Every time his foot slapped the pavement a hot flash of pain radiated from his cut and caused every atom in his body to ache. It was the morning after almost kissing Ellie, and he was dripping with perspiration and panting like a dog.
He placed his hand against his side and winced. He shouldn’t be running, he knew that, but running was his escape, his sanity, his meditation. And, thinking about things he shouldn’t be doing, kissing Ellie was top of the list. Why was he so tempted by his blue-eyed hostess? Especially since he’d quickly realised that she wasn’t into simple fun and games, wasn’t someone he could play with and leave, wasn’t a superficial type of girl. And he didn’t do anything but superficial.
But there was something about her that tweaked his interest and that scared the hell out of him.
He started to climb the hill back home and—dammit! He hurt. Everywhere. Suck it up and stop being a pansy, he told himself. You’ve had a heart transplant—a cut and a beating is nothing compared to that!
Jack pushed his wet hair off his forehead and looked around. Good Lord, it was beautiful here...the sea was aqua and hunter-green, cerulean-blue in places. White-yellow sand. Eclectic, interesting buildings. He was lucky to be here, to see this stunning part of the world...
Brent never would.
Brent never would. The phrase that was always at the back of his mind. Intellectually he knew it came from survivor’s guilt—the fact that he was alive because Brent was dead. In the first few months and years after the op he’d been excited to be able to do whatever he wanted, but he knew that over the past couple of years the burden of guilt he felt had increased.
Why? Why wasn’t he coming to terms with what had happened? Why wasn’t it getting easier? The burden of the responsibility of living life for someone else had become heavier with each passing year.
The mobile he’d borrowed from Ellie jangled in his pocket and he came to an abrupt stop. Thankfully he was back at Ellie’s place. He didn’t think he could go any further.
‘So, what do you think of Ellie?’ Mitchell said when Jack pushed the green button on the mobile and held it up to a sweaty ear.
‘Uh...she’s fine. Nice.’
She was...in the best sense of the word. A little highly strung, occasionally shy. Sensitive, overwhelmed and struggling to hide it. Sexy as hell.
‘So, have you talked to her about me yet?’
Jack lifted his eyebrows at Mitchell’s blatant narcissism and felt insulted on Ellie’s behalf.
‘Ellie’s well, but over-worked. Her bakery is fabulous; she’s running it on her own as her mum is overseas,’ he said, his tone coolly pointed as he answered the questions Mitch should have thought to ask.
‘Yeah, yeah... But how far have you got with the book? Did you get my e-mail? I sent it just now.’
His verbal pricks hadn’t dented Mitchell’s self-absorbed hide. Jack wished he could reach into the phone and slap Mitchell around the head. Had he always been so self-involved? Why hadn’t he noticed before? Jack sighed and looked at his watch. It wasn’t quite seven yet. Far too early to deal with Mitchell.
‘Firstly, my laptop is still in Somalia, and, contrary to what you think, I don’t hover over my laptop waiting for your e-mails,’ Jack said as he made his way into the house, up the steps and into his room. Jack heard Mitchell splutter with annoyance but continued anyway. ‘And, by the way, why did you teach Ellie such crude Arabic insults when she was a little girl? They are, admittedly, funny as hell, because she gets them all mixed up, but really...’
‘She still remembers those, huh?’
Jack pulled his T-shirt over his head, walked into the bathroom and dropped it into the laundry basket. Yanking a bottle of pills out of his toiletry bag, he shook the required daily dosage into his hand, tossed them into his mouth and used his hand as a cup to get water into his mouth.
Those pills were his constant companions, his best friends. He loved them and loathed them in equal measure.
‘And why did you tell Ellie that I’m helping you write this book?’
As per normal, Mitch ignored the questions he didn’t want to answer. ‘So, have you spoken to Ellie yet about me?’
‘No. The woman works like a demon. I haven’t managed to pin her down yet.’ Jack frowned. ‘And she’s not exactly jumping for joy at the prospect.’
Mitchell didn’t answer for a minute. ‘Ellie and I have had our ups and downs...’
Ups and downs? Jack suspected that they’d had a lot more than that.
‘She didn’t like me being away so much,’ Mitchell continued.
Jack rolled his eyes at that understatement. As he walked over to the window his eye was caught by two frames lying against the wall, behind the desk in the corner. Pulling them out, he saw that they were two photographs of a younger Ellie and a short blond man in front of the exclusive art gallery Grigson’s in London. Jack asked Mitch who the man in the photograph was.
‘Someone she was briefly engaged to—five, six years ago.’ Jack heard Mitchell light a cigarette. ‘She wanted to get married. He didn’t.’
Jack felt a spurt of sympathy for the guy. He’d had two potential-to-become-serious relationships in the past ten years and they’d both ended in tears on his partner’s face and frustration on his. They’d wanted him to settle down. He equated that to being locked in a cage. He’d liked them, enjoyed them, but not enough to curtail his time or freedom for them.
‘Jack? You still there?’ Mitchell asked in his ear.
‘Sure.’
‘I spoke to most of our commissioning editors today and told them that you’ve been injured. They will leave you alone for three weeks. Unless something diabolical happens—then all bets are off,’ Mitchell stated.
That was enough to yank his attention back, and fast. Jack felt his molars grinding. ‘You do know I get very annoyed when you interfere in my life, Mitchell?’
Mitchell, never intimidated, just laughed. ‘Oh, get over yourself! You haven’t taken any time off in two years and we all know that leads to burnout. You’ve been flirting with it for a while, boyo.’
‘Crap.’
‘If you don’t believe me, check your last couple of stories. You’ve always been super-fair and unemotional, but there’s a fine line between being unemotional and robotic, Jack. You are drifting over that line. Losing every bit of empathy is every bit as problematic as having too much.’
‘Again...crap,’ Jack muttered, but wondered if Mitchell had a point. He remembered being in Egypt six weeks ago and watching a paramedic work on a badly beaten protester. He’d been trying to recall if he’d paid his gas bill. Maybe he was taking the role of observer a bit too far.
‘I’m going to courier you my notebooks, my diaries,’ Mitchell told him. ‘Get some sun, drink some wine. But if you don’t get cracking on my book...’
Mitch repeated the most gruesome of Ellie’s Arabic curses from the night before and Jack winced.
Jack tossed the mobile onto the bed, slapped his hands on his hips and stared at the photographs he’d replaced against the wall. Ellie... Maybe he should think about leaving, and soon. Almost kissing her last night had been a mistake...
Sure, he was attracted to her—she was stunning; what man wouldn’t be? If she was a different type of girl then he could have her, enjoy her and then leave. Unfortunately he wasn’t just physically attracted, and he knew that mental attraction was a sticky quagmire best avoided. And, practically, while Mitch wouldn’t win any Father of the Year awards he might not approve of them hooking up, and he didn’t want to cause friction between him and his subject, mentor and colleague.
Ellie, with her cosy house and settled lifestyle—the absolute opposite of what he liked and needed—was also far more fascinating than he generally liked his casual partners to be. Because fascination always made leaving so much harder than it needed to be.
* * *
‘Morning.’
Ellie jumped as he entered the kitchen, looking tough and rugged and a whole lot of sexy. She could see that his hair had deep red highlights in the chocolate-brown strands. He’d scraped off his beard and the violet stripes under his eyes were almost gone. He did, however, still have that glint in his eyes—the one that said he wanted to tear up the bedcovers with her.
Ellie cursed when she felt heat rising up her neck.
‘Can I get some coffee?’
Jack’s question yanked her out of her reverie and she nodded, reaching for a mug above the coffee machine to give her hands something to do.
‘You’re up early,’ she said when she’d found her voice.
Jack took the cup she handed him and leaned against the counter, crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘Mmm. Good coffee. I went for a run this morning along the beachfront. It was...absolutely amazing. It’s such a beautiful part of the world.’
‘It is, but should you be exercising yet?’
‘I’m fine.’
Yeah, she didn’t think so—but it was his body, his choice, his pain. Ellie shook her head, picked up her own cup and sipped. She echoed his stance and leaned against the counter. Tension swirled between them and Ellie thought she could almost see the purple elephant sitting in the room, eyebrow cocked and smirking.
Maybe it would be better just to get it out there and in the open. But she couldn’t get the words out... How she wished she could be one of those upfront, ballsy girls who just said what they felt and lived with the consequences.
She was still—especially when it came to men—the shy, awkward girl she’d been as a teenager.
Jack’s eyebrows pulled together. ‘The wariness is back in your eyes. Why?’
‘Uh...last night. Um—’ Oh, great. Now her tongue was on strike.
Jack, no slouch mentally, immediately picked up on what she was trying to say. ‘The kiss that never happened?’
Ellie blushed. ‘Mmm.’
‘Yeah—sorry. I said I wouldn’t hit on you and I did.’ His tone didn’t hold a hint of discomfort or embarrassment.
Ellie bit the inside of her lip. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. Actually, she had no idea what she’d thought he’d say. The purple elephant grinned. ‘I just... It’s just that...’
Jack scratched the underside of his jaw and looked at her with his gold-flecked eyes. ‘Relax, Ellie,’ he said. ‘It won’t happen again...’
Ellie lifted her eyes to meet his and swallowed. In his she could read desire and lust and a healthy dose of amusement...as if he could read her thoughts, understand her confusion.
‘Well...’ he drawled as his finger gently pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen over her left eye. ‘Maybe I should clarify that. I’ll try not to let it happen again. You’re very, very kissable, Ellie Evans.’
Ellie’s eyes narrowed. She might not be the most assertive person in the world but that didn’t mean he could look at her with those hot eyes and that smirky expression. Or presume that whatever happened between them would be solely his decision. Ellie narrowed her eyes, gripped the finger that had come to rest on her cheek and bent it backwards.
Hating personal confrontation, but knowing she needed to do this for the sake of her self-respect, she took a deep breath and forced the words out. ‘There’s only one person who will decide what happens between us and that will be me—not you.’
Jack grimaced and yanked his index finger out of her grip. He shook his finger out and sent her a surprised look. But, gratifyingly, there was an admiration in those hazel eyes that hadn’t been there before and she liked seeing it there.
Jack sent her an approving smile. ‘Good for you. I was wondering if you could stand up for yourself.’
Ellie narrowed her eyes. ‘When I need to. No casual kissing.’
‘Can we do non-casual kiss...?’ Jack held up his hands at her fulsome glare. ‘Joke! Peace!’
‘Ha-ha.’ Ellie rolled her shoulders. ‘Would you like to go to work for me today?’ she asked, blatantly changing the subject. ‘I could do with a day off.’
‘Okay—except my sugar icing and sculpting skills are sadly lacking. I can, however, make a mean red velvet cake.’
Ellie lowered her cup in surprise. ‘You can bake?’
Ellie thought she saw pain flicker in his eyes. When he spoke his voice was gruff.
‘Yes, I can bake. Normal stuff. Not pastries and croissants and fancy crap.’
Fancy crap? Well, that was one way to describe her business.
‘Who taught you?’ Ellie asked, openly curious.
‘My mother.’
Ellie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Sorry, I can’t quite picture you baking as a kid. On bikes, on a sports field, camping—yes. Baking...no.’
Jack placed his cup on the counter and turned his face away from her. ‘Well, it wasn’t from choice.’
He sipped his coffee and when he looked at her again his face and eyes were devoid of whatever emotion she’d seen. Fear? Anger? Pain? A combination of all three?
This time it was Jack’s turn to change the subject. ‘So—breakfast. What are we having?’
Ellie looked at her watch and shook her head. ‘No time. I need to go. I was supposed to be at work an hour ago.’
Jack shook his head. ‘You should eat.’
‘I’ll grab something at the bakery.’
Well, she’d try to, but she frequently forgot. There just wasn’t time most days. Ellie sighed. One of these days she’d have to start eating properly and sleeping more, but it wouldn’t be any time soon. Maybe when Merri came back she could ease off a bit...but she probably wouldn’t.
After all, she had a business to save.
Ellie looked at Jack, who was pulling eggs and bacon out of her fridge. Her mouth started to water. She’d kill for a proper fry-up...
Ellie pulled her thoughts away from food. ‘So, I’ve given you keys to the house and I’ve just paid the deposit for you to hire a car. It should be delivered by eight so you won’t be confined to the house any more.’
‘The receipt for the deposit?’ Jack sent her a level look.
Ellie rolled her eyes. He was insistent that she kept receipts for everything she spent so that he could repay her. ‘In the hollow back of the wooden elephant on the hall table. With all the others.’
The annoying man wouldn’t even allow her to buy milk or bread without asking for a receipt.
‘Thanks.’
Jack slit open the pack of bacon and Ellie whimpered. She really, really didn’t have time. She picked up her keys and bag, holding her chef’s jacket in one hand.
‘Pop down to the bakery later. I’ll show you around. If you want to,’ she added hastily.
Jack’s smile had her melting like the gooey middle of her luscious chocolate brownies.
‘I’ll do that. See you later, then.’
Ellie bravely resisted the arc of sexual awareness that shimmered between them and sighed as she walked out of the kitchen.
In your dreams, Ellie. Because that was the only place making love to Jack was going to happen.
And even there her heart wasn’t welcome to come to the party. Her heart, she’d decided a long time ago, wasn’t allowed to party with anyone any more.
* * *
Later, dressed in denim shorts, flip-flops and an easy navy tee, Jack slipped through the front door of Pari’s and looked over Ellie’s business.
There were café-style tables outside, giving patrons the most marvellous view of the beach while they sipped their coffee and ate their muffins, and more wrought-iron tables inside, strategically placed between tables piled with preserves and organic wines, ten different types of olive oil and lots of other jars and tins of exotic foods with names he barely recognised. The décor was bohemian chic—he’d noticed that before—and all effortlessly elegant. Huge glass display fridges held a wide variety of pastries and cakes, and in another layer thick pink hams, haunches of rare roast beef and dark sausages.
It looked inviting and happy, and there was a line of people three deep at the wide counter, waiting to be served. The place was rocking, obviously extremely popular, and Jack suddenly realised what effort would be needed to move the bakery. If Ellie could find a place to move it to...
‘Jack!’
Jack whipped his head up and saw Ellie approaching a table in the back corner of the room, a bottle of water in her hand. A good-looking couple sat at the table and Ellie motioned him over. Jack threaded his way through tables and people and ended up at the table, where a fourth chair was unoccupied.
‘Paula and Will—meet my friend Jack. Take a seat, Jack,’ Ellie said.
After shaking hands with Will, Jack pulled out the chair and sat down.
‘I’m just about to chat to them about their wedding cake, but before we start does anyone want coffee?’ Ellie continued.
Jack wasn’t sure why he was sitting in on a client consultation, but since he didn’t have anything better to do decided to go with the flow. He ordered a double espresso and noticed that Will was frowning at him.
‘Do I know you?’ Will asked, puzzled.
This was one of the things he most liked about Cape Town—the fact that people hardly recognised him. While he wasn’t famous enough to attract paparazzi attention in the UK, his face was recognisable enough to attract some attention.
‘I have one of those faces,’ he lied.
Ellie sent him a grin. ‘I’m just going to run through some ideas with Will and Paula, then I’ll show you around.’
She placed her notebook on the table and switched into work mode, outwardly confident. Jack listened as the couple explained why they now wanted a Pari’s cake—their cake designer had let them down at the last moment—and watched, amazed, as Ellie took their rather vague ideas and transformed them into a quickly sketched but brilliantly drawn concept cake. He sampled various types of cake along with the couple, and when they asked for his opinion confirmed that he liked the Death by Chocolate best. Though the carrot ran a close second. Or maybe the fudge...
If he hung around the bakery more often Jack decided he’d have to add another couple of miles to his daily run to combat the calories and the cholesterol.
Ellie watched her clients go as she gathered her papers and shoved a pencil into the messy knot of hair behind her head.
‘Today is Monday. Their wedding is on Saturday. I’m going to have to do some serious juggling to get it done for them.’ Ellie rubbed her hand over her eyes.
‘So why are you doing it, then?’ Jack asked, curious.
‘They are a sweet couple, and a wedding cake is important,’ Ellie replied.
‘Sweet? No. But they sure are slick.’
Ellie looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
She might be confident about her work but she was seriously naïve when it came to reading people, instinctively choosing to believe that people put their best foot forward.
Jack leaned his forearms on the table and shook his head. ‘El, they were playing you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘They decided to come to you for their wedding cake—but it wasn’t because their cake designer let them down. They knew there was no chance you’d make their cake at such late notice if they didn’t have a rock-solid reason and they appealed to the romantic in you.’
‘But why would you think that? I thought they were perfectly nice and above-board.’
‘She doesn’t blink—at all—when she lies, and his eyes slide to the right. Trust me, they were playing you.’
‘Huh...’ Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Are you sure?’
Of course he was. He’d interviewed ten-year-olds with a better ability to lie. ‘So, what are you going to do?’
Ellie stood up and shrugged. ‘Make them their cake, of course. Let’s go.’
Of course she was. Jack sighed as he followed her to the back of the bakery. She was going to produce a stunning, complicated cake in five days and their guests would be impressed, not knowing how she’d juggled her schedule to fit it in.
‘I’m beginning to suspect you’re a glutton for punishment,’ Jack told Ellie as she pushed through the stable door leading to the back of the bakery. And a sucker too. But he kept that thought to himself.
She threw a look at him above her shoulder. ‘Maybe—but did you notice that they didn’t ask for a price?’
He hadn’t, actually.
‘And that order form they signed—at the bottom it states that there is a twenty-five per cent surcharge for rush jobs. Pure profit, Jack.’
Well, maybe not so much of a sucker.
Ellie walked over to a stainless steel table and tossed her sketchpad onto it. She scowled at the design they’d decided on. ‘There’s a standard surcharge for rush jobs,’ she admitted. ‘But I really don’t need the extra profit.’
‘And now you’re angry because they played you?’ Jack commented.
‘I was totally sucked in by Paula’s big blue eyes, the panic I saw on her face. Will played his part perfectly as well, trying to reassure her while looking at me with those help me eyes!’
‘They were good. Not great, but good.’
‘Arrgh! I need the added pressure of making a wedding cake in five days like I need a hole in my head!’
‘So call them up and tell them you can’t do it,’ Jack suggested.
That would mean going back on her word, and she couldn’t do that. ‘I can’t. And, really, couldn’t you have given me a heads-up before I agreed to make their damn cake?’
Jack cocked his head. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know! You’re the one who is supposed to be so street-wise and dialed-in... Couldn’t you have whispered in my ear? Kicked my foot? Written me a damn note?’
Jack’s lips quirked. ‘My handwriting is shocking.’
‘It is not. I’ve seen your writing!’ Ellie shoved her hands into her hair. Her shoulders slumped. ‘Useless man.’
‘So I’ve been told.’ He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, his expression suddenly serious. ‘Sorry. It never occurred to me to interfere.’
She looked at him, leaning back against the wall, seemingly relaxed. But his eyes never stopped moving... He hadn’t said anything to her because he was an observer. He didn’t get involved in a situation; he just commentated on it after the fact. She couldn’t blame him. It was what he did. What journalists did.
She would have appreciated a heads-up, though. Dammit.
Ellie heard a high-pitched whistle and snapped her head up, immediately looking at the back section of the bakery, where the production area flowed into another room. Elias, one of her head bakers, stood at the wide entrance and jerked his head. Something in his body language had Ellie moving forward, and she reached her elderly staff member at the same time Jack did.
‘What’s wrong, Elias?’ Ellie asked when she reached him.
Ellie felt Jack’s hand on her lower back and was glad it was there.
Elias spoke in broken English and Ellie listened carefully. Before she had time to take in his words, never mind the implications, Jack was also demanding to know what the problem was.
‘One of the industrial mixers is only working at one speed and the other one has stopped altogether,’ she explained.
‘That’s not good,’ Jack said.
‘It’s a disaster! We have orders coming out of our ears and we need cake. Dammit! Nothing happens in the bakery without the mixers... Elias, how did this happen?’
Elias shifted on his feet and stared at a point behind her head. ‘I did tell you, Miss Ellie...the mixers...they need service. Did tell you...bad noise.’
Ellie scrubbed her face with her hands. He was right. He had told her—numerous times—but she’d been so busy, feeling so overwhelmed, and the mixers had been working. It had been on her list of things to do but it had kept getting shoved to the bottom when, really, it should have been at the top.
Ellie placed her hands over her face again and shook her head. What was she going to do?
When she eventually dropped her hands she saw that Elias was walking out of earshot. Jack had obviously signalled that they needed some privacy. He placed his hands on the mixer and lifted his eyebrows at Ellie.
‘Dropped the ball on this one, didn’t you?’ he remarked.
Ellie glared at him, her blue eyes laser-bright. ‘In between juggling the orders and paying the staff and placing orders for supplies, I somehow forgot to schedule a service for the mixers! Stupid me.’ She folded her arms across her chest as she paced the small area between them.
‘It was, actually, since this is the heartbeat of your business.’
Did he think she didn’t know that? ‘I messed up. I get it... It’s something I’m doing a lot of lately.’
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking about how you’re going to fix the problem,’ Jack snapped.
She felt the instinctive urge to slap him...slap something.
‘You can indulge in self-pity later, but right now your entire production has stopped and you’re wasting daylight.’
His words shocked some sense into her, but she reserved the right to indulge in some hysterics later. ‘I need to get someone here to fix these mixers...’ Ellie saw him shake his head and she threw up her hands. ‘What have I said wrong now?’
‘Priorities, Ellie. What are you going to do about your orders?’
‘You mean the mixers,’ Ellie corrected him.
Jack shook his head and reached for the paper slips that were stuck on a wooden beam to the right of the mixers. ‘No, I mean the orders. Prioritise the orders and get...what was his name...Elias...to start hand-mixing the batter for the cakes that are most urgent.’
That made sense, Ellie thought, reluctantly impressed.
Ellie took the slips he held out and a pen and quickly prioritised the orders. ‘Okay, that’s done. I’ll get him working on these.’
Jack nodded and looked at the mixers. ‘Are these under guarantee or anything?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Got a toolbox?’
‘A toolbox? Why? What for?’
‘While Elias starts the hand-mixing I’ll take a look at these mixers. I know my way around machines and motors. It’s probably just a broken drive belt or a stripped gear.’
‘Where on earth would you have learnt about machines and motors?’ Ellie demanded, bemused.
‘Ellie, I spend a good portion of my life in Third World countries, on Third World roads, using Third World transportation. I’ve broken down more times in more crappy cars than you’ve made wedding cakes. Since I’m not the type to hang about waiting for someone else to get things working, I get stuck in. I can now, thanks to the tutelage of some amazing bush mechanics, fix most things.’
Ellie shut her flapping mouth and swallowed. ‘Okay, well...uh...there’s a basic toolbox in the storeroom and a hardware store down the road if you need anything else.’
Jack put his hands on his hips. ‘And get on that phone and get someone here to service those mixers. I might be able to get them running but they’ll still need a service.’
Ellie looked at him, baffled at this take-charge Jack. ‘Jack—thank you.’
‘Get one of the staff to bring me that toolbox, will you?’ Jack crouched on his haunches at the back of one of the machines and started to work off the cover that covered the mixer’s motor. ‘Hell, look at this motor! It’s leaking oil...it’s clogged up...when was this damn thing last serviced?’
Ellie, who thought that Jack wouldn’t appreciate hearing that she hadn’t the faintest clue, decided to scarper while she could and left Jack cursing to himself.