“My face.”
He looked at me, and then away. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Yes.”
Well, damn.
Our food came shortly. I suppose since he owned the place, he’d better get prompt service. So we busied ourselves with eating. When we were done, I offered to go back and find the tart, but he went into the back himself. I liked the way the employees looked at him, both with respect and a sort of affection that I recognized in my dealings with Rick. It was a contrast to the formality he’d been dealt at Philip’s house.
He returned and, for the first time that day, looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
Crap, it’d probably ended up sitting on a lukewarm burner and melted or something. “It’s ruined?”
“Sort of. I put it in the back, and my manager thought it was available. He moved it to the front case.” He paused. “It’s gone.”
“Wait, like sold?”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Well.” So much for my apology cake. “That’s okay, I guess. At least someone enjoyed it.”
“Several someones,” he said. There was a note in his voice. Pride? “At eight dollars a slice and ten slices, your cake was eighty bucks.”
Shit. Eighty bucks. That was more than the bakery would charge, though I guessed that by-the-slice was the way to higher profits than selling full cakes.
Yes! There was a smile, however small. “Do you want it?” he asked.
“Want what?”
“Your money.”
“Uh, no thanks.” That barely covered the grocery bill from yesterday. Plus, it’d been made with ingredients bought with his money. “But I was just thinking. Do you think they liked it?”
“It was gone in twenty minutes.”
Okay. “Could I bring in more?”
He paused. “Yes, but you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. It will give me something useful to do, and besides, I love to bake.” And this could be just what I was looking for—a way to pay Colin back, at least a little.
He looked doubtful.
“I really will enjoy it,” I said. “And I won’t let it interfere with the house cleaning or anything.”
He scowled. This wasn’t helping.
I made big eyes, wishing I had Bailey’s baby blues. “Please?”
“Don’t work too hard,” he said.
Score! “I’ll be the laziest supplier you ever had,” I promised.
A smile flickered on his face. His smiles were like a collector’s item for me.
We said our good-byes, veiled in politeness.
Chapter Nine
Back at the house I declared Quiet Time, my nap replacement therapy while Bailey had her midtoddler crisis. She got a couple of plastic books I’d borrowed from the library. I pulled out a magazine—something I’d thrown onto the conveyor at the grocery store on a whim. Who had $3.99 to spend on articles about sex? That would be me, apparently. I opened to “Ten Ways to Blow His Mind with Your Thumb.”
I’d only gotten to “deep tissue massage” when Shelly showed up. She should write for Cosmo. Her tips blew more than just minds, I felt sure. She wore a gauzy blue dress that looked at once both naive and flat-out sexual. That contradiction was her specialty.
As she gave Bailey a kiss, I dropped the magazine onto the coffee table. “Do you think Colin wants me to put my thumb in his mouth?”
“Maybe.” She sat down, flipping her hair back. “But he’d like it better if you put it in his—”
“Okay.” I glanced pointedly at Bailey to stop her. “That’s what I figured.”
She grinned. “You’re cute.”
I scowled. “Shut up. It’s not like I’m innocent or something.”
“Compared to me, honey, everyone’s innocent.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
She examined her nails.
“You got it, didn’t you?” A way to contact Andrew.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Shelly, I have to,” I said. “It’s the best way.”
“You don’t just have a conversation with your rapist.”
“It’s something I have to do. And I think maybe I can even convince him to walk away. Now that he’s had time to really think about it, to get over the shock.”
She traced the wood knot on the side table with her fingertip. “Philip says if you press charges, that he wouldn’t have a legal claim.”
“I can’t believe you talked with him about it.”
“He brought it up,” she said. “I figured I might as well hear what he had to say.”
“Well, it’s more complicated than that.”
“I’m not saying it would be easy, but…” She’d always wanted me to report it, to press charges. And I’d tried, she knew that much. She looked up, anguish in her eyes. “At the hospital. What happened with that cop?”
The lunch in my stomach threatened revolt. The doctors and nurses had left, leaving only the two cops to question me. I could smell the alcohol and sickly hospital smell.
I shook my head to clear the memories. “Why did you push so hard?”