Saint Kate of the Cupcake: The Dangers of Lust and Baking (31 page)

BOOK: Saint Kate of the Cupcake: The Dangers of Lust and Baking

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“I love you, Anders.” I sighed and pushed back against him, so that we touched along the length of our bodies. I could feel the round hardness of our baby in between us, sharing in the love. I could finally admit to myself that despite the improbability of it, with Anders, I had come home too.

Was he my happy ending after all? No, this was not the end, and we had no way of knowing what was in our future, but more importantly, he gave me hope that we could have a new beginning that would overwrite the mistakes of the past. I had a lot to look forward to.

Epilogue

J
ACK
L
OOKED
A
T
T
HE
S
MILING
P
ICTURE
of his ex-wife as she sat on a picnic rug in the sunshine, a plump blond child on her lap, the big man next to her looking at her with clear adoration as he cradled the newborn. He knew he should be happy for her, but he couldn’t. The darkness within him wouldn’t let him.

In the beginning, she had pushed it back, but over time even her light had been unable to prevent its return. Nothing could. It was passed down their family like a cursed inheritance.
His family.
What a joke. His mother was in denial, as usual, but it was clear to everyone else that Crispin would be going to jail this time. His father had all but disappeared now, his silence and withdrawal almost complete. With work and running the estate as well, at least Jack was too busy to think.

He ripped the page from Caroline’s magazine, knowing she had deliberately left it open on that page for him to find. Her revenges were petty but still cut him deeply. Slowly he tore the page into tiny pieces, leaving a trail to the bathroom, where he closed and locked the door. He turned on the shower and undressed quickly, bracing under the punishingly cold water. Only then did he let the tears fall, the loud torrent of water muffling the deep hacking sobs of his loss.

If he’d been the type, he would have ended it all. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. He just retreated inward and did the best he could. Adam had broken up with him not long after Kate left, tired of waiting for a commitment that would never come. He understood, but it was yet another piece of him lost that would never be recovered. What he had left to give would never be enough for his girlfriend, but if she left, he would be alone, and that was intolerable. So, he put up with her jealously and cruelty—it was what he deserved—and locked away his heart, which still and would always belong to Kate.

Acknowledgments

Thank you also to Anna, for giving me insight on how celebrities are managed and not even letting me buy her lunch. Also to Jess and Emma, who shared their experiences living in London.

Thank you also to all the amazing people in the UK who opened up their lives and homes for me to peer into and steal details to make this book at bit more real: Eden, Tory, Will, Evanna, Alice and Gillian.

To Fiona especially, who took me under her wing and shared her love of Chelsea and its surrounds. Hopefully I have used the information wisely!

About the Author

L.C. Fenton lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children. In addition to her cake-making business, she works as a freelance copywriter and pens occasional articles for various online magazines.

Not being one of those people who had a burning desire to be anything in particular, L.C. worked her way alphabetically backward through the available degrees at Sydney University. Surprisingly, given the amount of fun she had at school, L.C. finally managed to graduate with a completely unemployable degree in philosophy. A law degree soon followed, however, simply to make it possible for some organization to hire her.

After ten soul-destroying years, lost and wandering aimlessly in the corporate wilderness, L.C. threw it all in and reassessed. Deciding to bring the “one day I will write a book” idea to the present, she started and hasn’t stopped. As a huge fan of the romance genre, she writes the kinds of books that she enjoys to read.

In her spare time, L.C. Fenton…actually she has no spare time. She either sleeps or reads copious amounts of romance novels instead of sleeping. One day she hopes to have nothing to do and to take up reading full time, after completing all the levels of Candy Crush. Not likely to happen any time soon, but everyone needs a dream.

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