That sounded disgusting to Gabe’s decidedly simple tastes. “Aren’t most wedding cakes like chocolate and vanilla?”
Livvy made a derisive, nasally snort. “Nothing about this wedding is traditional. Why start with cake?”
True. Most people in Rockville were accustomed to the unexpected when it came from the Kanes and Chandlers.
Once upon a time, the Chandlers and Kanes had been best friends and business partners, each family owning half of a grocery store company, the C&O. Then, ten years ago, a series of tragedies had befallen the two families, starting with Robert Kane and Maria Chandler dying in a tragic car accident on a late winter night.
A minute later, and widower Brendan Chandler, Nicholas and Eve’s father, had swindled Livvy’s grieving mother, Tani, out of her half of the company. Two minutes later, and Livvy’s twin brother, Jackson, was under suspicion of burning down the flagship C&O store in revenge.
At some point during that mess, Nicholas and Livvy had broken up, their childhood love destroyed. But they’d reconciled last fall, and had seemed destined for the happy ending they’d been cheated out of. They’d decided to get married on Livvy’s birthday, which meant they’d only had a month to prepare a wedding following their engagement.
It might have still gone okay, but it felt like every possible calamity had befallen the bride and groom over the course of the last three weeks. The original venue had sustained damage in a storm. Nicholas had injured his back playing basketball. Livvy’s dress had been mysteriously lost. The florist had burned down. The baker hired for the cake had canceled due to a family emergency. Multiple invitations had gotten lost in the mail.
When Livvy, upset, had come into the tattoo shop he owned and she worked at, Gabe had consoled her. Of course her mother was wrong and this wasn’t a curse, he assured her. It was all going to be fine. He’d cracked a joke, she’d laughed. They’d all pitch in. It would come together. And thingshadstarted to gel.
Until Nicholas’s and Eve’s beloved grandfather, John, who wasn’t in the best of health to begin with, had come down with the flu. Livvy’s mother and aunt had been the next ones down. Everyone had held their breath, but John had recovered, and Tani and Maile’s sickness had subsided to some sniffles. Then yesterday, Livvy had gotten sick.
There were no such things as curses or bad omens. But the bride getting sick a week before the wedding was awfully bad timing on the universe’s part.
The waiter raised his voice to speak to Livvy. “It’s not the usual sort of cake, but your reception will certainly stand out, Ms. Kane.”
“Goo—” A sneeze interrupted Livvy’s word. “Ah, fuck.”
Gabe leaned forward. “Liv, why don’t you go rest? We can handle this.”
“No, no.” A loud sneeze. “I want to participate. This is my wedding cake, damn it.”
Gabe dug into the lemon cake. The taste surprised him enough he forgot to swallow fast. The sour from the lemon tempered the sugar, making it edible. He glanced at Eve and promptly forgot his own name.
Her eyes were closed, her lashes long fans on her upper cheeks. The fork slipped out of her mouth, the tines leaving indentations on her bottom lip. She didn’t wear much makeup, but her pink lips didn’t need adornment. “Mmm,” she moaned, and a tiny part of him died.
He didn’t like the cake that much, but he took another bite, if only to taste what she was tasting and enjoying.
This was pathetic.
She opened her eyes, and he wanted her to eat more cake. Hell, he wanted to buy her a whole cake and feed it to her, have her lick lemon and cream from his fingers.
And then have her lick whatever she liked on other parts of his body too.
“What do you think?” Livvy asked.
“I really love it,” he said huskily.
Eve raised an eyebrow. Her eyebrows were the most dramatic thing about her, thick and arched. “Really? You haven’t seemed to like the others at all.”
He didn’t like sweets, period, but he couldn’t tell her that. Otherwise she’d wonder why he’d agreed to accompany her to this cake tasting. “They were okay.” He tried to remember what the pretentious waiter had said about some of the other flavors. “But this cake, I was really captured by the ribbons of lemon threaded through the moist... sponge.” Okay, that probably wasn’t exactly right.
He could ignore Jacques’s sniff because her lips twitched, and he wanted to pump his fist. Eve rarely smiled, and laughed even less often, he’d discovered.
Eve adjusted the phone. “We both like this lemon one, Livvy.”
“Hmm.” Paper rustled on the other end. “That one was pretty high on my list. Let’s do it.” A series of sneezes followed.
Eve nodded at Jacques, taking charge. “We’ll do the lemon. You have the photos I sent over, yes?”
“We do, ma’am.”
“Excellent. And please tell the chef how grateful we are he can accommodate us on such short notice like this.”
