Page 18 of The Wedding Cake
“It can’t be a tandem for just the two of you, no. You’d both need to go with an instructor. They’d never let you loose as an uninitiated pair… and I’ve never seen a threesome flying overhead when I’ve been soaking up the sun on the beach in Marbella, so I’d say you’re safe as houses and the instructor won’t be joining in with you for an orgy either.”
Hannah chuckled, and if her spiel hadn’t been about Freya, then Freya might have laughed along with her assistant too.
“Shit, shit, shit. This is far from funny, Hannah. What have I got myself into? What a mess.” Freya tugged at her curls as if that might unravel the disaster.
“Don’t overthink it. Just enjoy the moment. It’ll be over before you know it. How did it come about anyway? I guess you got chatting about your Monday pursuits and the challenge to keep them fresh and exciting… and one thing led to another?”
“That’s the incredible thing: I didn’t say a word, I swear!” Freya cried. “Tim randomly brought it into the conversation after that weird video call with Piper.”
“Which would be just after I caught you in the act of sensually removing the cream from his face. Still, what are the chances of discovering you’re both passionate about trying out the same extreme sport? If he wasn’t getting married, he’d be your soul mate by the sounds of it. And I wouldn’t be in a hurry to kick him out of bed in the morning.”
“Yes, all right. That thing with the cream shouldn’t have happened. It was me, not him. I’m incorrigible and I swear on the life of every member of FOM that I’ve never done anything like that before in a decade of running the cakery. Nor will I again. I did try to show him where the blob of cream had landed from the other side of the table, if you must know, but he kept touching all the wrong places.” Freya put her head in her hands. “Oh, this is hopeless and now I need a Spanish triple measure gin and tonic. Anything to take the edge off my stupidity.”
Hannah creased up with laughter and finally put in her tuppence worth. “That sexy and mysterious hair falling across his face wasn’t much help to him, was it? A bit like playing charades blindfolded.”
Thank goodness Hannah had been working with Freya for a while. Witnessing what looked like blatant and indefensible flirtation with a client would have had most assistants handing in their notice, and taking their account of events to the press while they were at it! This was no way to train the next generation of wedding cake makers.
“That’s it,’ Hannah said now. “I’m taking it upon myself, as your ever-attentive assistant, to shout you tapas and that triple Larios in the square. Grab your things and let’s go.”
Twenty-four hours later,Freya’s date-that-wasn’t-a-date had been confirmed. Tim had texted her the details. She would make her own way to Duquesa, the small resort half an hour west of Marbella, to meet him and the paragliding instructor. That rendez-vous was nerve-wracking enough, but the next day Freya found herself sitting opposite Hannah again, in the exact same bar in the orange tree square, another heady gin and tonic in hand. She couldn’t let this become a habit.
“Okay, I’m sure whatever it is you needed to tell me, you could have done it back in the cakery.” Freya gestured in the direction of FOM.
“Not really,” said Hannah. “This conversation requires a stiff drink and I didn’t want the others to hear.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re resigning.” Freya clapped a hand to her head. In ten years of running her business, she had never let herself down so badly. One stupid, slapdash moment and now she’d lost an absolutely priceless member of staff and friend. Well, she deserved it. She had behaved abominably.
“Nooooooo! Oh, my goodness, Freya. I hope you haven’t been worrying that I was building up to something like that all day. I love working at FOM. You know that.”
“Phew.” Freya gulped at her strong drink in celebration. “What’s up, then?”
“I’ve got it!” Hannah began to drum her fingers slowly on the table.
“Got what?”
“I just knew I’d seen that face and that waterfall hair-do before… and more to the point, I just knew I’d seen them in a juicily compromised position before.” Now Hannah’s fingers were moving so fast they were playingChopstickson the table as if it were a piano.
“Hannah, slow down. You’re scaring me and people are staring! Take a breath and a sip of your peppermint tea.”
“Yes to the first two suggestions. No to number three. I’ve changed my mind. I need something stronger too.”
“Oh, no. This must be bad.” Freya bit her lip.
“It is. I can’t even begin the story until I’ve properly soothed my nerves,” said Hannah, as she jumped up to accost a waiter and put in her order.
“Have some of this.” Freya nudged her mixer to the middle of the table.
“I’m more of a whiskey and Coke girl.” As if he’d been stage-directed, a waiter placed Hannah’s drink in front of her. She took a mammoth gulp. “I saw Tim’s fiancée sucking the face off another man.” Hannah blurted her words out and glugged more of her fizzy concoction.
Freya joined her with another generous sip of her own drink, and swiftly wished that she hadn’t.
“Woah.” She said when she’d stopped choking. “That’s quite an announcement. Are you certain it was Piper Moss? I shouldn’t say it – regardless of what also shouldn’t have happened yesterday in the cakery – but beautiful though she is, her looks are rather two-a-penny in these parts… if you catch my drift.”
“Drift well and truly caught and I agree with you, boss. But I one hundred percent know what I saw.”
“Okay, rewind.” Didn’t that seem to be Freya’s word of the week? “Where and when did this happen?”
“When I saw Piper on Tim’s screensaver, I realised I’d seen her before… She’s the total spit of the woman I saw giggling and smooching her way down the corridor towards one of the top-priced bedrooms with the step-son of Aaron Barrington, the owner of the hotel. Huh, the owner of a Monopoly board’s worth of hotels. When I saw her on Tim’s phone, I didn’t put two and two together, but last night it came to me. Mam’s car is in the garage, you see, so I’ve been giving her lifts to and from the hotel in Puerto Banus all week.” Hannah let that statement hang there.
