Cake at Midnight by Jessie L. Star

Author:Jessie L. Star
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia

11

The next morning was busy at PP&P. People queued out the door and down the street to purchase croissants for their breakfast, or for one of Céleste’s famous Gâteaux St Honoré as a weekend treat.

I was glad of the bustle and demand and focused on the trays of goodies before me, mechanically swirling soft lemon icing one minute, fashioning an intricate lace chocolate cake collar the next.

Unfortunately, while the constant movement suited my anxious, twitchy fingers, it did little for my anxious, twitchy brain. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the witching hour had come and gone last night and I hadn’t gone over to Theo’s. I’d wanted to, I almost did, but I’d told myself he wouldn’t want me there after the night he’d had. After he’d nearly kissed me. After I’d nearly kissed him.

I’d spent all night and all morning replaying that moment when his lips had been so close, so close, to mine. And how he’d been the one to pull away.

I’d become so used to cool, unruffled Theo that the on-edge version, who’d pressed me to him and then just as abruptly released me, had thrown everything off-kilter. A line had been crossed, a line between acquaintances and . . . whatever we now were. Was there a term for someone you felt you both did and didn’t know? For someone whose family you’d met, but who you’d spent more time in silence with than actually speaking to? For someone who you considered so far out of your league that you hadn’t even bothered to form a proper crush on, but who you’d nearly kissed and now couldn’t get out of your head? If there was, I didn’t know it, but that’s what we were.

What I did know was that, last night, for the first time in two weeks, I’d been unable to sleep, not because I was thinking of Dec, but because I was thinking of Theo.

‘You were here bright and early this morning.’ Maya, ever on the alert for something to comment on, moved across to my station just before lunch and looked piercingly at me. Her fingers didn’t stop weaving pastry lattices for the tops of a batch of pies. ‘Does that mean your date did or didn’t go well?’

Pulled out of the rhythm of swirling velvety smooth cream cheese icing onto the dainty, single-bite cinnamon carrot cakes before me, I blinked at her. ‘Date?’

She heaved an amused sigh. ‘Oh, Gio. You know you can’t hide anything from me. Especially not when you snag a famous one.’

My heart sank.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ As per usual, my lie sounded thoroughly unconvincing. I was fairly sure I did know what she was talking about, but I was desperately hoping to be wrong.

‘A famous date,’ she exclaimed. ‘Theodore Leventis! How did you pull that off? He’s supposed to be a recluse – how did you even meet him? And what happened to Dec? I thought he was your one and only.’

I groaned internally.

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