The Younger Wife(38)
‘Will we have pizza too, or shall I order us something else?’ Stephen asked.
‘I’m not sure I feel like pizza,’ she said.
‘Sashimi?’ he suggested.
‘Perfect.’
As Stephen wandered off to order their dinner, Heather leaned back in her chair and admired her things in Stephen’s house. Her elbow had healed now. Apart from a slight yellowish tinge, you wouldn’t even know that the bruise had been there, and Heather’s suspicion that Stephen had been responsible had faded along with it. It had been a trick of the mind, she realised. Seeing women getting roughed up by men was part of Heather’s DNA; of course she’d carry that expectation into her life with Stephen. But she had found a new way of living now. Her old way of thinking was just another thing she’d need to unlearn.
‘Sashimi is on its way,’ Stephen announced. ‘Shall I open some sparkling water?’
Again, she entertained the idea of suggesting a bottle of bubbly. It hovered on the tip of her tongue. Stephen watched her intently for a moment, as if he knew what she was thinking. It scared her sometimes, when he did that. More old thinking, she suspected.
‘You know what?’ he said finally. ‘It’s a special occasion. Why don’t I open a bottle of champagne?’
Suddenly Heather wasn’t scared anymore. Just the opposite. ‘What a good idea,’ she said.
20
RACHEL
As she drove to visit her mum, Rachel was thinking about Darcy. This was nothing new; she’d lain awake half the night thinking about him and she’d probably spend most of the day thinking about him. Yesterday had been a long day. Darcy had clearly been surprised by the fact that she’d destroyed the wedding cake, but he wasn’t noticeably disgusted. In fact, after he’d seen the state of the cake, his mind had seemed completely focused on damage control.
‘I have an idea,’ he said.
Rachel stared at him. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I did?’
‘I can see what you did.’
She must have made a face at this, because Darcy held up his hands. ‘Hey, I’m not judging. I have three sisters, I know the deal. When you have your period you can’t be held responsible for what you do. Once, my older sister Suzanne legit bowled me over when I stood in between her and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. See this scar on my eyebrow? That’s from when Lucy was on the rampage and I was eating some Oreos –’
‘Okay, okay.’ Rachel was happy enough to let him assume it was period-eating for now. She sure as hell didn’t have a better explanation – at least, not one she wanted to reveal to Darcy. ‘So . . . you have an idea?’
She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. She didn’t have high expectations for his plan, but currently it was all she had. And who knew? Maybe Darcy, as well as being preposterously good-looking, was the MacGyver of getting out of work-related troubles.
‘Yes,’ he said, grabbing her arm and leading her out of the house. With no other option, Rachel allowed herself to be led. ‘We’re going to the supermarket.’
‘The supermarket?’ She stopped dead. ‘That cake took me a week to make, Darcy. I don’t have time to bake another one. Besides, I have ingredients here.’
‘We’re not getting ingredients,’ he said, ushering her towards his car. ‘We’re getting cakes.’
‘Cakes? They paid four grand for this cake! You think the bride isn’t going to notice that it’s a supermarket cake?’
‘Of course she won’t. She probably won’t even eat the damn thing.’
He opened the passenger door and waited patiently until she got inside. It was, admittedly, a fair point. So many brides who’d been incredibly finicky about their wedding cake later admitted that they hadn’t even eaten a slice of it. Still.
Darcy shut her door then walked around to the driver’s side and got in. ‘And the guests aren’t exactly going to say, Hey, your wedding cake tasted exactly like Woolies’ chocolate mud, are they?’
‘Even if that’s true . . . it’s the fondant that takes the time,’ Rachel said. ‘And I spent days on the sugar flowers.’
Darcy pointed to the clock on the dash. ‘Sorry, no time for fondant. We’re going to have to get Betty Crocker’s buttercream frosting.’
She gaped at him. ‘Darcy! I cannot give Emily and Peter a Woolies mud cake with Betty Crocker icing.’
He waved his hand, unbothered. ‘You’ll be able to fancy it up. Add some sprinkles?’
‘Sprinkles!’ she cried. ‘And what do I say when they ask: where is the cake we ordered?’
‘I’ll say: This one has your name on it. Do you want me to take it away? Rachel’s away for the weekend, though, so I won’t be able to get you anything else today. They’ll have no choice but to take it. The next day they’ll send you an angry email, you’ll explain that the dim-witted delivery man got the cakes mixed up and offer them a fifty per cent discount, and everyone will be happy.’
It wasn’t a brilliant solution. But it was a solution.
And if she said so herself, she did a pretty good job with the mud cakes and Betty Crocker icing. She’d got the icing the exact shade of the fondant, and decorated it with extra sugar flowers purchased from the specialist cake store. She added fresh flowers as well, and by the time she was finished, the cake didn’t look half bad. Not exactly like the one Emily and Peter had ordered, but pretty close.