‘In other words, I don’t think his behaviour is particularly peculiar,’ Daryl said. ‘It’s certainly no more peculiar than the rest of you moody culinary types.’
As an explanation, Trudy knew it made sense. And, even though it wasn’t a satisfying response, she refused to let herself dwell on the problem any longer. She went to find Nicola and see how she was coping after Carlos’s unforgivable outburst.
Fifteen minutes later the desserts were finished and served. Trudy complimented Amy on the lightness of her clafoutis whilst Carlos exclaimed enthusiastically over Victor’s tulipes. Another break was called while the three judges retired to a small room where they discussed their choices and made a final decision on the winning two contestants for the week. The format was now so familiar to her that Trudy was the first to speak when the door closed behind them.
‘Amy needs to be in the final,’ she explained. ‘Her clafoutis is gorgeous.’
They argued and cajoled for half an hour. There was a cameraman with them, filming as they exchanged cutting comments about each other and murmured compliments and condemnations about the chefs and the dishes they had prepared. Eventually, the three of them went out to face the contestants and announce their verdict.
‘It’s been a close debate,’ Tom explained, acting as spokesman. ‘But we’ve finally come to a decision. The two contestants going through to the semi-finals are Amy and Victor.’
There was good-natured handshaking and murmurs of congratulations. Victor and Amy hugged and the scene ended with a shot of Nicola scowling at Carlos. Trudy pulled her gaze away from the woman’s expression of pained animosity. She didn’t like to see someone so upset and she tried to find something of interest to watch that would give her a reason to look in a different direction.
Her gaze fell on Victor.
She watched him walk away from the studio’s set of kitchen work surfaces and cookery paraphernalia and step over to someone in the front row of the studio audience. It was not unusual for contestants to have family and friends in the audience to offer support. Trudy wondered if a glimpse of his friends and family might give her a clue where she knew him from.
Victor bent down. From the way his shoulders were bent, Trudy guessed he was whispering confidentially to his friend. The lights on the studio set were so bright it was difficult to see beyond their glare. Trudy craned her neck and shielded her eyes to peer, still anxious for a clue to his identity. She sat quickly back in her chair when she saw who he was talking with.
Victor was a friend of Donny.
5
The air inside the Sweet Temptation HQ was rich with the scent of maple syrup and pecan muffins. The fragrance was intoxicatingly sweet and made Trudy’s stomach growl. She had always thought there was something compelling about the smoky caramel tones of maple syrup. It was one of those flavours that made her mouth water and urged her to give in to hunger cravings. Blended with the other ingredients, the smell was a constant distraction and dangerously irresistible.
Trudy had just finished working on her column for the week. Inspired by Kali’s mini carrot cakes at the wedding reception, Trudy had charted a brief history of the carrot cake and included in the article a couple of eighteenth-century Georgian recipes for carrot pudding. She would have been happier if she could have included a copy of Kali’s recipe in the text but she knew that was too much to ask from the pâtissier. Also, she relished the challenge of trying to recreate her own mini carrot cakes as a homage to Kali’s speciality. Uploading one of the photos she’d taken at the wedding, Trudy thought the article looked good to go.
After a final read-through she attached the document and the photograph to an email and sent it to her editor. As a reward, she told herself, she could go down to the bakery below and sample one of the maple syrup and pecan muffins.
It wouldn’t even be a snack, she told herself. She could look on it as an exercise in quality control, ensuring that the products Sweet Temptation supplied were up to the high standard she wanted to maintain. Almost won over by the argument, Trudy slipped out of her chair and started moving slyly towards the door.
Charlotte burst into the room. She was grinning and brandishing a bottle of champagne in one hand and a trio of crystal flutes in the other.
Trudy checked her watch. It was only just eleven in the morning. Champagne at this time of the day seemed positively decadent. Or deviant. She eyed the bottle suspiciously. ‘What are we celebrating?’
Charlotte checked the door before responding. ‘I’ve called Daryl up here too,’ she said. ‘She needs to know this as well. But I wanted to tell you first.’ She stepped close and lowered her voice as though sharing a secret. ‘Harvey proposed.’
Trudy hugged her friend. The rush of happiness was so intense that it was almost a strain keeping back the tears. Charlotte and Harvey were a beautiful couple. Yes, there was an age difference. But age differences weren’t necessarily a bad thing for some couples. And they hadn’t known each other a year. But they made each other happy and Trudy didn’t think anything else mattered in a relationship.
‘Congratulations,’ Trudy whispered. ‘That’s wonderful. What did you say?’
‘What do you think I said?’
It was, Trudy knew, a ridiculous question. But it gave Charlotte an excuse to break their embrace and display the huge diamond she now wore on her ring finger: a princess-cut oblong set on a white gold mount. Trudy admired it and grinned and congratulated her friend again.
‘Did this come out of the blue?’ Trudy asked.
Charlotte popped the cork on the champagne and filled all three flutes.
‘Obviously the subject of marriage has been bandied around a lot recently.’ She had the courtesy to blush. ‘What with Harvey being Bill’s best man and with Bill…I mean…’ Her voice trailed off into an embarrassed, apologetic murmur.
‘It’s no big deal,’ Trudy said, squeezing her friend’s hand. ‘You know I’m excited for you.’
Charlotte regarded her suspiciously.
‘For both of you,’ Trudy promised. She raised her flute of champagne and tilted it against Charlotte’s drink. ‘To your happiness,’ she said. ‘May there be lots of it filling your days.’
‘To happiness,’ Charlotte echoed. ‘And there’s something I need to ask you.’ Her blushes deepened as she added, ‘Except it’s a little awkward.’
‘Awkward?’ Trudy raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’
Before Charlotte could speak, Daryl opened the door and stepped into the office. Her face looked like thunder. Her eyes were the pained red of promised tears. Her upper lip trembled as though she was struggling to contain her misery.
‘Daryl?’ Trudy began.
‘Hon?’ Charlotte asked.
Daryl shook her head and pressed her lips tight together.
‘What’s the matter?’ Trudy asked. ‘Who’s upset you?’
Daryl slumped into an office chair. Her shoulders trembled and her eyes blinked constantly.
‘Who is it?’ Trudy repeated.
‘What’s happened?’ Charlotte pressed.
‘It’s Donny,’ Daryl said eventually.
‘What the fuck has he done now?’ Charlotte demanded.
She was pulling her mobile from her pocket. Whatever the awkward question she had been about to ask when they were alone, it was now clearly off the agenda for the day. Charlotte was focused on resolving Daryl’s issue.
‘Harvey promised he would sort the bastard once and for all if Donny tried again to embarrass Sweet Temptation,’ Charlotte reminded them. ‘I’m taking him at his word on this.’
Daryl was shaking her head. She stopped Charlotte before she could dial a number. ‘Donny’s not done anything to embarrass Sweet Temptation,’ she admitted. ‘Only me.’
Charlotte put her phone down. ‘What the hell has he done, hon?’
Daryl took control of Trudy’s laptop and opened a screen. It took a while for the machine to respond to her commands – it was in desper
ate need of upgrading or replacing. The internal components groaned and whined in protest as they struggled to make an internet connection and then laboured to retrieve pictures. Eventually, the screen presented an image of a naked Daryl with a naked man and a naked woman. Daryl was on her knees in front of the man. The woman was behind Daryl and holding her hips as though she was riding her. From the length of Daryl’s hair, Trudy guessed the picture had been taken a couple of years earlier.
‘What the hell is this?’ Charlotte demanded.
‘We were drunk,’ Daryl explained. ‘We all knew each other and we were friends so we figured there’d be no harm.’ Her voice was wretched with the sound of distress.
‘I didn’t mean, what were you doing?’ Charlotte told her. ‘I can see what you’re doing. I was asking why the pictures are on the internet.’
‘It’s a naked ex-girlfriend site,’ Daryl explained.
Trudy was going to ask what a naked ex-girlfriend site was, then realised the question would make her sound stupid and ignorant. It was a website where men could post pictures of their naked ex-girlfriends. She didn’t know why such a site would exist but she could understand how Daryl’s pictures had ended there.
Daryl and Donny had been lovers.
Donny had become a bastard.
Trudy shivered in sympathy as Daryl pressed a key to reveal the next photograph.
Daryl was an attractive woman and the pictures, although lurid and pornographic, were flattering. They showed her slenderness. They presented her as attractive and desirable. They showed she was athletic and accommodating. Some of them showed that she was very accommodating.
But Daryl was clearly unhappy with what she was seeing.
She left the screen open on an image of her face buried between the thighs of another woman. Her cheeks were slick with perspiration and other fluids. Her eyes shone happily with an excess of pleasure.
‘This is terrible,’ Daryl sniffed.
Trudy made a note of the website’s address and passed it over to Charlotte.
‘How did you find out about these?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Donny sent me a text.’ She pulled out her phone and read the message aloud. ‘These pictures remind me of the great times we used to have together. LOL.’
Charlotte hugged her. ‘We’ll get this resolved,’ she promised. She held up the note with the website address and said, ‘I’ll get our legal team on to this right now.’
‘Do you think they’ll be able to do anything?’
Charlotte shrugged. ‘I’ll go and find out.’ She was out of the office before either Trudy or Daryl could question her further.
Trudy considered her blonde friend. ‘What’s the real problem?’
Daryl studied her quietly for a moment.
‘The real problem,’ Trudy persisted. ‘This is obviously upsetting. But I know you, Daryl. Embarrassment like this doesn’t even register on your radar. Ordinarily, if someone had posted naked pictures of you online, you’d be adding the URL to your business card. So what’s the real problem?’
Daryl pointed at one of the pictures. There was a watery smile on her lips and twin clouds of smudged mascara dirtied her eyes. ‘This one is my favourite,’ Daryl said. ‘I’m naked. But it’s not indecent.’
Trudy glanced at the picture and saw it showed Daryl standing in front of the camera. The hands belonging to the man taking her from behind covered her breasts. Her sex was covered by the back of someone’s head kneeling before her. Trudy understood what Daryl was saying but she thought her friend had a very liberal interpretation of the phrase ‘not indecent’.
‘What’s the real problem?’
‘Beatrice saw them.’
‘She didn’t approve?’ Trudy guessed.
Daryl rolled her eyes. ‘She called me a slut and she left.’
6
The kiss was just what she needed. Trudy basked in the long and lingering exchange. Bill’s hands cupped her face and she wrapped her arms around him in a ferocious embrace. She could detect the notes of citrus and sandalwood in his cologne. His nearness, as always, filled her with a dark, excited longing.
‘I’ve been very naughty, Mr Hart,’ she whispered.
‘Naughty?’ He sounded thrilled by the prospect. ‘What have you been doing, Ms McLaughlin?’
She wasn’t sure where to begin. Or how much she ought to tell him. The complexity of the situation was maddening but she wouldn’t let herself be upset by it. They were alone together and there were more important things to address than the irritation of being confused.
‘Donny’s causing trouble again.’
‘Donny’s always causing trouble,’ Bill reminded her. His hands still held her face. He squeezed his words between the kisses he left on her face. ‘What’s the barmpot done to Sweet Temptation this time?’
She shook her head. She didn’t bother asking him what ‘barmpot’ meant. It was clear that it wasn’t a compliment.
‘This time his attack wasn’t against Sweet Temptation. This time he’s upset Daryl and destroyed the thing she had going with Beatrice.’
‘Is Beatrice the topless model?’
Trudy nodded. ‘Donny posted some compromising pictures of Daryl online. Beatrice wasn’t happy. She dumped Daryl.’
‘The pictures were so compromising that she got dumped by a topless model?’ He sounded incredulous.
Trudy shrugged. ‘They were very gratuitous pictures.’
Bill shook his head. ‘That bastard needs a proper braying.’
Trudy didn’t bother to ask him what ‘braying’ meant either. She had heard him use the phrase before and knew that it was some form of punishment. She thought, if she was being honest with herself, Bill was right. Donny needed to be taught a lesson.
‘Does this mean he’s no longer waging a personal vendetta against you?’ Bill asked. ‘Instead of trying to embarrass you, is he moving on to other targets?’
Trudy considered the idea and shook her head. She’d still been receiving abusive texts from Donny. He showed no signs of letting up on his personal vendetta. And she had the sneaking suspicion that he’d only hurt Daryl because she was Trudy’s friend and he knew Trudy would share her misery. Brooding on that thought, Trudy wondered if he was likely to try and cause distress to any of her other friends. As a strategy for causing trouble, it sounded like something Donny would consider acceptable.
Bill brushed the matter of Donny’s behaviour aside. ‘We can talk about that pillock later. But tell me, how does any of that make you naughty?’
She swallowed. ‘OK. Maybe I just mentioned Donny’s latest escapades so I didn’t feel like I was keeping secrets from you. But I have been naughty.’
‘How?’
‘I went out on a date the other night.’
His brow creased. His eyes narrowed. His mood looked dark. ‘You really went on a date? I thought you were just saying that at the wedding to make me feel mardy.’
This was the first time she had seen Bill appear jealous. She didn’t like that she’d caused him to frown but she couldn’t deny that a part of her was thrilled by the sight of envy on his features. If he was jealous, that surely proved that he cared, didn’t it? She wouldn’t let herself wonder why she needed proof that Bill cared. It was enough to revel in the evidence.
‘I went on a date,’ she repeated. ‘His name’s Mark. He’s a doctor at the local A&E. We went to that bistro, the Chekov, in the town centre. I had the most delicious stroganoff I’ve enjoyed in ages and Mark had –’
‘Where did you meet him?’
She tried not to shiver. There was so much menace in his voice that she feared, if they were to indulge in their usual spanking games, he would likely leave bruises. The thought made her inner muscles fluid with a rush of liquid longing. She resisted the urge to touch herself as she listened to the dull fury in his tone.
‘It was a blind date.’
‘Why the hell are you going on blind dates with doctors?’
‘It’s not blind dates in the plural,’ she snapped. She pulled away from his kisses so she wasn’t distracted by her arousal. ‘And it wasn’t doctors in the plural. I went on a single blind date with a single man. The reason I did it was because Daryl set me up. And the reason I didn’t back out of the date was because I couldn’t have said no without telling her about our secret arrangement.’
He pressed his lips together. He looked like he was about to apologise but she held up a hand, stopping him before he could begin. She had no desire to hear apologies.
‘He was very nice,’ she said acidly. ‘We got on so well together I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to marry his ex-wife next week.’
Bill flinched. His eyes had been narrow before. Now they were slits.
‘If you really want to hear about how naughty I’ve been,’ Trudy went on, ‘perhaps I should tell you about my lying? Should I confess that I’ve been naughty by keeping our relationship a secret from my closest friends?’
For a long while he said nothing.
They studied each other in broody silence. When Bill finally opened his mouth he looked at her with a roguish smile and said, ‘It sounds like you’ve been very naughty, Ms McLaughlin. I do believe you need serious punishment for that sort of behaviour.’
They laughed together and then embraced and it was enough to banish the threat of the argument that had promised to erupt between them. When he took her in his arms she knew that they had forgiven each other. She felt relieved that the bad atmosphere hadn’t been allowed to fester.
‘You know I’m not doing this for Aliceon, don’t you?’
She shushed him with kisses. They had discussed this before.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’re doing it for Imogen. You’re doing it for baby Bill.’
Bill’s decision to remarry his ex-wife Aliceon had been somewhat unexpected. But Trudy knew it wasn’t motivated by his love for the woman. He had done it because Aliceon was on the verge of being deported. Trudy didn’t fully understand the complexities of the situation but she could see why Bill had gallantly thrown his ex-wife the lifeline of a convenient remarriage. If Aliceon had been deported that would have left Bill’s daughter Imogen without a mother. It would have meant Imogen’s son would grow up never knowing his grandmother. And it would have meant that Boui-Boui lost a talented and respected maître d’.
Just Desserts (Sweet Temptation, Book 3) Page 4
