When Only Cupcakes Will Do Read Online Free

path of the unsuspecting? What was she going to do? She couldn’t continue to live with Alex after what had happened. But she knew there would be a sofa for her at Steph and Hollie’s flat in Wimbledon. And there was always Jess in Richmond if she could endure the commute and being mauled on a daily basis by her two young nephews. She’d better start packing.
    â€˜Want me to come up with you?’
    Lucie liked Yolande, but even in her pain-infused state she caught the tremor of dread in the woman’s voice. ‘No, but thanks for… well, for bringing me home.’
    â€˜Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?’
    â€˜I’m fine…’
    â€˜I’ll get Greg to talk to Alex… Perhaps if…’
    â€˜No, please don’t do that. Greg is Alex’s boss. It’s better to keep this between the two of us. I don’t want it to affect Alex’s chance at partnership.’
    â€˜Well, if you’re sure…’
    â€˜Bye, Yolande.’
    Lucie slammed the door and the cab sped away, its red tail lights shimmering like cat’s eyes growing smaller and smaller until they disappeared round the corner. She had a feeling of absolute certainty that she would never see Yolande, or Greg, again.
    Would her premonition extend to Alex, too?

Chapter Three
    â€˜Hey, Lucie, are you planning on serving chargrilled torta di ricotta to our customers this evening?’ chuckled Antonio, grabbing a cloth to remove her ricotta pie from the oven and setting it down to smoulder on a wire rack.
    Because it was Friday, the busiest night of the week, Lucie, like Gino and Antonio, had arrived at the restaurant early to prepare her ingredients and bake her most popular desserts for the evening’s service. The torte she’d spent the last hour creating had the additional aura of silver smoke and an intense aroma of burnt caramel.
    â€˜Oh, God! Sorry, sorry!’
    Gino paused in his task of separating zucchini flowers from their stems and swept his palm over his dark hair as he turned to look at Lucie, his face wreathed in anxiety. ‘You okay, Lucie?’
    Gino and Antonio were treating her like a delicate piece of Venetian glass to be bundled up in cotton wool, dipped in love and affection and dispatched home. While it was a welcome relief to know she was loved, and surrounded by such genuine concern for her well-being, all she really wanted to do was bury herself in a busy shift – the busier, the better – so that her brain had something else to focus on other than the painful memory of her rejection and broken heart.
    Once they’d settled into the familiar routine of the daily preparations, Gino strode over to Lucie and enveloped her in an Aramis-infused bear hug. ‘Alex is an imbecille . You want that me and Antonio take our meat cleavers over to Pimlico and surprise the hell out of him on his commute to work?’
    Tempting though it might have been to authorise such a foray, she knew it wouldn’t solve anything. And, more worryingly, she knew both Gino and Antonio had large extended families in Italy with accompanying whispers of connections to the Mafia. She was sure it was a wind-up by Antonio, but who knew?
    She scrutinised the handsome head chef’s features. Anyone meeting him for the first time couldn’t fail to guess at his Italian ancestry – his Mediterranean-hued complexion, those dark curled lashes. He could be described by some as stocky but there wasn’t a spare inch on him, and when he cooked he exuded such a force of energy he made the onlooker exhausted just from watching him.
    However, Gino’s most endearing trait was his infinite capacity to make everyone feel special. He possessed the enviable ability to recall the names of their regular diners like an ageless elephant. He had grown up above his parents’ restaurant on the outskirts of Milan, helping out with the service from the time he could