scolding her little finger. She ran to the cold tap. “Okay,I don’t knowhow to work it.”
The icy water soothed the smarting pain and she dabbed at her pinkie with a tea towel.
“All part of the service.” He smiled. “Come here. I’ll let you in on the secret… in case you have any other lame guests who can only drink a latte.”
Reluctantly, she made her way back to the machine, irritated again at her ignorance of the modern-day coffee code. She wiped down his milk-encrusted cup with the tea towel, anything to take her mind off the fact that he was inching ever closer to her, then she darted back to the mixer.
Alex had placed the additional Swedish summer cake ingredients right next to the machine, so she resigned herself to the fact that she would be making this flipping cake, after all. Yes, she had to agree it had looked more than edible in that image on the foodie website. But this was not the way she’d imagined their first cake drop. Though she hadn’t had time to give it much thought. If only he knew the light years she’d travelled only forty-eight hours ago, then perhaps he’d cut her a little more slack, show some empathy for her desire to retain at least a semblance of control.
She threw everything into the large mixer with the grace of a dustbin man, then took to squinting and pursing her lips, like that might give her some inkling as to how the gadget worked.
“May I? Or will you decide you want to bite my head off?”
She shrugged her indifference and, ever the hero, Alex edged towards her, abandoning his milky coffee.
She closed her eyes briefly, unable to avoid breathing in the presence behind her. Like an intimate scene lifted out of the movies, he gently reached out in front of her for the mixer; skin lightly brushing skin, auras unavoidably entwined and running off with an agenda of their own.
Keep breathing.
“Press this button to pulse.”
How very apt when her own heart was racing.
