Page 30 of How to Ruin Your Ex's Wedding
I push my plate at him.
“Not the cake for you, my queen?” Hunter asks.
I shake my head.
“Wait, how would you know I hate guava?” I ask Matthew.
“’Cause you said so,” he replies.
The baker places another cake-filled plate in front of me, taking my attention away from whatever weirdness I may have felt about what Matthew said. I wait until everyone else has gotten the same. I feel bad that I have yet to really taste any of them, with the exception of the lemon frosting.
“Salted caramel cake topped with roasted almonds and Amaretto glaze, filled with caramel-infused buttercream and thin layers of salted caramel.”
This cake is more a beige color, which I can tolerate. I take a bite and moan. Loud.
Click.
I’m certain he got me with my mouth open. I don’t even care. I’m so into this cake that nothing else matters.
Literally.
Which means we can’t have this cake. I would eat way too much of it. This cake is way too good to be at our wedding. I take another tiny bite, then push it toward Matthew before he has a chance to move in and take some for himself.
A move that also reminds me of Pax. Since it’s what I would end up doing when I wanted him to stop reaching over and eating off my plate.
“This one is too sweet for me, I think. Or maybe not sweet enough,” Hunter says. Relief fills me. Now I won’t have to worry about eating too much of it. Maybe I should just let Hunter have the guava cake, then I don’t have to worry about eating any.
“How many are we tasting today?” I ask Liza.
“Six,” she says.
Six cakes. And I’ve only had two bites of one so far that was the third cake. If I can manage tiny bites of the remaining three, I can probably get out of here with less than one hundred and fifty calories.
The baker presents another plate. “Lemon summer berry, a vanilla cake topped with lemon mousse, filled with fresh strawberry and raspberry compote.”
Click.
It’s the one I snuck a taste of earlier. No one seems to notice the swipe from my finger. I like this one too. It’s light, and the contrast of the tart lemon mousse with the sweet of the cake and the compote is wonderful. Before I can say anything, Hunter says, “Oh, way too tart. Nope, not the cake for me.”
At the same time, Matthew says, “That’s a damn good cake.”
“Liza? What do you think?” Hunter asks.
“I’m not sure a cake such as this fits the theme of the day.”
We have a theme?
“What is the theme?” I ask.
“Splendor in elegance,” Hunter says.
I don’t even know what that means.
“Okay, so do we need a fancier cake?” I ask.
“Something more luxurious for sure,” Liza says. “Like that one.” She points to the cake that I believe is up next in the lineup. It looks like a lot of chocolate.
The baker sets this one before us. “Chocolate brownie cappuccino torte: brownie and rich chocolate layers separated by a cappuccino mouse and chocolate ganache swirl and brushed with Chambord, then topped with fresh raspberries.”
