Read Online The Heavenly Baker by J J Monroe - Free Book Online

is no malice, only amusement.
    â€˜My reflection is stubbornly refusing to concede that I am the winner of this particular argument.’
    â€˜OK,’ whispers Matt. ‘I’m leaving now.’
    â€˜You’re funny,’ I reply and await his next jibe.
    Nothing is uttered. My heart rate quickens. I listen intently. The hotel door opens and I hear a resounding thud as it closes. He wouldn’t really do that. He can’t have left. I don’t want to look at my reflection. She isn’t smiling back at me. My world is unravelling. I switch on my electric toothbrush. The whirring sound drowns out the calamitous noise in my head. You idiot! it screams.
    Eventually, I can put off the evil moment no longer. I check my appearance one last time in the mirror, steadfastly ignoring my reflection, and reach for the handle to the bathroom door. If he is gone then so be it. It’s been good while it’s lasted, brief as that may be. I take a breath and then another for good luck, turn the handle, and step out into the wilderness.
    â€˜You’re rubbish at playing games,’ a familiar voice remarks.
    The tension evaporates from my body as I seek him out. Naked as the day he was born, he leans against the couch with his arms folded, seemingly awaiting my return from the bathroom.
    â€˜Am I?’ I ask.
    â€˜You were supposed to come rushing out at the sound of the door closing.’
    â€˜You wanted me to believe that you’d abandoned me in the middle of the night?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Matt says. ‘Though when you say it like that it makes me sound …’
    â€˜Cold,’ I suggest.
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜Are you a cold and callous person?’ I cross my arms and face him across the hotel suite.
    â€˜I try not to be,’ he says.
    â€˜Are you planning on ditching me at the first sign of trouble?’
    â€˜Absolutely. That’s what players do. It says so in my rule book.’
    â€˜You have a rule book?’ I enquire.
    â€˜It came with the membership fees I paid to be part of the club. This is what you’re expecting, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes, though not the club part. That’s not really true, is it?’
    â€˜No,’ he says shaking his head gently. ‘None of this is true. It’s all a figment of your imagination.’
    â€˜This is getting weirder by the second,’ I admit. ‘So the sex didn’t happen?’
    â€˜Sure the sex happened. Don’t you remember, or was it really not that memorable for you after all? Because if it wasn’t, then you had me fooled.’
    I screw my eyes up and give him a look.
    â€˜How much of my conversation in the bathroom did you overhear?’
    â€˜Only a little.’
    â€˜You’re a bad liar.’
    â€˜OK, a lot,’ he says, correcting his answer. ‘Look, I don’t know what this is, but it doesn’t feel like a one-night stand to me.’
    â€˜Do you have a lot of experience in knowing how they feel, then?’
    â€˜Not really, but I don’t think this is it. I just don’t want to scare you off.’
    â€˜Scare me off.’ The words slip from my mouth without thought or control. ‘I thought you were the one who was leaving?’
    â€˜I was only teasing,’ he tells me. ‘Why would I want to leave when I have such a delicious playmate waiting for me here in the room?’
    â€˜You think I’m delicious?’
    â€˜Every delicate inch of you,’ he confesses.
    Now that is what I’m talking about.
    â€˜Do you forgive me?’
    â€˜There’s nothing to forgive.’
    â€˜You caught me having a mad five minutes in the bathroom.’
    â€˜That’s OK. If you can’t go a little mad in the privacy of your own bathroom, then where can you?’
    â€˜That’s exactly right, and I’m pleased you see eye to eye with me on this.’
    I can see he does because something is