Her phone chimed, shattering the mood, and she moved to rummage through the bags she’d brought with her.
“Dammit!”Every part of her sagged in defeat. Pam had decided that getting drinks with some local patron of the arts was more important than her daughter’s passion project. Josie already knew all about her mother’s priorities, but it still had the power to wound her.
The floor creaked behind her, likely Erik preparing to flee before her inevitable shouting tantrum. But she didn’twantto be the hotheaded brat her mother thought she was. With effort, she heaved a shuddery breath and dashed the tears from her eyes. “It’s cool,” she forced herself to say brightly. “I brought my camera stuff.” She reached for the closest bag and started mechanically unpacking the contents. Keeping her hands busy should prevent her from calling back and unloading twenty-six years of resentment onto her mother’s voicemail. “I don’t have a fine arts degree or anything, but I’m not bad.”
She snapped together her umbrella light kit with stiff movements and waited for him to argue against using her amateur photography skills, but he didn’t, of course. He just regarded her with the same trusting gaze he’d been turning her way since she’d parachuted into his life.
Trust. He was trusting his business to her. She couldn’t let him down.
“My mom started training me as soon as I could hold a camera.” As she talked, she set out foam core pieces that she clipped together to form three sides of a box where she’d place his beautiful creations. “I wasn’t the prodigy she was hoping for, so she lost interest pretty fast. But I still enjoy it as a hobby.”
Next she moved the lights into place to provide the most flattering illumination. The kit wasn’t as fancy as anything her mother had, but it would certainly work for product shots for the time being.
“Okay, Man Bun. Let’s see your goodies.”
He rolled his eyes—He actually rolled his eyes! She was teaching him sass!—and handed her the first of the items he’d assembled to show off his handiwork. She positioned the cake with the most intricate marble ripples facing out and fired off a flurry of shots before moving on to the next one, and then the next, falling into a soothing routine of decadent treats and shutter snaps. More than half of Erik’s cakes were actually rounds of Styrofoam covered in his unique icing techniques. All the height and drama and bold colors he executed so well but at a fraction of the effort and cost and with no one looking at the pictures any wiser.
Once she’d gotten all the exterior shots, she straightened to stretch out the kink in her back. “Okay, time for the good stuff. Start slicing.”
Erik’s only response was to salute her with his silver cake server, and she indulged in the luxury of simplywatchinghim. His brow creased in concentration as he eased the sharp edge of the server through the pink-veined cake on the counter in front of him, and she stealthily lifted her camera to fire off a few shots of the artist at work before turning her attention to the slices themselves.
She moved them to her makeshift light box and started clicking. “It all smells so good. How do you keep from eating everything all the time? Other than the chance that it might be foam, of course.”
She was surprised when he actually answered.
“I don’t.”
The curl of amusement in his voice had her looking his way.
“I taste everything. Why do you think I wanted to find a gym close to the bakery?” He looked down at his forearms—his strong, corded, deliciously muscled forearms, and she lifted the camera in a flash, firing off several quick shots. When he realized what she was doing, his expression shifted to pained.
“Oh, don’t do that!” she cried. “Those were getting good.”
“You don’t need any of me,” he muttered, swiping a hand across his mouth.
Good thing she’d just shot the last of the gorgeous sample cakes because she was ready to launch into a new fight. “I really do. You’re…” She sighed. “You’re magnificent, frankly. You’re as delicious as the things you make. If we don’t put that on your website, we’re idiots.”
He started shaking his head as she spoke, his movements becoming more decisive with each word.
“Erik.” His name, spoken in her gentlest tone, stilled him. “Trust me.”
She held her breath, wondering if they’d be in for a repeat of last week’s disagreement in the kitchen, but he froze, a giant of a man enthralled by the force of her stare.
Then his shoulders shifted downward a fraction of an inch. “I hate this.”
“I know, baby,” she crooned, working quickly to move things into place. His apartment was shabby as hell, but that just might work. She turned her lights to face the wall, then put her palm to his chest and walked him backward until he bumped against the crumbling plaster over the brick. For the first time in their acquaintance, he looked startled. At her touch? Was the press of her fingers causing the unflappable man to flap? Without stopping to think, she smoothed her hand along his collarbones, hoping the gesture would soothe him. But she’d miscalculated; his breath caught as her fingers traveled along those dips and curves.
She took a step back, not wanting to fluster him more than she already had, and raised her camera. It clicked as she captured his unguarded expression. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
She watched through the viewfinder as he looked directly at her. “Teach me how to do that.” His voice darkened on the last words, and she almost dropped her camera.
With effort, she forced a light laugh. “Come on. You had no problem ignoring me on the train that first night after I insulted you and then you fell asleep.”
His lips twitched, and her camera captured it all. With the soft lighting falling on his face, his battered apartment wall served as a compelling backdrop for his square jaw, his sharp eyes, his impossible cheekbones.
“That night on the L.”
She kept clicking, too absorbed in the planes of his face to respond, and her not speaking for a change seemed to encourage him to fill the empty space hanging between them.
