Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The sun had barely peeked over the horizon when Clemmie unlocked the door to The Café on the Coast. The little bell above the door jingled in the quiet morning air as she stepped inside.
The café wasn’t due to open for another couple of hours but with the baking competition fast approaching, Clemmie wanted to start practising.
As soon as she walked into the kitchen, she turned on the oven, tied her pinny around her waist and tucked her hair into a loose bun.
She took her great-great-grandmother’s recipe book down from the shelf and lay it on the counter.
The handwritten book with illustrations was essentially the café’s recipe bible, holding secret recipes that had been passed down through the family’s generations, each one sprinkled with love.
Clemmie carefully turned the flour-smudged pages.
The torte recipe was circled in faded ink, with little notes scrawled in the margins.
Add a touch of vanilla here!
Be gentle when folding; no overmixing, no matter how tempting!
Clemmie smiled. It was magical knowing that her great-great-grandmother had taken the time to document everything that she’d once baked in The Café on the Coast, and being able to see the notes in Beatrice’s very own handwriting.
‘Let’s go,’ Clemmie murmured to herself, rolling up her sleeves while staring at the list of ingredients. ‘No mistakes. No disasters.’
She switched on the radio before rummaging through the cupboards, pulling out the flour, sugar, eggs and chocolate.
It was all going to plan until she noticed the pesky puffin was back eyeing up the ingredients through the open window.
She quickly leaned forward to shut the window and knocked the bag of flour that was teetering on the edge of the counter.
She lunged, hands outstretched, but it was too late.
The bag tipped over, spilling an avalanche of flour.
‘Damn.’ Clemmie blinked through a cloud of white powder.
Two minutes ago, her kitchen was spotless, and now it looked like a snowstorm had passed through.
She stood there for a moment, locking eyes with the puffin as it stared back at her, unblinking.
With a sharp clap of her hands, the puffin startled and took off, its wings flapping noisily.
‘Clemmie, one; Puffin, one,’ she muttered, thinking back to the little thief’s audacious dive straight into her Victoria sponge.
She shook her head. ‘Brilliant start, Clemmie,’ she said dryly, brushing flour from her face, only to leave streaks of white across her cheeks. ‘Let’s try that again.’
Brightening the moment, one of her favourite tunes came on the radio.
Clemmie grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter.
‘You’re just too good to be true…’ she sang into the spoon, enthusiastically.
She began to twirl around the kitchen, ignoring the flour on the floor as she shimmied to the music and belted out the chorus. ‘Can’t take my eyes off of you!’
Her hips swayed, and she threw in a few dramatic spins, nearly colliding with the open fridge door.
Laughing at her own antics, Clemmie grabbed a mixing bowl and used it as a makeshift drum, tapping out the rhythm to the beat.
She was mid-twirl, the wooden spoon held up to her mouth, when she spun around – and froze.
Oliver Lockwood was leaning against the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed, a wickedly amused grin plastered across his face. ‘Can’t take your eyes off me, huh?’
Clemmie’s heart jumped into her throat. ‘What the—?’
She stared.
‘Don’t stop now,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You’re not a bad singer or dancer.’
She felt a blush rise in her cheeks. ‘What are you doing here? How did you even get in? We don’t open for another couple of hours.’
‘The door was unlocked,’ he said with a casual shrug, his grin never wavering. ‘I knocked, but apparently you were too busy channelling your inner pop star to notice.’
‘You could’ve announced yourself or, oh, I don’t know, waited outside like a normal person until we opened?’
‘But then where would the fun have been in that? I’d have missed the performance,’ Oliver said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘Seriously, Clem, that was a showstopper.’
Her pulsed raced at the way he said ‘Clem’, but she glared at him, determined not to back down. ‘If you’ve finished mocking me, I’ve got a torte to bake.’
‘Is that what you’re baking for the competition?’ He tried to peer over her shoulder towards the counter.
‘I’m not divulging that to you, as no doubt you’ll run straight back to the opposition, your girlfriend, and share the information.’ Damn, she couldn’t believe that had slipped right out of her mouth.
Oliver cocked an eyebrow. ‘I’m sensing a little bit of jealousy.’
‘I’m absolutely not jealous,’ she protested, but she wasn’t even convincing herself.
‘And for your information, Fiona’s not a girlfriend, just a long-standing family friend.’
‘Who you’ve probably been intimate with at some point.’
Oliver remained silent.
‘I rest my case.’
He was watching her closely. ‘I did miss you, you know, after our week of—’
‘Great sex.’ Double damn, more words slipped out that were not intended. She could kick herself.
He grinned. ‘Well, I was going to say “exploring London”, but I like your version better.’
‘You’re insufferable,’ she muttered.
‘And yet, here I am,’ he quipped, stepping closer. ‘You know, that week wasn’t just about sightseeing or, apparently, great sex. I actually liked spending time with you.’
Clemmie bit her tongue for a moment. She knew women were drawn to him.
His confidence, sharp intellect and magnetic presence made him irresistible.
But for all his allure, Oliver was a man married to his work.
His relationships were fleeting, his love affairs whirlwind, and he liked it that way …
uncomplicated, with the world as his playground.
Her pulse was racing but thankfully her poker face didn’t give anything away. ‘Well, too bad you liked your career more.’
‘Touché.’
Stalemate.
Clemmie watched as Oliver walked over to the recipe book, and then it hit her, a faint but unmistakable whiff of his aftershave, a blend of cedar and citrus, so achingly familiar.
That scent had clung to her clothes after their time together, lingering long after she’d left London.
It brought back memories of lazy mornings, tangled sheets and the way he’d leaned close to whisper something ridiculous in her ear just to make her laugh.
‘Is this the legendary torte, the one you spoke about in London?’ he said, looking at the page in the book. ‘Wasn’t it your great-great-grandmother’s recipe? Beatrice? Dating back to just after the war.’
She was surprised he’d remembered.
‘Maybe,’ Clemmie said, turning back to her ingredients in an attempt to regain her composure. ‘It’s sure to be a hit … if I can manage to bake it without destroying the kitchen first.’
Oliver glanced at the flour-strewn counter and the streaks on her face. ‘It’s going well so far, I see.’
‘Don’t you have somewhere else to be?’ she asked, grabbing a clean bowl and a whisk.
‘Nope.’ He leaned against the counter, clearly settling in for the long haul. ‘I thought I’d come and see you as I was up. I was woken early by the sound of the gulls and what I thought were cows outside my window.’
‘That’ll be the puffins mooing.’
He nodded. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d walk out and see what Puffin Island is all about. After all, I’ve heard so many things about this place.’
‘When I told you about my wonderful hometown you thought it couldn’t possibly be how I described it. In fact, you said something along the lines of “places like that only exist in fairytales”.’
Their eyes met and, for a moment, the unspoken memory hung between them.
Clemmie wondered if he remembered exactly where that conversation had taken place.
They’d been lying in bed in his Kensington apartment, the late-morning sun spilling through the curtains, the hum of the city filtering in through the open window.
They’d just shared the kind of languid, unhurried sex that left her grinning and a little breathless.
She’d got up to make coffee, carefully crafting the foam into a swirled heart that had earned an approving smile from him.
They’d spent the next hour in bed, sipping coffee, legs tangled together, as he asked her questions about Puffin Island.
It had been the first time he’d shown more than a passing interest in her world, and the memory still lingered, golden and bittersweet.
‘Are you going to make me a coffee?’ he asked.
He’d remembered.
‘I assume you still have high coffee standards.’
‘Very high.’
Clemmie turned towards the coffee machine.
As she ground the beans, she couldn’t resist sneaking a glance at him over her shoulder.
He was casually leaning his elbow against the counter, giving her that very same look that got her into bed in the first place.
The machine hissed and steamed, and Clemmie poured the coffee once it was ready and slid it towards him. ‘Freshly brewed. No frills.’
He peered into the mug with exaggerated disappointment, raising an eyebrow. ‘No coffee art?’
‘It’s coffee,’ she said flatly, caught off guard.
‘Exactly,’ he said with mock-seriousness. ‘I was hoping for one of those hearts.’
She grabbed a spoon and leaned over the counter, swirling the foam into a heart, then looked at him before breaking it in two.
‘I’m getting the impression you aren’t happy to see me.
’ He looked down at the mug and blew on it before swirling the foam into a heart shape once more, a grin spreading across his face.
‘That’s more like it. The pieces are back together.
I know you want to smile, Clemmie, I can see it in your eyes.
’ He gave her that lopsided grin that had always melted her heart.
Damn. Her heart was telling her to smile but thankfully her head kicked in and she resisted the impulse.
‘Those dimples of yours were always very cute.’
She remembered him kissing them every time she smiled. ‘I have baking to be getting on with. Are you going to leave?’
He held up his coffee mug. ‘Maybe after I finish my coffee.’
The way he was looking at her, things were about to get a whole lot more complicated…