Courtship of the Cake

Book 2: "Much ""I Do"" About Nothing"

by Jessica Topper

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

From the author of Dictatorship of the Dress comes a new novel about a woman who’s vowed to never walk down the aisle—and the two men who’ll do anything to get her to say “I do”…
 
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride” has suited Danica James just fine…until the mysterious man who crashed her sister’s wedding steals her heart, leaves a slice of groom’s cake under her pillow, and then disappears.
 
Hoping to forget her unforgettable fling, Dani takes a job as a backstage masseuse for a rock music festival, not expecting the tour’s headlining bad boy to make an offer she can’t refuse. Nash Drama needs a fiancée—and fast…
 
Mick Spencer is the best wedding cake designer in New Hope and the town’s most eligible bachelor. But despite the bevy of bridesmaids he’s sampled, Mick can’t get the evening he spent with Dani out of his mind.
 
So when she shows up for a cake tasting at the Night Kitchen—with his former best friend’s ring on her finger—Mick vows to charm the woman of his dreams into choosing a sweet and sinful ever after, with him…

Release date: June 2, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 384

Sample

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Dani

OVER THE RAINBOW

“Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I don’t know how do you do it, Danica James.”

“Easy,” I replied, handing the garment bag over the counter and into Bree’s waiting arms. “I say yes, spend money I don’t have on a dress I don’t want, sashay down the aisle in it, and then I donate it to you.”

“The only hard part for Dani being a bridesmaid,” Laney added, “is not showing up the bride. Otherwise, it’s a piece o’ cake, right, Dani?”

I watched as my best friend selected M&M’s from the candy dish Bree kept on the counter, using a vintage pewter salt spoon. Laney was just as picky about the brown M&M’s as David Lee Roth backstage at a Van Halen concert.

She had to go and mention cake, didn’t she?

I thumbed the tiny silver charm that hung at the hollow of my throat and wondered how the term cake came to mean easy.

Bree laughed. “See? And the hard part for me is not showing up as the bride!” The shop owner held up her hand, fingers splayed to emphasize not only the number, but her latest rock as well. “Let’s hope the fifth time’s the charm, ladies.”

Bree’s habit of “falling in marriage” earned her spots on the local news and was the impetus behind the former fashion model falling into Diamonds & Fairy Dust, her bridal attire consignment business. The tiny Cornelia Street store carried everything from your suburban strip mall off-the-rack dress to the custom couture Vera Wang, which hadn’t moved in the five years I’d known Bree. But once annually, she initiated Operation Fairy Dust, a dress drive for local high school girls in need, and accepted donations of gently used bridesmaid dresses to give away during prom season.

“It’s gorgeous, Dani.” She ran her hand over the ruched bodice and sweeping handkerchief skirt of the brilliant green gown. “We’ve still got a few schools in the area with prom approaching. You are going to make someone’s dream come true.”

Laney popped an M&M about the same hue as the dress in between my lips. “So what does she win?”

“Whatever it is, it had better be small enough to fit in my backpack. Unless it’s a car, which I would totally accept,” I laughed.

“According to my little black book of details, you have managed to donate a dress in every color of the rainbow . . .”

“And don’t forget the ones she brought in that weren’t colors found in nature,” Laney reminded, turning to me. “Like that Creature from the Seafoam Blue Lagoon dress my mother made you wear at her wedding.”

Bree laughed. “Earning the Rainbow Award is no easy feat. For that”—she rummaged under the counter and came up with the fluffiest rainbow Afro wig I had ever laid eyes on—“a picture on my Wall of Fame, if you will.”

“You want me to wear that? I don’t know where that thing’s been!” It looked like a relic from New York’s Studio 54 disco era.

“Trust me, it’s new. No one but you has achieved rainbow status,” Bree assured with a grin. “You take ‘always a bridesmaid’ to a whole new level, Dani.”

Always a bridesmaid and never a bride worked just fine for me; marriage required commitment. Of course, so did insanity. Coincidence? I think not.

Laney just about choked on her last M&M as I stuffed my mass of blond curls under the synthetic skullcap and mugged for Bree’s Polaroid. Then she threw on a wig from the nearby display so I wouldn’t have to go through the humiliation alone. Laney was good like that.

“How do I look?” she deadpanned. The long, black Cleopatra wig was just shy of covering her poker-straight fiery red bangs.

“Ridiculous and lovely. Like Cher.” I plopped a nearby tiara on the crown of her head, and we pressed our cheeks together for one last photo.

“Yeah, you should talk, Rainbow Brite. I think you used to have leg warmers that matched that hair.”

Bree waved the developing print. “For your travels.” She traded me the photo for the Afro, placing the small square into my hands as the image appeared, eighteen years of best friendship rising to the surface and solidifying like magic.

“I’m going to miss your visits, Dani. This one, though”—she reached to smooth Laney’s fake bangs—“I have a feeling she’ll be back. Just as soon as that new man of hers proposes.”

“Hey, slow down there, Five Time’s the Charm.” Laney twined her own tresses with the long hanks of synthetic hair until it resembled a red and black candy cane. “Noah just finished paying off his non-wedding.” The lovebirds had recently celebrated his near miss with Bridezilla by throwing a huge charity event in place of the already-booked reception, and were still recovering. “We’re not in any hurry,” she assured, but her mossy eyes blinked bright with the possibility.

Bree winked, more for my benefit. “Have fun. Be safe.” Smiling, she moved on to help a customer.

Laney pouted and pulled off the wig. “I can’t believe you’re leaving, Dani—again. Just after I got you back. You tease.”

“It’s just for the summer, Hudson. Suck it up.”

Despite all we had in common, Laney’s homebody habits mostly confined her to the tri-state area without complaint. My wanderlust since meeting Mick, on the other hand, had grown insatiable.

As had my sweet tooth.

“For someone who loves to live out of a duffel bag, you certainly held on to that dress from your sister’s wedding for a record length of time. I was getting ready to call the Guinness Book,” Laney ribbed knowingly.

Posy and Patrick were about to celebrate their first anniversary, and I was nowhere closer to figuring out just what the hell had happened to me that night of their wedding in New Orleans. Or why I couldn’t let go of its memories . . .

I stole one last look at the dress as Bree hung it in the store window. Its opulently embellished halter and keyhole neckline had been perfect for the discreet touches and stolen kisses Mick had lavished upon me in public; its wisps of tiered chiffon held every whisper leading us out of the reception and back to my room.

“A wise woman once told me never to let a dress rule my life,” Laney murmured.

The serene girl who stood before me was a far cry from the hot mess who’d been appointed dress bearer for her mother’s cross-country nuptials this past winter. The one who had frantically texted, asking WWDD—What Would Dani Do?—every step of the way, until she had found her own footing. With a hand on my back, she pushed me over the threshold and onto the quaint, one-block city street. “What would she tell you right about now?”

“I’m not as well-adjusted as you think I am,” I mumbled.

“You are wonderful.” Laney dropped a kiss on my cheek and an arm across my shoulder. “And I, for one, will always look up to you from my perch on your invisible psychiatrist’s couch. As well as pay you in brunch food. What do you say?” She nodded toward the red-and-white-striped awning of the Cornelia Street Café. I knew tea and sympathy waited inside, as well as a willing ear if I was ready to talk about my rambling feet and broken heart.

“Sorry, girlie.” I gave her a squeeze. “I can’t stop; I’ve got to see a man about a car.”

I was about to make my biggest commitment yet.

•   •   •

“So. How does zero interest for twelve months sound?”

My laughter reverberated off the chrome, steel, and safety glass surrounding me on the dealership floor. “Sounds a lot like my love life, actually.”

I reaped the rewards of my own joke before the cavernous showroom quickly swallowed up the sound. It was fun while it lasted.

Kind of like my love life.

“Oh, please! I don’t believe that for a second, heartbreaker.” Jax propped his feet up on the prime Manhattan real estate that was his desk and flashed me a grin. “And everyone says used car salesmen are the scammers and con artists?”

Jackson Davenport was not your typical used car salesman, that was for sure. Upper East Side born and summers-in-the-Hamptons bred. Valedictorian of our high school, Ivy League educated, and handsomeness so rugged, you’d think he stepped out of a Patagonia catalog. But he’d swapped his silver spoon for a ballpoint pen long ago, which he was now tapping against his teeth impatiently.

“Are you going to take the car or not, Dani?”

“Hell yeah.”

Summer tour was calling, but it wasn’t going to come to me.

Jax popped out of his chair. “Good. Then let’s get this paperwork signed.”

He spread a tree’s worth of paper in front of me and pointed at the first X. “So what happened to that last guy, Marcus? He was cool.”

“Firefighter Marcus . . .” I signed with a flourish, and relished the memory of those heated discussions we used to have, along with the slow burn of his lips. “He was a nice distraction.”

“How about the bartender?” Jax flipped the page. “Here, here, and initial here.”

“Sam? Arm candy.” I tapped my temple, and then mimed cocking a gun. “Pretty empty upstairs.” I lifted my pen to indicate I had signed, signed, and initialed.

“And Noah’s friend . . . from Laney’s mom’s wedding? Soldier Boy?”

Tim had been a perfect partner in crime for the timeless, torturous bouquet and garter toss at the Hudson-Crystal wedding in Hawaii. After our respective best friends had snuck away from the reception together, Tim and I had been just about the only singles left on the dance floor to endure the humiliation. Tall and agile, he had barely needed to raise a hand to catch the lacy bit. And the flowers had landed right in my hands, despite Lady P, one of the many Elvis impersonators on-site, and her valiant attempt to dive for it in her skintight, rhinestone jumpsuit.

I let a wicked smile slip, remembering how Tim had eased that garter belt up my thigh, fingers climbing so high that I had to smack him with the bouquet to make him stop.

“Soldier Boy was fun,” I admitted. He and I had both arrived in town last week to attend Laney and Noah’s charity soirée for the Kitchen of Hope and had had even more fun. “But now he’s back overseas.”

“Pity. Mona and I really liked him.”

While I had my dalliance du jour, Jax had long-term relationships. Mona—or Bitch’n’Mona, as Laney liked to call her—was his latest ladylove. She had appeared on the scene after I’d moved out of state for my last job, so I didn’t know her all that well. But if I knew Jax, it was serious . . . until the day it wasn’t. My friend was an open-and-shut textbook case of serial monogamy.

Jax leaned over my shoulder and guided me through the last of the forms. His cologne had a hint of chilled cucumber with a citrus bite, and hung from his neck like a scrapbook for my senses. I was seventeen and running along the ocean shore again, not thirty-two and running away from my memories of Mick.

If that was even his real name.

“Tell me you’re not still thinking about Mystery Man from a year ago?”

“Yep.”

And I was still dreaming about him, too . . . especially on the nights when I ate dessert after eight o’clock. Mick had been just that sweet, just that sinful, and just that much of an indulgent fantasy.

“Lucky is the thief who steals your heart, Dani . . .” Jax murmured.

Yeah, right. Not to mention the twenty thousand dollars in wedding gifts that disappeared that night.

“Please, don’t start. Posy has finally agreed to speak to me again.” I ran my fingers along the creamy silk ribbon at my throat, avoiding the charm tethered to it, and refrained from saying more.

While I sometimes found it easier to talk about it with Jax than Laney, I still hadn’t been completely honest. The past year had hardly been a cakewalk.

Despite what Mick did to my family, I couldn’t shake him from my thoughts. “But you were the one who pulled the slutty Cinderella, right? Leaving him with a hard-on and a glass slipper at the end of the night?” Jax shuffled, collated, and stapled my paperwork while wearing a frown that either indicated intense concentration, or massive disapproval.

Swallowing hard, I managed, “I just thought . . . he was different.”

“No, you thought he was perfect. And he wasn’t. So your playdar wasn’t working that night? Time to forgive and forget.”

I sighed; during the plane ride home from my sister’s wedding in New Orleans, I had managed to work through all five of the Kübler-Ross stages of grief over Mick’s deception: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Forgiving was in there somewhere.

But forgetting? Kind of impossible. Not when those pale blue eyes haunted me every time I closed my own. His were icy like a husky dog’s; mine were more of the Fiona Apple variety. Our gazes, made more electric and mysterious from behind the vintage masks Pat and Posy had insisted everyone wear during their reception, had locked in on each other the moment he’d stepped onto the dance floor.

I replayed his every move in stark, cinematic loops. And I heard his soft, sexy voice in stereo surround sound. I rewound my favorite parts and tortured myself by examining them in slow motion. Mick smiling. Tilting his head back in laughter. Touching my chin. Removing his black and gold Scaramouche mask by its long-beaked nose as he moved to kiss me.

“I still can’t believe I fell for a wedding crasher.”

“You may just have met your match,” Jax gently teased. “Funeral crasher.”

I blushed at the title, thinking back to the day he and I met. I hadn’t meant to attend the solemn graveside service for Jackson’s family’s patriarch. But if I hadn’t, this townie never would’ve met the teen tycoon turned used-car salesman sitting across from her. Rolling his pen between his fingers in thought and absorbing everything around him, even though his imagination was light-years away.

Jax didn’t need the job at the car dealership. But he took any opportunity to study the human condition as fodder to fuel his fiction.

“Maybe you’ll write that story into one of your books someday.”

“Maybe.” Jax came back to earth and smiled at me. “But right now, I want to put you in the driver’s seat. You ready?”

He grabbed my hand, and we wound past the Bentleys and Lamborghinis smugly gracing Jax’s uncle’s showroom floor. The Davenport footprint was stamped all over Eleventh Avenue, where most of Manhattan’s elite car dealerships sat. It had also worn a path down to Wall Street and back with its hard work and success.

Back in high school, hitching a ride with Jax meant showing up at the mall in a vintage Porsche Spyder, and posing for prom pictures in front of the Lotus used on the set of a James Bond movie. Until Laney and her high school sweetheart Allen had decided to reenact a Whitesnake video on the hood of Grandmother Davenport’s Jaguar, resulting in a ban on young Jackson borrowing the keys to the family cars.

June heat rose from the city concrete and licked at my bare ankles as Jax pushed me gently through the automatic door and we left the air-conditioned building behind. Still, a shiver rode up my spine as smooth, cool hands slid in place to block my vision.

“You ready? No peeking, Danica James.”

“How can I peek with your hands over my eyes?”

Jax knew me too well. I reached to pry his fingers apart to sneak a look, just like I’d do when he’d try to protect me from the gory parts in a horror movie.

His hands dropped to my shoulders, mingling with my curls, and we both gazed upon the mustard yellow Volkswagen bus baking in the midmorning sun of the back alley.

“You like?”

“Oh my God. It’s perfect.” I gave his hands a squeeze, then shot forward to run my own down the VW’s flat face. “How on earth did you get it?”

“Mugged a hippie.” I threw him a look, and he laughed. “I put my feelers out. Auction in Michigan. It’s a 1972 Westfalia. Fully restored, with a pop-up top.”

“I see that.” Teetering on the tiptoes of my sandals, I scoped out the camper’s interior through the long side window. “A sink?”

“Yep, along with a few other upgrades. Built-in closet, icebox. Table folds out. Convertible bed, the works.” Jax rocked back on his heels, pleased with himself. “Check out the seats; I think the upholstery is original.”

“Avocado green. So sexy!” I reached through the open window and tentatively touched the wide steering wheel. The cogs in my head were already turning. “How many miles does it have on it?”

“Seventy-nine five.”

Not bad for a car ten years older than me. But still. I was going the distance. “Will it last me all summer?”

“It’s going to get you where you need to go,” Jax said.

I grimaced. That wasn’t exactly the answer to my question.

“Treat you to lunch?” he asked. “We can hit the Rocking Horse.”

“Depends. Where’s your evil twin?”

Dexton Davenport hated me with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. And was often Jax’s lunchtime companion if he roused himself out of bed early enough.

“Midtown. I think he was hitting Sam Ash and a few other guitar stores today. Come on,” he coaxed. “Manhattan’s big enough for the both of you.”

“Dex despises me.”

Jax rolled his eyes. He’d been stuck in the middle of this tug-o’-war between me and his brother for years.

“No, Dex is just in a mood.”

“He’s been in a mood since your grandfather’s funeral.”

Jax laughed. It was a fairly accurate observation; what teenager wouldn’t be grumpy upon learning of a deathbed confession that rocked his cushy little world, threw his family’s inheritance in jeopardy, and forced him to slum it out in the suburbs for the rest of his high school career?

Jackson Davenport, for one. The good twin.

“So . . . carnitas and margaritas?”

His offer was poetic and tempting.

But I really needed to get going while I had the light.

“Rain check,” I promised, throwing my arms around my friend. “How can I ever repay you for this?”

“Make good on the loan,” he laughed. “Gypsy masseuse heartbreakers carry their checkbooks out on tour, right?”

“Always.” My fingers performed a fluttering effleurage down his spine. “And maybe you’ll take me up on that offer of a massage someday?”

“Rain check on your magic fingers,” he managed, pulling away before he allowed himself to melt into me. “Oh, and I took the liberty . . .” He reached through the passenger window and pulled out a pair of custom vanity plates stamped with WWDD.

“Oh, Jax.” Now it was my turn to melt as I watched my friend affix my favorite motto to my ride.

“Listen to that little voice inside your own head for once, will ya? W-W-D-D?”

What Would Dani Do?

The phrase echoed as I navigated Mean Mistress Mustard, my new old van, through the snakes of traffic and into the Lincoln Tunnel with her headlights on.

It was true; my friends always looked to me for that voice of reason. My perfect mixture of level-headedness and levity. Just walk away, I had told Laney tenfold, guiding her through the land mines that came with loving a rock star like Allen Burnside. Live a little, I had urged her, when I knew all she wanted to do was die a little after losing him to cancer. And be open to a grand adventure were my words that helped get her on that plane to her mom’s wedding and move her from heartache to happiness with Noah.

I needed to take my own advice, and taking the job as a backstage masseuse for the Minstrels & Mayhem Festival tour was certainly a start.

The tunnel rose, darkness dashed away by the unblinking eye of the summer sun.

And I would forget Mick.

Starting with no dessert after eight o’clock at night.

The Caged Bird Sings

I had plenty of time on my hands while they rested on the wheel, driving four hundred miles from Manhattan to Hampton, Virginia, for the first stop on the tour. Plenty of time to think about everything, and nothing. And I had come to the conclusion that even the most down-to-earth brides are entitled to their one crazy Bridezilla moment.

For my sister, it was the birdcage.

From the minute Posy spied it during a weekend of antiquing in Cold Spring Harbor, she made it her mission to incorporate the Victorian cage into her wedding plans. It didn’t concern her that the thing was tetanus-inducing rusty and large enough to house a vulture. She fell in love with its graceful arches and scrollwork, and paid a mint to have it re-enameled before shipping it to the wedding reception in New Orleans.

It became the silver-stamped motif on her one hundred invitations, and graced the thank-you cards for later. And it had sat, stuffed fat with stiff envelopes for the happy couple, on a long table next to her beautiful hummingbird cake during the entire celebration. All evening long, guests came by to admire both, and to slide their own gifts through the thin, curving slats of the cage. I know, because Mick and I had passed the table at least a dozen times as he swept me off my feet, around and around the ballroom floor. I’d watched the pileup inside, a jumble of pastels and pristine white forming the newlyweds’ nest egg. Assuring their future together was off to a solid start.

•   •   •

“Tell me you have the cage.”

The tremor in Posy’s voice was in stark contrast to the melodic laugh that had followed her around like a little fairy bell during her wedding. Just as the morning sky outside my hotel window, gray with the threat of rain, had been a world away from the golden sun that had streamed down on the wedding party the day before.

“You were my maid of honor.” Hysteria wavered through the phone line. “I put you in charge of the cage. It’s gone, Dani! It’s disappeared.”

How the hell could someone have walked out the front door with a gaudy two-foot-high birdcage full of gifts, and not one person had noticed?

I clutched the hotel bedsheets to my naked chest; they smelled vaguely of cake and sweet dreams.

They smelled like Mick.

And he had disappeared, too.

The newly blended immediate family had gathered at the police station to wait for any news.

“We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” assured the catering manager. It was unnecessary, as it didn’t make us feel special, or any better. “We are cooperating fully with authorities, and they are reviewing our security tapes now. They don’t think it was an inside job, but there is a . . . person of interest we recognized in the footage.”

“They’re looking at all the cameras, honey,” my mother stressed, turning toward me. “Including the videographer’s and the digital ones from the vendor rentals. Is there anything you’d like to tell us?”

“Yes, how about it, Dani? Starting with the mystery man you were four inches away from fucking in the photo booth!” Posy screeched. Pat steadied her with a hand to her arm, but I saw his fingers shake. His parents discreetly turned their heads from their new daughter-in-law’s justifiable rage. Probably wondering about the questionable morals of the family their son had just married into.

My father’s face was stone, only his eyebrows giving away the one thought that I knew had crossed his mind many times throughout my adolescence: I wish I’d had sons. My mother’s disappointment was mirrored in his. Wondering how my brain and all its bad habits had formed, despite all their careful parenting. And how they could have spawned one child to follow in their sane, staid footsteps, while the other one turned out to be, for lack of a more scientific term, boy crazy.

Remorse had coated the bitter pill of pride I swallowed. “If anything he said can be believed, then he’s waiting for me at the Café Du Monde.”

•   •   •

I pulled Mean Mistress Mustard into the first rest stop over the Maryland border. Coffee sounded good right now. Wiping my eyes, I sighed. There was no use in rehashing the memories now. Even Posy had advised against it, once she broke her silent treatment. “Abreaction is so nineteenth century,” she joked. Psychologist humor. “Stop beating yourself up about it, Dani.”

Well, if the current school of practice frowned upon reliving past trauma, then I would take the cognitive therapy route—a hands-on, practical approach to changing behavior—and I’d achieve it one massage client at a time. Working my way upward through my chosen professional path, and keeping my mind off my joke of a personal life.

The Calling

“Will you marry me, luv?”

The most famous man at the festival had an accent that was crisp and delicious, even when muffled by the face cradle of my massage table. “Christ,” he moaned.

I laughed and reached for my revitalizing oil. His wasn’t the first proposal since the Minstrels & Mayhem tour had started a month ago.

“Somehow I don’t think your wife of twenty-two years would approve.” Not to mention he was, at sixty-two, twice my age . . . and a grandfather.

It was so much easier to talk to musicians when they were lying prone and pliant under my hands. Especially when they were as famous as the current client in my tent, who went by one name only and probably had more Grammys lined up on his shelf than I had little amber bottles of essential oils.

I chose two—lemon for energy, basil for clarity—and added tiny amounts to the almond oil I had warming beside me. He had mentioned a dull back pain from sleeping awkwardly during his seven-hour flight over, so I knew my custom blend would work wonders before he had to take the main stage that night.

He was the buffest, sexiest rock-and-roll grandfather on the Minstrels & Mayhem tour, that was for sure.

“My wife doesn’t have your magic fingers.” He shuddered as I worked my way toward the groove between his spine and erector spinae. Using my knuckles, I slid slowly and strongly along the length of the groove, the oil helping me glide with ease as I worked out each knot of tension along the way.

“There you are,” I whispered to a particularly stubborn trigger point, which finally gave under my pressure, and the reward was seeing his strong shoulders release. The platinum recording artist was putty in my hands.

“I want to”—he gasped—“pack you in my road case and”—my stripping technique down his back caused his sentence to staccato—“take you on tour. Good God.”

It was high praise for this influential artist to want to add me to his daily regimen, along with his yoga and macrobiotic diet. But I couldn’t let it go to my head.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now, my dear. I’m not nearly old enough to be a sir. I quite like my title of CBE, and I highly doubt the queen will be knighting me anytime soon.”

Earning a playful wink from the Commander of the Order of the British Empire currently lying shi