Naughty But Nice

by Donna Kauffman

  “Why do you think I’ve been trying to talk you into expanding your shop globally?”

  “I don’t want to run an empire. That’s your job. I want to bake.”

  “I know. I’m hardheaded, and also so out-of-my-head besotted with you, that I clearly haven’t been thinking straight. But I do listen. I do.”

  He’d said besotted—which was a lot like love. And exactly how she felt about him. Only she’d never told him. Because they didn’t talk about that. Should she tell him now? Would it make a difference?

  All she knew was that she felt better. Knowing. So she had to think he would, too.

  “I know what you mean,” she said, surprising him. “About not thinking clearly. I’m having a hard time, right now, thinking at all, because I can’t even stand the idea of not seeing you. Ever. I’m . . .” She faltered, not because she was scared to say it, but because she was scared to feel it. But silence wasn’t going to make the feelings go away. “Griffin, if anyone had told me, that morning when I found you behind the counter, that you’d consume my every waking thought, and every single one of my nights, I’d have called them crazy and offered them a cookie. But you’re right. It took one day.” She smiled. “Besotted. I rather like that word.”

  She hadn’t realized how much fear he was feeling, too, until she saw the nerves twitch as he tried to smile, but failed to sustain it.

  “What?” she asked. “Tell me.”

  “I was listening to you, Melody. All those nights that we talked. I’ve watched you work, often when you had no idea I was watching you.” His smile grew then. “I’m not always glued to my BlackBerry, you know.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said, and they both laughed.

  “There are moments, here and there,” he said, the lingering smile moving to a grin, and that light returning full force to his eyes. “I know this is what you’re meant to do. I know the joy it brings you. I’ve watched you handle your books like the overly educated shopkeeper you are, but I know you aren’t motivated by increasing your bottom line, or investing for future growth potential.”

  “If I was, I’d have already done that.”

  “I know. So I’m not asking you to think about going global with Cups & Cakes. I’m just going to ask you to consider relocating the one shop you have from this village . . . to a different one.”

  “What do you—”

  “My village, Melody. I want you to come to Dublin. We’ll find the perfect spot.”

  Her head was spinning . . . but not in panic. It was with ... excitement. She had decided against leaving Hamilton because she’d had noplace else to go that mattered to her. But Griffin mattered. Wherever he was would matter to her, too. Could she adopt a whole village? “Would the Dubliners accept me?”

  “I fell in love with you in a single day. I’m sure you’ll work your magic on them, too. One cupcake at a time, if necessary.”

  “Sugar shock them into it, you mean,” she said dryly. Her mind was still on the “I fell in love with you” part, and she basked in the heady glow of the words for a bit, even as her mind was already racing ahead, to all the possibilities. It was scary, and not a little exhilarating. The thing that made her mind up was that even though it was terrifying to contemplate uprooting not only herself but her entire livelihood, she had absolutely no doubts about being with Griffin.

  “Wait. Can I do that?” she asked. “Open a shop in Ireland? Aren’t there laws?”

  “You can work for a period of time on a visa.” He shifted back long enough to slide his hand in the pocket of his overcoat. “But you could stay forever, as my wife.” He pulled out a small ring box.

  She gasped. Okay, now she was truly hallucinating. She’d gone from dreamworld, to crazy town. In her wildest dreams ...

  “I’d thought to ask you come the new year. Time for new beginnings and all that. Or, if I couldn’t wait, which I’m pretty sure would have been the case,” he said, grinning when she smiled, “I’d have had Saint Nicholas pay us a short visit next week on Christmas. But the time came upon me sooner than I’d planned ... and I don’t want to go back without you.”

  “I don’t want you to, either.”

  “Is that ... does that mean ... will you?”

  It turned out he was quite adorable when he was flustered. She’d never once seen him lose his composure. Unless he was on top of her, making her come as he thundered through his own release. But that was different. His hopeful look claimed her heart just as fully as he’d claimed the rest of her. “It does,” she said, her smile trembling as the full force of the moment came over her.

  “You’ll have time to know for certain,” he said in a short rush. “We’ll apply for the visa and you can take that time to find the right place, and find out if you can stand having me in your—”

  So very adorably uncertain. “Griffin, I’m saying yes.” She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him. Fiercely. Possessively. And reveled in it. When they finally came up for air, she remembered . . . about the ring box. “Can I see it?”

  “Oh! Oh, right. Of course. This is brilliant!” He all but jumped and did a fist pump. She might have joined him. “Here.” He opened the box, working to get the hinge to spring free.

  “When did you get—oh, Griffin, it’s stunning. That setting.”

  “It was me mum’s engagement ring. Passed on to me.”

  “You just ... carry it around with you?” she asked, stumbling, saying anything that came into her head, until she could pinch herself and make herself believe this was really happening. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. It wasn’t big and ostentatious, which suited her just fine. “It’s so charming, and so beautifully set.” She finally lifted her gaze to his. “I’d be honored, but ... are you sure, Griffin?”

  “I had it sent to me three weeks ago.”

  “Three weeks—really?”

  “Remember the night you had to do all the cupcakes over for the Brunelli shower because—”

  “She found out it was a boy after not wanting to know, and announced it the day before the surprise shower, and her mother-in-law simply wouldn’t hear of having gender-neutral colors. Even on the cupcakes. Oh, I remember.” Melody smiled. “You stayed up half the night helping me. I was afraid you’d finally give up and walk away after that. I was not exactly a cheerful camper. But then, I’d had other plans for the night.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “I know. You came upstairs and I saw all the trouble you’d gone to—”

  “Well, we’d missed all of Thanksgiving together with everything else we were obligated to do and I just wanted something that made me feel like I had . . .” She drifted off then. She hadn’t told him her motivation behind cooking him a turkey and some of the other traditional dishes she’d always had growing up. She’d had to cater the civic center event that day, and Griffin had used the empty offices at Hamilton to run daylong conference calls back home so he could catch up on his work, uninterrupted. She’d never really felt she lacked family on that holiday as she’d usually been working the community affair and enjoyed the festive event just as much as a family dinner. Or so she’d told herself.

  But she’d missed being with Griffin that day, and watching the other families enjoy each other’s company ... had made her wistful. So she’d picked the next time they both had time free, which had been a few days later, and decided to cook him a big meal. He didn’t have to know it was her Thanksgiving. But she did.

  And then ... the great cupcake do-over had happened.

  “You wanted to create a moment, a memory, that made you feel like part of something more than just yourself. Or even a member of the community. You wanted us to have that meal, together. And I wanted that, too. You have no idea how badly.”

  She knew now, about his background. All of it. For him to want anything that resembled a family gathering . . . “Griffin, if I’d known, I’d have told Mrs. Brunelli to take her gender-neutral colors and—”

  “I sent for the ring the next day. I didn
’t know when I was going to ask for your hand, Melody, but I knew then it was just a matter of making sure you wanted it, too.”

  “We’ve never said . . .”

  He grinned. “I took a chance.”

  She grinned. “It’s about to pay off. Can I . . . ?” She nodded toward the box in his hand.

  “Let me.” He slid the ring from the aging, crushed velvet cushion, then set it aside to take her right hand.

  “It might not—it fits,” she said in wonder, as he slid it on her ring finger.

  “I might have borrowed one of your rings, just for a day.”

  She looked up from the joyful, charming antique ring adorning her finger to look at Griffin. “So, you’re telling me that Mr. Henneman knows.” He was the only jeweler in Hamilton.

  “Melody . . . everybody knows.”

  She started to ask how, then laughed at herself. She’d been so intent on keeping her little fantasy bubble intact, she’d tuned out all the chatter and gossip about what anyone thought of her and Griffin. “So . . . what’s the word?” she asked, admiring her ring as she slipped her hands up his shoulders and around his neck. “Should I have been placing bets down at Hannigans?”

  He shook his head. “The odds suck.”

  She felt a little deflated at that. “Really?”

  “Unless you were going to bet against us. Everyone thinks you’ll say yes.”

  “Oh!” She grinned then. “Well, turns out they were right.”

  He lifted her up into his arms and spun her around. “How much work is left on the Traybill cake?”

  “I finished just as you came in.” She leaned down and kissed him.

  “Perfect.”

  He scooped her up in his arms, which elicited a little squeal of surprise. She liked the caveman thing, too, as it turned out.

  He leaned over just enough so she could reach the worktable. “Grab that red one. The chocolate one, too,” he said, meaning her pastry bags.

  “Why?” she asked, even as she leaned down and snagged them both.

  “I thought we could start planning the wedding cake design a little early.” He turned and headed up the back stairs. He bumped them through the door and didn’t stop until she was in the middle of her bed.

  She hadn’t had the chance to make it since they’d left it earlier that morning. The linens were in a heap, and the pillows were still arranged in the way he’d moved them under her stomach so he could—

  “Oh!”

  He’d slipped her surgical pants down and had started to create his own version of a rose ... on her inner thigh.

  “Damn,” he said. “That didn’t come out right.” He leaned down and caught her eye as he licked it off. “Let me try again.”

  “It’s dark in here, you can barely see. You don’t know how to do roses yet.”

  “I know.” He grinned. “Lucky you.” He slid her panties off, and started another one. Right in the middle of—“Damn,” he said, seconds later.

  Her hips rose to meet his tongue. “Lucky me, indeed,” she gasped. She reached for him, but he was intent on having his way with her ... with his usual maddening, perfectly torturous, slowly wrenching thoroughness, until she was quivering, shaking, and clutching at him. “Come here,” she managed, grasping his arms as he settled between her thighs.

  “Oh, I’m coming, luv,” he said, treating her to a cheeky wink.

  Then he slid inside her, but rather than slip his arm beneath her back, and move immediately into the primal rhythm they both so easily gave themselves over to, he stayed, buried deeply, and slipped her hand from his neck, turning it palm up, where he pressed a gentle, beautifully sweet kiss in the center of it, then curled it closed, so the diamonds on her ring finger twinkled in the moonlight.

  “Ye have me heart, Melody mine. Ye’ve made me the happiest man on earth, agreeing to come back with me, to my home. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure ye never regret it.”

  “I know I won’t,” she said, caressing the side of his face, as she lifted her hips and he slid more deeply inside her. He already knew her body so well, so instinctively, she was swiftly climbing to another peak. She moved her hips beneath him, also knowing his body so well that she knew just how to take him with her.

  They kept their rhythm slow, their gazes locked, and each stroke was like a promise. As she felt him gather, he lowered his mouth to hers, to claim her in the same instant that she would claim him. She whispered against his lips, “I know I won’t, because we’re already home, Griffin. That’s always going to be wherever we are together.”

  “Then welcome home, luv,” he said, grinning as he took her mouth ... and the rest of her heart. “Welcome home.”

  Epilogue

  It wasn’t how he’d have wanted the reunion, but Griffin had been happy that Sean and his very pregnant wife, Holly, along with Trevor and Emma and their trio of rapidly growing boys, had been able to attend Lionel’s memorial service. The tribute to Lionel and the Hamilton empire had paid due respect to all he had done during his lifetime and his tenure as reigning keeper of the Hamilton legacy.

  “Who’d have ever imagined the auld codger would last another four years?” Sean said, as they settled themselves at one of the far tables in the grand resort dining hall.

  The elaborate and elegantly styled room was packed with large round, white linen-draped tables, all filled with people who’d come from the world over to pay their respects. While the mood graveside had been somber, and the attendance much more intimate, the atmosphere was decidedly more social at the resort.

  “The reins are finally passed,” Trevor added, lifting his glass toward Griffin. “Cheers to you, cousin.”

  Everyone laughed at that. Griffin had come there feeling disconnected from most of the family roots he’d left behind, only to find brand-new connections on American soil that had opened his mind, and his heart, to reestablishing old connections when he’d returned home.

  But no connection was so wonderful as the one he’d found in his marriage.

  “I just can’t believe how much Hamilton truly changed,” Melody said as she settled in next to him. “I know I saw all the plans ahead of time, but this . . .” She gestured to the room they were in, but he knew she was picturing everything beyond it. She hadn’t stopped gaping at the town since they’d flown in several days ago. “I can’t believe the difference, and in just a few years. I would never know this was my old hometown.”

  She said it easily enough, even laughed, but Griffin knew how hard it had been for her to drive the streets and no longer be able to see it as the place where she’d grown up. There was still work to be done, but it was, by far, one of Griffin’s crowning achievements. But he appreciated and understood the grief she was feeling.

  “I know,” Emma said, taking her place next to Trevor after seeing their children safely to the sitters’ suite. “I don’t recognize it either. Hard to believe I used to work here.” She looked at Sean. “Have you noticed an increase in business in Willow Creek? I’d have to think this development has created a bit of a boom for you.”

  “More than a bit,” Sean said, “that’s for certain.”

  “His cousin Mick is thinking of opening another restaurant here in Hamilton, at the resort,” Holly added. “Something maybe less traditional, with a more sophisticated menu.”

  Sean laughed. “I’m the one with the culinary pedigree, and Mick ends up running the gourmet branch of the growing Gallagher legacy.”

  Holly nudged him. “You could have done that if you wanted to.”

  “And give up Willow Creek? Not on your life.” He placed his hand over his wife’s stomach. “Or this one.”

  The women made aw sounds and took turns placing their hands on Holly’s stomach. It wasn’t the first time since marrying Melody that Griffin had thought about the eventuality of their own family, but Holly’s pregnancy brought it home to him in a far more visceral way. It surprised him just how much he wanted a child.

  It was
a testimony to just how changed a man he was, that the idea excited him almost as much as it terrified him. He thought that a perfectly normal reaction.

  “So, will you have to stay long during the transition?” Trevor asked Griffin.

  He shook his head. “We’ve had plenty of time to plan this all out. The COO has already been the de facto head here for the last three years. Nothing will change much, in house. Melody and I are only here for the services, and to sign a few papers.”

  Melody smiled. “I’m glad you ended up with the mountain retreat,” she told Emma and Trevor. “That’s where you two first met, right?”

  They glanced at each other, smiled, and nodded. “Yes. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with it,” Emma said, “but we won’t do anything right away.”

  “She has a certain room she’s dying to get into,” Trevor said, then regaled them with the story of Lionel’s secret room, which they’d found by accident during their time at the retreat, but had decided not to intrude upon.

  “It’s where he kept all of the documentation about Trudy’s past, and the agreements between them concerning her fortune, right?” Holly asked.

  It was Melody who answered. “Yes. So many secrets. Hard to believe Trudy agreed never to search for her son.”

  “We don’t know that they didn’t,” Trevor said. “But no contact was made”—he looked to Griffin—“which was a shame.”

  Griffin shrugged and slipped his arm around Melody’s shoulders. “I’ve become a firm believer that all things happen for reasons grander than we might know at the time. In the end, everyone got what they wanted most, am I right?”

  Smiling and nodding, they all lifted their glasses, though Emma and Holly reached for water glasses, rather than the champagne that had been poured for each table before they’d arrived. It took a moment for Griffin to realize that Melody had reached for water as well.

  Using his own water glass, he’d started to propose a toast, but turned to look at her instead, his glass shaking a bit in his hand. “Too early for a bit of the bubbly, luv?” he managed, not sounding remotely as casual as he’d hoped.