“He’s a man who means business,” he said.
“The only thing I like to do, outside of medicine, is eat cake. So I’m extrapolating.” I pulled the mixing bowl and scales to the side. That would be a start. “I bought ingredients for a chocolate sponge cake. And I’ll take the finished cake into the hospital to share among the staff so Gerry is faced with evidence of me having a hobby.”
I handed him my iPad then rolled up my sleeves. “The recipe’s on there. If you measure out the sugar, I’ll put the oven on.”
“Right.” He prodded at the scales. “Do you know how to work these?”
“No idea. You’re the business whiz.” I turned on the oven and set about clearing a space for us to . . . bake. This was crazy. All those years ago when I fantasized about Joshua, never did my fantasies include flour.
“What have measuring scales got to do with being a business whiz?” He lifted one eyebrow—a maneuver central to his flirting technique since he was sixteen, from what I could make out. “I mean, obviously, I am a business whiz.” He narrowed his eyes at me and I couldn’t help but smile.
“You have a badge or something?”
“Do you doubt me? Because yes, for your information, I have a badge and a matching tattoo.”
“A tattoo?” I scanned his fully-clothed body as if I had x-ray vision.
“A tattoo.” He caught me looking and grinned. “And wouldn’t you like to know where?”
It was as if he’d set my cheeks on fire. The one time I hadn’t been fantasizing about him, and he thought I was. “You are full of shit,” I said, grabbing back the iPad and pretending to read the recipe.
“Maybe I’ll show you one of these days.”
Stand down, heart rate. It wouldn’t matter if Joshua were Herman Munster’s ugly cousin; his confidence would bewitch every woman he ever came near. I needed to power up my forcefield.
“Maybe I’ll have to gouge my eyes out with a spoon first,” I replied. There was no way he was going to get even an inkling of what his flirtatiousness might be doing to me.
I had to keep a clear head and remember that he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t personal; Joshua suffered from a chronic condition: incurable flirt.
I set out our ingredients onto the side along with the equipment I thought we’d need: cake tins, greaseproof paper, spatulas, mixing bowl. This seemed a lot more complicated than I’d thought it would be when I had this idea this morning.
“I think it’s great that you’re going to be embracing life outside of medicine.” Joshua had worked out how to use the scales and was spooning sugar into the bowl.
“Why do you care if I want to work long hours, anyway?” I asked.
For a second, he looked flustered. “I just . . . you know. I told my mum I’d make sure you settled in okay.”
“Right.” Why else would he be interested in what I did? He hadn’t even noticed I wasn’t wearing my cast. I dumped the butter into the sugar. “We need to whisk this, apparently.”
“The butter? Is that even possible?”
I re-read the recipe. “That’s what it says. With an electric whisk, which I guess is this.” I held up a machine like the one my grandma had. “I think maybe you should do it.”
I plugged in the mixer and Joshua began to whisk. We both watched in silence as the ingredients begin to combine. Joshua looked intently into the bowl like his entire future hung in the balance. I looked away so he didn’t see in my eyes how utterly adorable I found it. I couldn’t remember seeing him trying hard at anything. Everything seemed to come so easy to him. Not baking, apparently. Well, that made two of us.
Joshua switched off the machine and I handed him an egg, being careful to keep my hand from touching his. My forcefield didn’t need further testing today.
“Now we have to crack in the egg and whisk again.” So far so good. “Here’s me getting us both elbow deep in butter. What are your hobbies?”
“I prefer whipped cream over butter.” He shot me a wickedly sexy smile, his dimple shifting into fifth gear. My forcefield creaked and groaned and I turned away, busying myself at the sink. I’d let go of my crush on Joshua a long time ago and I wasn’t about to go backward. No matter how tempting that grin and that bloody dimple might be.
“But seriously . . .” He glanced at me as I came back to the counter. The mixture was starting to take on a glossy sheen—we were baking! “Outside of work, I have a tight circle of friends who I spend a lot of time with. I like to use the gym and . . .”