Chapter 1

“Did you like the cake?”

Those were the first words my boyfriend Clay ever spoke to me. We were both at a dinner party hosted by a mutual friend, a guy named David. Since I was the last one to arrive due to a series of events—too many changes of clothes while trying to decide what to wear, bad weather, trouble hailing a cab, awful traffic—I’d missed the cocktail stage and arrived just in time for dinner. Even though I wasn’t seated anywhere near Clay at the large dining room table, I noticed him right away. He was seated at the other end of the table on the opposite side, but his dark hair and gray eyes caught my attention. He was between a man and a woman, neither of whom I knew, and I found myself wondering throughout dinner if he was attached to either of them. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. During dinner, I quietly observed him and noticed he talked with both of his neighbors, but didn’t seem to be overly attentive to either one. Maybe he was just a solo guest like I was, one of David’s friends or co-workers. At one point while dessert was being served, the man noticed me watching him and our eyes met. He gave me a little smile then before tucking into the piece of cake on the plate before him.

After dinner, I’d fully intended to chat up the dark haired mystery man but he disappeared and I feared he’d snuck out while I was in the bathroom. I was standing by the huge bay window in the living room watching the rainfall outside and trying to decide if I should call it a night myself when I heard the question that started my relationship with Clayton Jasper Teal.

“Did you like the cake?”

I turned and was surprised to see the dark haired, gray-eyed man I’d been watching during dinner standing before me.

“Cake?” I asked. I was so nervous and giddy he was actually talking to me, I was having trouble speaking myself.

“Yes. The cake David served after dinner. Did you like it?”

The cake. It took me a moment to remember there wascake served after dinner. I don’t know how I could have forgotten. It was a rich, moist yellow cake with some kind of creamy white icing. Many of the dinner guests commented on how great it was and asked for second helpings. I would have had a second piece myself, but my fear of overindulging stopped me.

“Yes, I liked the cake very much,” I said. “It was great. I’ll have to ask David what bakery it came from because I know he didn’t make it himself.” David, our host, was a good cook, but I knew there was no way he’d made that cake. It was way beyond his culinary capabilities.

The guy smiled. “It didn’t come from a bakery. Imade it.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “It’s a butter cake.”

I listened as he told me about how he’d prepared the cake that morning from scratch using a recipe passed down from his late grandmother.

“Wow. I’m impressed,” I told him. “You’re obviously a good cook.”

He smiled. “I’m good at a lot of things.”

“I bet you are.” I hadn’t intended to let my internal thoughts spill out into the universe like that, but it was too late to take the words back once they’d been spoken.

He looked me up and down and said, “I’d like to bake a cake for you.”

The statement was so unexpected, it made me burst out laughing. “Why would you want to bake a cake for me? You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough about you, Patrick.”

It took me a moment to realize he’d said my name and I hadn’t introduced myself. “Wait. How do you know my name?”

“I cornered David in the kitchen after dinner and asked him about you. He told me everything. Your name is Patrick Holt. You’re an ophthalmologist, you live in Lincoln Park, you’re thirty-five, and you grew up in Wilmette. Do I have all of that right?”

David had certainly filled him in on the story of my life. “Yes. You know all about me, but I don’t know anything about you.”

He introduced himself as Clay Teal, age thirty-six, currently employed as a marketing manager for a financial firm, originally from South Carolina, but a resident of Chicago for more than ten years. The South Carolina thing surprised me because I couldn’t detect a Southern accent at all and when I told him this, he admitted he’d worked hard to get rid of it.

“But I can still turn it on from time to time, given the right circumstances,” he said.