Read Online Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins - Free Book Online Page A

crappy day, unbroken by any form of communication from Mark. He’d been back in the country for more than twenty-four hours, and surely if he’d had any interest in me at all he would have been in touch by now. I had read He’s Just Not That Into You one rainy weekend at my ex-boyfriend’s parents’ bach, and it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t. I wondered whether Thomas would mock or commiserate, and which would be harder to bear.
    Monday was yoga night, but I was in no mood for being a vessel filled with clear white light. I would have a long, hot bath with a glass of wine and a Georgette Heyer novel instead, followed by poached eggs on toast and bed by eight o’clock.
    That small self-righteous inner voice whose sole job it is to make you feel guilty piped up, You should really go to yoga.
    Oh, sod off , I told it.
    Turning in through my gate I nearly hit a sleek, dangerous-looking sports car parked in front of the garage. Now that was unexpected. Mark was sitting on the back doorstep with Murray on his lap, and suddenly, although three seconds ago the only good thing about today had been that it was nearly finished, life was a wonderful thing.
    I turned off the ute, got out and shut the door. Don’t say um. Don’t you dare say um . . . ‘Hi.’
    ‘Hi,’ said Mark, tipping Murray lightly off his knee as he stood up. ‘Sorry to just turn up.’
    ‘You’re the first nice thing that’s happened all day,’ I said, going across the lawn towards him.
    He put his arms around me and kissed me for quite a long time, and I realised that, contrary to all expectation, today was the best day of my life to date. ‘You still smell,’ he said when we broke apart.
    ‘A gentleman wouldn’t keep pointing it out.’
    He grinned. ‘Well, I’d have thought a lady would smell better.’
    ‘It’s burnt hair,’ I said. ‘I’ve been dehorning calves. Come in and grab a drink while I have a shower. Have you been waiting long?’
    ‘Only about ten minutes.’
    I climbed the steps and reached up for the key, hanging on its nail at the top of the doorframe. ‘You should have let yourself in.’
    ‘It’s just a bit creepy to get home and find some random bloke making himself comfortable in your house, don’t you think?’
    ‘Only if you were going through my knickers drawer or something.’
    ‘That’s usually the very first thing I do in someone else’s house,’ said Mark.
    I left him making a cup of tea and went to have a shower, where I paid particular attention to my elbows. Satisfied that both they and my earlobes were clean, I pulled my wet hair back into a ponytail, and put on my favourite, bottom-flattering jeans and a green T-shirt that Alison said went nicely with brown eyes.
    As I came back into the kitchen, Mark’s pocket started to ring. He took out his phone, looked at it briefly and turned it off. ‘Dad,’ he said, putting the phone down on the bench.
    ‘Shouldn’t you get it? It might be important.’
    ‘Nope,’ he said flatly. ‘He’ll be ringing to tell me I should have passed the ball wide and not tried to run it, and that I was sloppy in the lineout.’
    ‘You were not!’
    He looked at me, amused. ‘How would you know?’
    ‘I watched. And they said on Radio Sport this morning that you were pretty much the only player on the field in that game who looked like he knew what he was doing.’
    ‘You listen to Radio Sport?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. I had been an avid follower of the sporting news for nearly three weeks now.
    He smiled and reached out a long arm to pull me closer, and a pair of headlights raked the side of the cottage as a car pulled in behind my ute.
    ‘Oh, dear Lord, no ,’ I said, stepping hurriedly back.
    ‘What? It’s your boyfriend?’
    ‘Worse. Stepmother. And sisters,’ I added, as both rear doors opened too. ‘I’m so sorry.’
    ‘Sorry for what?’ Mark asked.
    ‘Whatever they’re going to say.’ I opened the kitchen door as Caitlin reached the bottom