Page 28 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

But a small, traitorous part of her desperately wanted to see Kyle again. To work side by side in the kitchen while he hummed tunelessly and chopped carrots and told her about his day. Wasn’t that the thing she’d missed most in the last two years of silence?

He must’ve sensed an opening in her hesitation. “Come on, Meg. Let me help. Besides, I have something for you.”

Kendall bounced with glee, then pantomimed a few hip-thrusts. Swatting at her friend, Meg tried to steer the phone away so Kyle wouldn’t see. “What do you have?”

“I’m not going to give it away on the phone. You have to see me in person. Besides, I need to see Floyd again. I’m determined to make him like me.”

“By forcing yourself on him?”

“Nah, I have a new strategy,” he said. “What time do you want me?”

Her libido got hung up on the last part of his question, and it took her a moment to answer. “How about five?”

“I can do five.”

“Okay, but you have to let me pay you. And we won’t be at my place, we’ll be at my commercial kitchen.”

“You can pay me with dessert.”

“That hardly seems fair, but I did just make a flourless chocolate cake.”

“Perfect. Are you still working in that culinary space off Oak Street?”

“Yes.”

“Got it. We’ll get the prep work done, and then you can take me back to your place.”

“What?”

Kyle laughed. “To eat cake and pet your cat. Get your mind out of the gutter, Meg.”

“I—”

He was still laughing when he hung up.

“It’s good to finally meet you in person, Meg.”

Nancy Neel picked up her cocktail glass and took a sip of her dirty martini. The drink made Meg wish she’d ordered something more exotic, and Nancy’s manicure gave her the urge to hide her own battered hands under the table.

“I still can’t believe you’re here in Portland,” Meg said. “I didn’t think I’d get to meet my agent in person so soon.”

Hearing the phrase my agent trip off her own tongue gave Meg a tiny thrill, and she picked up her mug of herbal tea and took a sip to hide her giddy smile.

“Yes, well, it wasn’t really any trouble to reroute my trip. Besides, you’re not just any client. The Food You Love is the hottest thing since—well, I was going to say sliced bread, but that’s hardly sexy enough to describe an aphrodisiac cookbook, is it?”

Meg laughed and set her tea down. “I’m drinking chamomile tea and wearing clogs. I can assure you being sexy isn’t a regular part of my repertoire.”

“Hm, actually, I think you’ve got some good raw material to work with.” Nancy eyed her up and down, and Meg wondered if she was supposed to stand up and twirl. “You’ve got great hair and nice curves. The camera tends to add a few pounds, but you can get away with that when you’re a celebrity chef.”

“Camera?”

“Yes, I’ve had a lot of inquiries about television interviews and the like.” Nancy twirled her martini glass in one hand. “You’re adorable, Meg. Everyone’s buzzing about your cute author photo. They all want a piece of you.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Thank you?”

“I’m serious, Meg.” Nancy gave her an approving look. “You were born for the camera.”

Heat filled her cheeks as she picked up her tea. “Thanks.”

Nancy let out a long, ragged breath. “We just need to get things settled first with the photography rights and Mr. Midland’s estate.”

Meg bit her lip and tried not to let the nervousness show on her face. “I’m working on it,” Meg said.

“You’re sure you don’t have any sort of signed contract that can clear this mess up once and for all?”

Meg shook her head. “Like I told you, we didn’t think we needed one.”

“You always need one,” Nancy told her. “Even when you’re collaborating with a loved one.

” She gave a brittle laugh and waved her hand.

“ Especially when you’re collaborating with a loved one.

God, if I had a nickel for every ruined romance that screwed up a perfectly good publishing deal, I’d buy a condo in Bali tomorrow. ”

Meg gripped her mug a little tighter and stared into it, not wanting to meet Nancy’s eyes. “I wish I’d known. I wish like hell I could go back in time and do everything differently...” She trailed off, not sure she was still talking about the book.

“Well, lesson learned.” Nancy reached out and patted her hand, then took a big swig of her drink. “We’ll have you making smarter business decisions in no time. No more sentimental muck for you! In the meantime, let’s just hope we can get your ex’s family to back down.”

“Let’s hope,” Meg said softly, wishing she felt more confident.

Kyle rapped on the door of Meg’s commercial kitchen space right at five, hoping she hadn’t changed her mind about letting him help. He tried to remember the last time he’d been here, then realized he knew exactly when it was. The morning before her wedding.

Back then, she’d agreed to let someone else handle the catering for her reception, but Meg had insisted on doing dessert herself.

She’d planned a huge display teeming with beautifully decorated cupcakes in exotic flavors like passionfruit and crème brulée.

She’d spent the whole morning decorating hundreds of little paper-wrapped delicacies.

Kyle was still thinking about the cupcakes when Meg threw the door open. “Kyle,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

“Happy to help.”

Her expression was somewhere between shy and guarded.

He’d expected bristly, so this seemed like an improvement.

She wore jeans that looked like they’d been washed enough times to give them the texture of velvet, and he ached to run his hand over her thigh.

Her hair tumbled loose around her shoulders, and she wore a pink T-shirt that said eff cancer .

“I like the shirt,” he said, stepping over the threshold of the door. No sense giving her a chance to turn him away and insist she didn’t need help. “Lost an aunt to breast cancer a few years back.”

“I know,” Meg said, shutting the door behind him. “I was at the funeral, remember?”

“That’s right, I forgot.”

He hadn’t, actually, though he’d tucked the memory in the back of his mind with so many other recollections of Meg over the years.

Had the tiny webs of laugh lines been there at the edges of her eyes back then, or were those new?

He wasn’t sure, though he knew his own face had changed in the last decade.

“Thanks again for offering to help,” she said, handing him a long, white apron. “I wasn’t looking forward to working alone all night to get the prep work done.”

“Not a problem.” Kyle looped the apron around his neck and began to tie it in back. Meg was doing the same with hers, and he thought about offering to help her tie it, but held off. Putting his hands on her again seemed like the wrong thing to do, at least right now.

She smoothed her hands down the front of her apron and gave him a slightly sheepish look. “So, uh—I probably should have told you a bit more about what we’re making.”

“You said it’s a bachelorette party?”

Meg nodded and bit her lip. “Yes. And the bride has a rather risqué sense of humor.”

“How do you mean?”

She cleared her throat and looked down at the counter. “How do you feel about decorating cock pops?”

“Uh—”

“They’re kind of like cake pops, only they’re shaped like penises.”

She turned and bent down to retrieve something out of the cooler, and Kyle tried not to stare at her ass. When she stood up, she was holding a dick on a stick. She thrust it toward him, and Kyle took a step back without thinking about it.

“Holy shit,” he said, peering more closely at the cock pop. “What’s the stuff around the nutsack that looks like pubic hair?”

“Toasted coconut,” she said. “I was worried I hadn’t gotten the flesh tone right with the royal icing,” she said, running a finger around the terrifyingly lifelike head. “But I think it’s pretty close, don’t you?”

“If it looked any more real, you could be arrested for holding it in public.”

“Thank you.” Meg beamed and set the cock pop down on the counter. “I just did this one to test out the icing, but I have to do fifty more of them. The cake inside is passionfruit.”

“Of course it is.” Kyle stared at the cock pop and shook his head. “It shames me to realize I kind of want to bite into it.”

Meg laughed. “I made extras so I could practice decorating them. I’ll let you take some of those home at the end of the night.”

“Defective cock pops? Can’t wait to devour one of those.”

Meg grinned and put her hands on the stainless-steel counter. “Actually, I’m thinking I might just have you chop veggies for the penis pasta salad.”

“Of course there’s a penis pasta salad.”

“I made all the little penises by hand, which took forever.”

“I feel like I should be able to come up with a good hand job joke right now, but I’m honestly at a loss.”

“You should have seen me trying to talk the bride out of an alfredo sauce,” she said. “Not the best choice with penis pasta.”

“Good Lord.”

She laughed and brushed a curl off her forehead. “It’s fine now, we’re going with a basil pesto instead.”

“Green dicks? This sounds more appetizing by the minute.”

“You can wash up over there.” She pointed him toward the sink. “All those veggies in the bowl can be chopped, and there’s a big tray of roasted red peppers cooling over there when you get done with those.”

“What are you going to be working on?”

Meg pulled back her hair with an elastic band, then stepped up to the sink to give her hands a quick scrub. “I need to get started on the dickerdoodles.”

“Of course you do.”

She finished washing her hands, then wiped them off on a big white dish towel. Then she stepped aside to give him a turn at the sink, moving toward the large commercial refrigerator in the corner.