The Chocolate Shop on Cherry Lane (The Wild Brothers #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Immy stared at the little white stick in her hand in shock.

She was pregnant. In fact she’d bought three pregnancy tests just to be sure and they all confirmed the same thing.

Three months pregnant by her calculations, as Christmas Day was the last time she’d been with someone.

How could she have missed it? Her periods had always been hit and miss so she hadn’t really noticed when she didn’t have one.

She thought she might have put on the tiniest bit of weight but she never weighed herself and she lived her life in leggings and loose dresses or tunics so her clothes hadn’t exactly got tight.

She had been so busy over the last few months, moving into her little flat above her sweet shop, decorating it and making it her own, that she hadn’t had time to think about missing periods or how her body was changing. Were her breasts bigger?

She placed her hands on her tiny little bump where her baby was growing right now and couldn’t help smiling because there was no question or doubt in her mind.

She was going to keep this baby. Life might be far from ideal.

She was single, she was self-employed in her own sweet shop so there wouldn’t be any maternity leave, but having a family, children of her own was something she had always dreamed about.

She glanced out the window at the chocolate shop where Xander worked and the flat above it where he lived with his daughter, Etta.

Immy wasn’t sure what his reaction would be to the news that he was going to be a dad again, but it probably wasn’t going to be good.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time to have to face him either.

The Easter egg hunt was the following weekend and she had spent months organising it all, liaising with all the community groups who used her back room.

Xander was providing all the chocolate eggs for the hunt so she didn’t want to do anything to antagonise him.

If he got shirty about the pregnancy, she was likely to get defensive and angry with him and that would damage their already frail professional relationship.

Xander had always made it clear he had no interest in a relationship. His wife had died a few years before and he had committed to raising his daughter alone. He was adamant that he never wanted anyone to step in and play Mum to Etta.

What Immy had shared with Xander had been purely a physical thing.

A series of one-night stands that had stretched out over five or six weeks before he’d finally put a stop to it after Etta had nearly walked in on them in the throes of passion.

Well, it hadn’t been that bad. Etta had wandered downstairs just moments after they’d finished as they stood near the front door trying to catch their breath.

Xander had bundled Immy and her clothes into the toilet.

She had stood naked in the bathroom, not daring to move or breathe while she listened to him explain to his six-year-old daughter that the banging she’d heard was him putting up a picture after it had fallen down and that the moans that had woken her were him listening to the radio a bit too loud.

Eventually he’d persuaded his daughter to go back to bed and Immy had quickly got dressed before Xander came back downstairs and swiftly escorted her out of his flat.

He’d been annoyed, she could tell, as if it was her fault he’d made her orgasm three times almost as soon as she’d walked through the door.

He’d told her it could never happen again.

And when he kissed her goodbye she knew he’d meant it.

They’d been trying to avoid each other ever since, which was hard when they lived and worked opposite each other. And as her sister was set to marry Xander’s cousin, they’d probably be seeing each other a whole lot more.

Owning the only chocolate shop in the town of Lovegrove Bay, Xander was heavily involved in the Easter egg hunt next weekend that she was in charge of.

Immy had kept things professional and brief in her emails to him about the event and he had replied like someone who didn’t even know her, not someone who had given her the best sex of her entire life.

Not someone who had made her stupidly dream of forever.

Because it might have just been something physical to him, but to her it had been something more.

From the first time they were together, she’d thought they shared a deeper connection that went way beyond sex, and she thought he’d felt that too – which made his decision to push her away even more confusing and hurtful.

But now she couldn’t avoid him any longer. He deserved to know he was about to become a dad again, even if he didn’t want to be part of her and their baby’s lives.

What if he was nasty about it, told her he didn’t care?

She wasn’t sure she could handle that. Or even worse, what if he was kind, what if he told her he wanted to take care of her and the baby, that he wanted to marry her?

She definitely couldn’t cope with that. She had tried to build a wall around her heart with regards to Xander.

He had hurt her too many times to want to let him back into her life.

She wouldn’t stop him seeing his child of course, if he wanted to be a part of their life, but she was sure they could be professional about that too.

Keep things amicable, clean, no complications.

She glanced at Jacob, her black Skye terrier, curled up in his bed, watching her.

He always had such an empathetic expression on his face as if he understood her turmoil completely.

She would often have long conversations with him, he knew all her secrets and was an excellent listener even if he never gave her any pearls of wisdom.

‘I could send him an email,’ Immy said to Jacob. ‘It would be far easier than having to deal with him face to face.’

Jacob gave her a look from under his shaggy fringe that told her that suggestion was stupid and she knew that it was.

‘I haven’t really got time to talk to him now,’ Immy tried to reason with the ever silent Jacob. ‘I have Knit ’n’ Natter coming in this afternoon.’

That ought to sway him, he loved the Knit ’n’ Natter group, mainly because they would all lavish him with treats and strokes and lots of attention whenever they came in.

Jacob wagged his tail at the mention of the Knit ’n’ Natter group but he still didn’t look impressed with her need to put off talking to Xander.

Jacob was right. Immy took a deep breath because there was no time like the present. The longer she tried to put it off the harder it would be.

She went downstairs and crossed the street.

It was lunchtime so things tended to be a bit busier for the shops but she was disappointed to see that there was a queue practically out the door of Xander’s little chocolate shop.

Although the Easter weekend was coming up, she didn’t think there would be a mad rush for Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies.

Of course the sign declaring fifty percent off all chocolates might have something to do with it.

She hesitated outside the door. Clearly now was not the time to deliver such life-changing news but maybe she could just pop in and ask him to come by after work.

Immy squeezed past the queue with apologies and walked into the shop. There was Xander looking gorgeously sexy as he served and chatted with one of the customers.

‘There is a queue here,’ hollered someone and Immy turned and saw Judy, Xander’s formidable assistant, standing there with her arms folded across her chest, her grey hair quivering with outrage.

‘I just need a quick word with Xander, I’ll just be two seconds.’

‘He’s busy,’ Judy snapped.

Xander looked over and the smile slid off his face when he spotted her. Immy never came in his shop, despite him making and selling the best chocolate she’d ever tasted, so it must have been a shock for him to see her there. He quickly hurried out from behind the counter to talk to her.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘I just need a few minutes of your time and I know you’re crazy busy but could you pop round once you’ve finished work?’

He frowned in confusion but then nodded. He continued to stare at her. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said softly.

She hated when he was kind to her. She much preferred it when he ignored her because then she could convince herself she didn’t care that he didn’t want to be with her and that she was better off without him.

But one kind look, a gentle word and all those feelings she wasn’t supposed to have for him came flooding back.

‘I missed you too.’ She cursed herself for not being able to come up with a more aloof response.

‘I’m sorry about that night.’

‘I’m sorry too, for the way it ended.’

He stared at her, regret flickering in his eyes.

‘Xander, I need some help here,’ Judy called over the loud hubbub of people chatting in the shop.

‘I’ll be right there,’ Xander said, not taking his eyes off Immy.

‘I don’t think she likes me,’ Immy said, quietly, although it was unlikely Judy could hear her anyway, it really was rather noisy in here.

‘She’s a bit protective over me, and the shop. There’s a lot of women that come in here just to flirt with me and I think she gets tired of it.’

She stared at him. ‘You… you have women queuing up to see you?’

‘I wouldn’t put it like that but there are a few women that come in here on a regular basis and make it known that they are single and, umm…

willing to mingle… horizontally. I had one woman who asked if I’d be willing to bring some of my melted chocolate to her house and lick it off her body.

I don’t think I could look at tempered chocolate in the same way again if I’d done that. ’

Immy felt her eyebrows shoot up. ‘That’s how you meet women? Just flash them a smile across the chocolate counter and wham, bam, thank you ma’am?’