Bridesmaid For Hire (Matchmaking Mamas Book 23) Read online

  “I am unwinding,” Gina informed him. Being here with him like this was having an oddly tranquilizing effect on her, she realized. She had gotten past the tense, nervous stage with him, so that was a good thing. “Right now, what I need most is a friendly face.” She smiled at him. “You qualify.”

  Setting the small delicate cup back in its saucer, she looked around the showroom. It was just the two of them out front, although she did hear the sounds of activity coming from the back area where all the baking was done.

  “Where’s Ellie?” Gina asked him. “I expected to see her out here.”

  He could see why she would have thought that, given what he’d told her about why he had gone into this line of work to begin with.

  “I needed to concentrate this morning so I gave Ellie a choice of going to preschool or staying home with Barbara,” he said, referring to Ellie’s nanny. “She picked Barbara—big surprise.”

  Gina put her own interpretation to his explanation. “Ellie doesn’t like going to school?”

  “Ellie loves learning new things well enough—as a matter of fact, she likes reading her storybooks to me. What she doesn’t like is having to follow rules. She finds them ‘not fun,’” he said, quoting his niece. “I guess she thinks they’re too confining.”

  “Wonder where she gets that from,” Gina said, doing her best not to laugh. She didn’t succeed.

  He looked at Gina in surprise. “Hey, I followed rules.”

  “Funny, I seem to remember you cutting classes and talking me into cutting them, too, so that we could spend the afternoon just hanging out together.”

  Shane shrugged. “That was a unique set of circumstances,” he told her. “And besides, I was a kid then.”

  “You were twenty,” Gina reminded him. “And Ellie’s only four,” she added as if that explained why the little girl was acting rebelliously in his eyes.

  “Oh, but at four I listened to the adults in my life.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Gina replied. “I didn’t know you when you were four. You could have been a hellion at that age,” she teased.

  “Well, I wasn’t,” he told her. “I was a quiet, mousy kid back then. Ellie’s nothing like that,” Shane pointed out. And then he looked concerned. “Ellie’s so smart for her age, there are times she sounds like an adult trapped in a little person’s body. She worries me,” he confessed. “There is such a thing as being too smart.”

  He was serious, Gina realized and tried to reassure him. “Not if she has someone looking out for her, guiding her.”

  “You’re talking about me,” he concluded.

  “No, I’m talking about my imaginary friend, Sam,” Gina said, gesturing about at the empty air. “Of course I’m talking about you. Hey, you’re kind, patient, creative and have a very level head on your shoulders. If you ask me, I’d say that Ellie’s future couldn’t be in more excellent hands.”

  Shane waved her words away. “There’s no need to flatter me, Gina. I’ve already agreed to create this cake for your client’s wedding.”

  She was insulted that Shane thought she would do that. “I’m not flattering you,” she said with an edge in her voice. “I’m telling it like it is.”

  Shane raised a brow, looking at her. She could feel herself squirming inside. She always did whenever Shane looked at her that way.

  He was getting to her and she needed to hold it together. She didn’t want him feeling that she was coming on to him in his workplace. Shane had kissed her, and she’d kissed him back. Twice. He had to know how she felt about him. The next move was up to him and she had a feeling it wouldn’t happen here, in his place of work. Not with his people only a few steps away in the back. They were liable to walk in at any second.

  “You said something about sampling the wedding cake you created,” Gina prompted, looking toward the back where she assumed he had it.

  “Right.” He rose again, nodding toward the back area. “It’s in the back. Let me go get it.”

  “I’ll be here,” she told him cheerfully.

  The second Shane left, she whipped out her small mirror from her purse and quickly looked herself over. Gina winced. He was right. She looked as if she’d been fighting off dragons for the last forty-eight hours. Damage control involved doing a quick pass through her hair with her comb and freshening up her fading lipstick.

  She barely finished the latter when she heard Shane returning to the showroom.

  Throwing the lipstick back into her purse, she deliberately straightened in her chair as if assuming better posture helped somehow.

  Gina thought she would just be sampling a slice of cake. She wasn’t prepared for what he brought out. It was a complete, detailed miniature wedding cake like the one he proposed to make for the actual event.

  Nor did she expect to be totally blown away by it. The cake was comprised of five tiny tiers, arranged to look like wedding gifts piled one on top of another. The “gifts” came with ribbons made out of what she assumed was intricately decorated icing. There was also a cascade of pink roses, also made out of icing, spilling down one side of the “gifts.”

  Visually, it was incredible.

  “It’s beautiful,” Gina whispered to him in utter awe. “A total feast for the eyes,” she added, looking up at Shane.

  “All right, so it looks good,” he responded. “But the true test here is how it tastes.” Cutting a slice of off-white chiffon cake for her from the bottom, he slid it onto a plate. She noted that the filling had cherries in it. Shane handed the plate to her along with a fork. “Tell me what you think.”

  “What I think is that it’s a sin to cut up such a work of art and put it into my mouth,” she told him honestly.

  “Then you’d be missing out on the best part—provided that everything turned out the way it should,” Shane added. He nodded toward the plate. “Tell me what you think,” he repeated.

  “I think you could give humble lessons to the florist,” Gina responded.

  “Not interested in the florist,” he told her, dismissing the man. “I’m interested in what you think of the cake.”

  She expected to like the cake. After all, she had already had some of his pastries—more than she should have, she knew, but they were very difficult to resist. She assumed the same would be true of the cake Shane had created for Sylvie’s wedding. It would be delicious.

  Delicious was a paltry word in this case.

  The moment she slid the fork into her mouth, Gina knew that the bar of her expectations had been set much too low. This was by far better than anything she had thought it would be. There was an explosion of magnificent taste in her mouth.

  She sat there, taking in a deep breath as she savored what was in her mouth.

  “Well?” Shane prodded gently when she hadn’t said anything.

  Gina looked at him. Rather than answer, she took another forkful and put it into her mouth. Her lips closed over it, savoring the exquisitely seductive dance that was occurring on her tongue.

  She swallowed and smiled. “What I think is that you are definitely in the right business. I also think that my tongue is in love.” She eyed her plate, tempted to stuff the rest of it into her mouth. It took effort to restrain herself. “Where did you ever learn how to do this?”

  He shrugged dismissively at the implied compliment. “You can’t help picking up things along the way if you keep your ears open. So, you really like it?” Shane asked again, just in case Gina thought she had to be nice and wasn’t being totally straightforward.

  “Like it?” Gina repeated. “This cake is a whole new reason to get married.”

  The second the words were out of her mouth, she realized what she had said and the memories that those words could very well have unearthed.

  Idiot!

  Clearing her throat, Gina tried to walk her words back. “I mean—”
r />   Shane held up his hand to stop the apology he knew was coming before she could attempt to form the words for it.

  “That’s all right, Gina, I know what you meant. Thanks.” He smiled. “It’s good to know you liked it.”

  “You don’t need me to verify your efforts,” she told him. “You know you’re good.”

  “I know I try to be good. But there have been failures. And just because something works for me doesn’t mean that it’s going to work for someone else—visually or taste-wise,” he added.

  “So I’m your test guinea pig?” Gina asked with a laugh.

  “I wouldn’t exactly refer to you as that,” Shane told her. “But I can’t very well ask anyone who works for me to give me their ‘honest’ opinion because I sense that they’re afraid if I don’t like what they say, I’ll terminate them.”

  He wasn’t like that and she knew it, but she decided to tease him a little. The situation had grown far too serious. “Would you?”

  “Of course not,” Shane told her with feeling, and then shrugged. “But you can’t change the way people think. And anyway, what I wanted was the opinion of someone who had it in them to be brutally honest—like you.”

  Gina blew out a breath. The remark stung. She hadn’t expected that. But there was no sense in getting defensive about his comment, even though it really bothered her that that was the way Shane thought about her.

  “I guess I had that coming,” she allowed.

  Shane saw the look on her face. He’d said too much, he thought.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he told her. “I meant that you’re not afraid of saying what you think.”

  She drew back her shoulders, unconsciously bracing herself for what might be coming. “I’ve also learned that saying the first thing that pops into my head is something that I had to temper because it wasn’t always what I really wanted to say.” Her eyes met his. “I did pay a price for that. I think I already told you that.”

  She needed to leave, Gina thought. Now, because she was afraid that she might say something she was going to regret again. Either that, or just break down in tears. Neither was something she wanted Shane to see or hear.

  Gina rose to her feet then. Picking up her purse, she slid the strap onto her shoulder, securing the purse with a tug.

  “Your wedding cake exceeds any expectation I had and I’m sure that Sylvie will say the same thing. Don’t change a thing—about the cake,” she emphasized, looking at him pointedly.

  Shane silently upbraided himself. The tight rein he had kept on his emotions while being around Gina all this time had slipped and he had allowed those hurt feelings he’d been suppressing all this time to come spilling out. And he didn’t feel any better by doing it; he just felt worse.

  “Gina—” he began, trying to find a way to apologize for allowing his pettiness to take over.

  She was already at the entrance, one hand on the doorknob. All she wanted to do was get away. “I forgot I promised the bride I’d see her today and give her a progress report on everything.”

  He knew that was an excuse. Shane tried again. “Gina—”

  The corners of her eyes were stinging. She had to get out of there before she broke down. She kept her face averted.

  “I’ll give her a five-and-a-half-star rating out of five for your cake. That’ll make her very happy,” she told Shane as she hurried out the door.

  Moving quickly, Gina got into her car. She slammed the door just as she heard Shane coming out of his shop. He was coming for her.

  Gina gunned the engine. He was going to try to apologize, or maybe say that one bad turn deserved another, she didn’t know. In either case, she didn’t want to hear it.

  Most of all, she didn’t want to let him see her crying. Crying was a sign of weakness and she had sworn to herself that she wasn’t going to be weak. Not ever again. She’d made her apologies and he really hadn’t taken her at her word.

  Fine. She needed to move on now.

  No matter how much she wanted to be with him, her rejection—her stupidly worded, baseless rejection—would always be there between them and he was never going to let her forget it.

  Well, what was done was done and she was through trying to atone for it.

  It was time to forget about him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had been a long, grueling day. At one point, Gina didn’t think that it would ever come to an end. She’d even seriously entertained the idea of throwing up her hands and quitting, but in her heart she knew she couldn’t do that. Quitting would have gone against everything that she was.

  But she had to admit that the idea was nonetheless awfully tempting.

  Sylvie had needed a great deal of hand-holding today. Her latest client had gotten into an argument with her maid of honor last night and hurt feelings were still very much alive and well today. Monica had actually threatened to hand in her title and her gown and be a no-show at the wedding.

  The cause of the argument was so petty, Gina couldn’t even get the two women to talk about it. Nevertheless, through sheer grit Gina had managed to get them to patch things up. It had taken her the better part of four hours to smooth things out and to get the two women to call a truce. She embarrassed them into realizing that they would be sacrificing one of the most important days in not just Sylvie’s life, but in Monica’s, as well.

  “Mine?” Monica cried in a shrill voice. “How can it be mine?”

  “Because not everyone gets to be asked to be a maid of honor,” Gina informed the woman in a voice that bordered on no-nonsense. “There’s a lot of unspoken love that goes into making that choice. You don’t want to allow an inconsequential argument to make you lose sight of that, do you?”

  Using that, and similar arguments, Gina managed to intimidate both women into calling a truce.

  After she got the two women to grudgingly agree with her, they wound up crying and made up. And then Sylvie and Monica celebrated making up. Gina, being instrumental in making them resolve their differences, perforce had to remain for that part, as well. The women had insisted on it.

  It was close to eight o’clock by the time Gina was finally able to pull into her parking spot. Getting out of her car, she crossed the parking lot and made her way to her ground-floor apartment.

  She didn’t see Shane sitting in front of her door until she was almost on top of him. By then it was too late for her to retreat unnoticed.

  He had obviously been waiting for her for a while now. The second he saw her, Shane scrambled to his feet, his body partially blocking access to her door.

  Gina’s fingers tightened around her keys, momentarily at a loss as to what to do. She raised her chin defensively. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.” Shane was tempted to leave it at that, but that didn’t begin to explain what had forced him to come here in the first place. So he told her the truth and completed his answer. “Thinking of all the different ways to tell you I’m sorry.”

  No, damn it! She wasn’t going to allow herself to let him into her life again. She’d finally talked herself into putting him out of her thoughts. She couldn’t go back to square one again.

  Why was he doing this to her?

  But he was just standing there, looking at her. Waiting for her to say something.

  Almost grudgingly, Gina asked in a stilted voice, “Where’s Ellie?”

  “She’s home,” he answered. His smile was self-deprecating. “I asked Barbara to watch her at double her rate. When I got to triple, she was more than happy to accommodate me and stay. Even told me to take all the time I needed.” Shane’s expression turned serious as he looked at her. “I figured I’d need a lot of time.” He searched her face, looking for some indication that he had some small, slight chance of making amends. He nodded at the door. “Gina, can I come in?”

&nb
sp; She knew she should say no. Knew she should tell Shane that they had nothing to talk about and just send him on his way.

  Turning from Shane she almost said it, almost told him to go.

  But then she unlocked her door and walked into her apartment. She left the door standing open behind her.

  He took the open door as consent on her part. Grateful, he walked into the apartment behind her.

  Easing the door closed once he’d crossed the threshold, Shane repeated his apology. “I’m sorry that things got out of hand today. I didn’t mean for them to—”

  Gina swung around to face him. Her face was a collage of all the mixed emotions churning within her. “You’ve been back in Bedford, what, three years now?” she asked, cutting into his apology.

  “Yes,” he replied, never taking his eyes off her face.

  He saw anger creasing Gina’s forehead as she asked him in an accusatory voice, “Why didn’t you look me up when you came home?”

  “I didn’t think you wanted me to,” he explained haplessly.

  “You didn’t know what I was thinking,” she countered. “You never gave me the option of telling you.” She was struggling to keep contained the anger that had been unearthed in the aftermath of what had happened in his shop today.

  She could actually feel it growing, swelling in her chest. Seeking release.

  He needed to phrase this right, Shane thought, searching for the right words. He didn’t want this to turn into another argument. He hadn’t come here for that. He’d come for forgiveness.

  “Maybe it hasn’t really occurred to you yet, but by the time I came back, my whole situation had changed. It wasn’t just me anymore. I was responsible for the care and welfare of a little human being. I was then and I am now,” he emphasized. “And I felt that if you didn’t want me when I was alone, I knew you wouldn’t want me with a little kid to raise. I couldn’t stand to hear you turn me down again.”

  Gina had fisted her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing not just at what Shane had said but at the terrible waste that had been created because of all the miscommunication that had gone down.