One more day. One more sleep. Her dream was so close she could almost taste it. She could certainly smell it…
Calm swept over Serena as she worked the solid nibs into the melted chocolate. The two meeting, melting, blending together. The decadent aroma – rich, sweet, with a hint of bitterness – steadying her mind. Centring her. Reminding her of all she’d achieved, all she still planned to achieve.
Increasing the pace of her stirring, Serena scanned the ingredients before her. Dried cherries. Miniature white marshmallows. Pistachio nuts. All soon to be married with the dark chocolate, cooled down, and turned into Christmas rocky road, then bagged and sold tomorrow when she opened the doors of her very own chocolate shop.
Finally. She allowed herself a small smile. Her whole life she’d been trying to find out who she was, what drove her, how she fit into the world. She’d left Rabbits Leap as a teenager to seek adventure, excitement – a life opposite to in the one she led at home. And the life she had sought out, she’d experienced in spades. Yet here she was, back home, in the village she’d been so desperate to leave, happier than ever.
At least that’s what she repeated to herself every moment the gloom set in, threatening to derail her plans. Threatening to send her running back to the person who she’d devoted herself to for so many years, probably only to realise the devotion was one-sided.
Happier than ever.
An automated alert – high-pitched and cheerful – rang through the air, punctuating her point.
Another online order. Another customer wanting to indulge in the artisan range of chocolates she’d spent hours dreaming up, concocting, then perfecting. Proof she’d made the right decision to leave Ritchie, to return to Rabbits Leap, to start afresh.
Now she just had to prove that to those who doubted her. Those? More like ‘she’. Her mother had barely spoken to her since she’d announced she’d leased the old milkshake shop and the rooms above, and was leaving the family farm to pursue her dream as a chocolatier.
Their relationship, rocky at best, was at an all-time low.
‘Hello? Anyone here?’
The throaty tones she’d known so intimately for a decade filled the shop’s front room and drifted into the kitchen.
Serena’s heart slammed against her ribcage, shattering her sense of calm. That couldn’t be the voice she thought it was. That voice was meant to be in a recording studio. On the other side of the world.
‘Hello?’ The dull thunk of heavy shoes on wood followed - motorcycle boots. Well-loved, lived-in, and the black leather dulled with age, but still sexy as all hell. The thunks grew louder as they crossed the shop floor and headed towards the kitchen.
Towards her.
Her heartrate ratcheted up, the beat spreading through her body like a circle of drums going off all at once.
Gripping the table for support, Serena half-wondered if she had time to escape through the back door. Or perhaps hiding in the small walk-in pantry was an option.
Too late. A shadow belonging to the rangy, muscular, rock star, who she’d given her all to for her whole adult life, travelled across the kitchen floor as he came to stand in the doorway. She flinched as the shadow, only inches away at its peak, almost touched her.
She didn’t want to be touched by him. Hell, she didn’t want to even look at him. She’d said as much in the note she’d left on his bedside table while he was on tour. A coward’s way out, perhaps. But if she’d waited to tell him to his face, those brilliant sapphire-blue eyes of Ritchie’s would have pinned her in place. The gravelly tones, filled with promises of the kind of passion and desire she’d not believed could have existed, would have convinced her to stay. They would have reminded her of the nights spent dancing in bars after one of his concerts, the days frolicking in the Malibu surf, the hours upon hours of mind-blowingly amazing…
No. She wasn’t going to even think about the good times. If she entertained her memories, she would never be able to yank herself away from him.
‘Sweet thing, I was told I’d find you here. It’s good to see you.’
Serena glanced out the corner of her eye. His tone was as relaxed as his stance. Shoulder leaning against the doorjamb, one leg casually crossed over the other. Hands shoved deep in jean pockets. His sharp jaw relaxed, not a hint of tension. But, of course there wouldn’t be. Serena was in no doubt that in Ritchie’s mind he was here to collect her and return her to their Malibu seaside mansion.
Serena refocussed on melting the chocolate, increasing the stirring to ensure the smoothest, glossiest chocolate possible. There was no way the return of her husband was going to ruin tomorrow’s grand opening… or this batch of chocolate. She’d spent too much time living for Ritchie. This time around she was all about herself.
Serena Hunter had finally taken charge of her future.
‘Cat got your tongue, sweet thing?’ he teased. ‘Or maybe you want to apologise for breaking my heart, but don’t know how?’
Serena squared her shoulders, her spine straightening. So that was it? He was going to guilt her into returning? Make it all about him and his feelings, just as he always had? Well good luck to him, because she wasn’t going anywhere.
‘My tongue is perfectly fine, Ritchie.’ The words came out smooth, sweet, but most importantly, strong. If he saw weakness he’d use it to manipulate the situation. ‘I just didn’t expect you here. And, to be honest, I’m busy and don’t have time to chat.’
She flicked her gaze towards him for a split second. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows.
Good. He was uncertain. Off kilter. She had to keep him that way. And she had to get him the hell out of town. Because despite her best efforts she could feel that inner swirling sensation in her stomach, that left her off balance, dizzy with joy, delirious with love. The ‘swoon’, as she’d named it when she’d tried to dissect it after she’d had time and space away from Ritchie, that had kept her in his thrall since the moment they met.
Three soft footfalls followed and the trusty motorcycle boots appeared only inches away from her own purple high-top sneakers. Her stomach clenched as it went into a dive.
Calm the freaking farm, Serena. He’s just a man. He’s not been your husband for six months now. Well, technically, he still is, but that’s a detail to be sorted when you’ve time. Now he’s no one. Nothing. He doesn’t have to mean anything to you anymore.
Except the skittering in her stomach told her otherwise.
‘So you got yourself a job, did you? Making chocolates? Cute.’ His forearms, covered in his usual plaid flannelette shirt, came into view as he leant across the marble surface of the kitchen island, his hands loosely clasped together.
Irritation rippled through Serena. Cute? What she was doing wasn’t cute. It was hard work; she’d spent hours grafting, and had had countless sleepless nights as she considered new flavour combinations that would make her stand out from other chocolatiers. Sure, she owned the only chocolate shop in Rabbits Leap, but being online meant she was competing in a nationwide market. Being average wasn’t going to help her stand out.
She tucked a curl that had come loose from her top knot behind her ear and pushed the irritation down. Better to keep her cool than show Ritchie his words had an effect on her. ‘Actually, Ritchie. I don’t work here. This is my shop. I own it.’
Ritchie’s knuckles whitened as a sharp intake of breath met her ears. ‘Own it? This is yours.’
She’d shaken him. Good.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Well that’s going to make it a lot harder for you to come home. We’ll have to find someone to rent the premises. Or we could just pay the rent until the lease runs out. Abandon the place. Head home, buy champagne, sip it in the spa, celebrate your return…’
Serena counted to three silently. This was so like Ritchie. Coming in. Taking over. Thinking his way was the only way. That she was going to fall into step. Which she had for too many years, so she really had only herself to blame in many ways. She’d trained Ritchie to expect nothing less.
She was now going to have to teach him that her way was her highway. She was following her own path. And he’d have to go back to his, alone.
She reached for a piece of parchment paper, dipped it into the melted chocolate, pulled it out and watched it harden. Perfect.
‘Are you listening to me, Serena? You don’t have to do whatever it is you’re doing. You can just pack up and leave.’
‘Actually, Ritchie…’ Serena switched off the electric melting pot, then picked up the chopping board and swept the pistachios, dried cherries and marshmallows into the chocolate and began to fold them together in a figure eight motion. ‘I’m enjoying what I’m doing. It’s what I want to do. So I won’t be packing up and leaving.’
Ritchie reached out and touched her shoulder, gently, but she could feel the power in his long fingers, strong from hours of playing guitar. ‘I don’t understand, Serena. You can’t tell me you haven’t missed me? What we shared? What we share? It’s a once in a lifetime kind of love.’
Serena shrugged him off, hating the way her chest tightened, her own body accusing her of being harsh. Mean. But she had to be. It was the only way to survive this encounter. Tell him no. Tell him they were over. Tell him to go. Then continue to move on. That was the plan. She had to stick with it.
She picked up the heavy pan, and took a moment to relish how easy it was to lift – so unlike when she’d first started and lifting half the amount of melted chocolate had left her biceps quivering – then poured the contents into a lined tin she’d prepared earlier. Putting the empty pan to the side she pushed the mixture to the edges of the tin and returned her attention to her soon to be officially, as soon as she got around to it, ex-husband.
‘Perhaps it was. But it’s not now. My life with you is done. It isn’t what I want any more. Being a rock star’s wife wasn’t making me happy. I’m sorry, Ritchie, and please believe me when I say that. But we aren’t going to work. We haven’t worked for a long time.’
‘Nope. Sorry. Can’t.’ Ritchie skirted the kitchen island until he was standing opposite her. ‘We made promises, Serena. Vows. Remember those? To stand strong together. To bend with the winds but never to snap. To roll with the tides but never let them drown us. To never let the hottest sun sear our love. To never allow the frost to freeze each other out. But you did exactly that, Serena. You froze me out, big time.’
‘Really, Ritchie? Is that how things played out for you? Is that how you see it?’ She dragged her eyes away from the rocky road and met Ritchie’s gaze. Her chest constricted even further as she saw hurt dulling his eyes. The confident sparkle doused. ‘You froze me out years ago. Not the other way around. We were only happy at the beginning because we were riding the fame rollercoaster together. It was the adrenaline that kept us rolling, not anything deep, anything meaningful.’
Ritchie’s hands clasped the edge of the counter. A vein throbbed at his temple. ‘Well, I’m so sorry our relationship was so shallow for you. But I didn’t see you complaining about the private jets, the endless five-star hotels, the gourmet food and drink, the people willing to bend over backwards to make us happy.’
Serena swiped the back of her hand over her brow, refusing to let him get a rise out of her. She wasn’t going to be the crazy harridan, the emotional one, the fire to his ice. ‘And I didn’t. But it wasn’t enough to keep me with you.’
‘Well what would have been enough?’ The words sounded reasonable, but she could see that Ritchie was teetering on the knife-edge between appearing calm and shutting down altogether. Time away from her hadn’t changed him, but then Serena suspected nothing and no one could.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. This was a different version of the same conversation they’d been having for years. Her trying to show Ritchie she needed him to be more than a rock star. To be more than a man who craved adoration the way she craved independence.
How ironic was it that she’d managed to flee one smothering all-encompassing relationship only to fly into another?
She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘What would have been enough was you doing the one thing you refused to do, no matter how many times I asked. I just wanted you to stop keeping me at an arm’s length, Ritchie. To stop treating me like a favoured groupie. Because that’s how it felt. I was your wife, we were supposed to be a team, but you never really let me in. You glossed over things with me the way you would in interviews. We were together for ten years and I never felt I knew the real you.’
Ritchie held his hands out to Serena, palms open, fingers splayed. ‘But you did, sweet thing. I gave more to you than anyone else.’
Serena didn’t doubt the sincerity of his words. She knew he’d shown hints of vulnerability with her, that he’d never dared to show anyone else. Moments of uncertainty, covered up with a joke. Seconds of sadness, pushed aside when she’d asked what made his lips turn towards the floor. Hell, his being here, even with all the bravado and confidence, was proof of that.
‘I know you did, Ritchie, but it wasn’t enough. There was always an invisible wall that I couldn’t knock down, couldn’t bust through. And I got tired of trying.’
‘So you ran away.’ Ritchie dropped his hands to his side. The fleeting desolation in his eyes had been replaced by his customary ice-cold hardness.
‘I left. It’s not the same as running away. There was a note.’ Serena grabbed the pan, walked it over to the kitchen sink, and placed it in the warm, soapy water. Picking up a scrubbing brush, she began to clean off the chocolate hardening on its surface, glad to have a reason to turn away from Ritchie. If he saw a hint of the guilt she carried for leaving the way she did he’d take it to mean she wish she’d stayed.
‘A note that said bugger all. “I’m sorry. Don’t follow me” isn’t a note, it’s an insult to all that we shared.’
‘And you coming here when I asked you not to is what?’ The nylon bristles of the brush flattened as she took her frustration out on the stainless steel.
‘I was hoping it would show you I’m serious about our marriage. About us. Even if you aren’t.’
Serena dropped the brush with a splash and spun round to face Ritchie, her attempt at calmness evaporating. ‘I was! I took care of us for years. I took care of you. Who stopped you from sliding into a drug and alcohol haze? Your career was about to be over. You were showing up late to concerts, doing a half-arsed job. You were late with your next album. Had it not been for me you’d have been done. A has-been. At least I had the courtesy to leave you while you were on top. When you wouldn’t need me.’ She braced herself against the bench, gripped the edge, refusing to break eye contact. She would not be railroaded into doing anything she didn’t want to do. She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.
Ritchie ran his hand through his wavy deep-brown hair, and his chest heaved up and down in frustration. ‘So you don’t think I… what? Talked enough with you? Didn’t let you have your say? You think I’m not the kind of man who could let you have control? Take the lead? And because of that you don’t want to be part of my life anymore. Fine.’
Serena blinked, hard and fast. Was she hearing things? Was Ritchie giving up? ‘Good. We’re on the same page. Finally.’
Ritchie nodded. ‘We are. I now know what I have to do. I have to prove to you that I can change. That I can be different. I have to show you I can be the man you need me to be. So I’m going to stay and prove you wrong. My duffel bag’s in the rental. I’ll go grab it. I’m guessing your bedroom is upstairs?’ He jerked his head towards the door that led to the living quarters above the shop.
‘What?’ Serena spluttered. ‘What are you on about? You can’t stay here. I’ve told you to go. This is Rabbits Leap, Ritchie. It’s not the kind of place a rock star wants to stay in. There’s nothing here to amuse you. There are no strip clubs. There are no gambling dens. No women sitting poolside in tiny string bikinis…’ Serena knew she was failing as Ritchie’s lips grinned wider with each of her excuses.
‘You know I don’t care for strip clubs, or gambling, and the only woman I like to see in a string bikini is you. So really, at this point in time, I think Rabbits Leap would suit me quite well.’
‘But aren’t you meant to be working on your album? You can’t very well do it here.’ Just leave, Ritchie, Serena prayed. It had been easy enough to deal with leaving him when he was thousands of miles away, but to have him in her space? Breathing the same air? Sucking the oxygen from the room, leaving her light-headed and dizzy? She knew she might just succumb to his will.
She realised he’d paused. His skin had taken on an uneasy pallor. What had she just said? The album. Was something up with the album? ‘Is everything alright with …’ she stopped herself. No. He wasn’t her problem now. It wasn’t her job to save him. If something was wrong he would have to figure it out himself. Preferably from their home. No. His home. In LA
‘Everything is fine with the album.’ Ritchie’s gaze shifted to his feet. ‘Dandy in fact. But I think a change of environment will be good for me. All this brisk wintry air will do me well. Get the creative juices flowing good and proper. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll get my bag and head up to bed. All this travelling has left me buggered.’ He strode towards the door, paused, and looked over his shoulder. ‘One thing, Serena. I remember you talking about that cone of silence thingy that you lot have going on here for that rugby player… what’s his name… Harper? To make sure he can holiday without being hassled? I’d like that to be extended to me. I mean we’re still married, which means I’m kind of local.’
‘You’ve not once stepped foot in Rabbits Leap, Ritchie. You’re hardly one of us.’ Serena folded her arms and shot him her most scornful look.
‘Well I have now. And I am still family. Come on, sweet thing… it’s the least you can do for me after you just upped and left like you did. Please?’ Ritchie wheedled, turning on his megawatt smile that charmed hundreds of thousands all over the world.
Serena huffed. What harm would it do? He wouldn’t be sticking around for long. Rabbits Leap wasn’t Ritchie’s speed. He’d be bored in no time and out of her hair. ‘Fine. I’ll put the word round that your presence in the village is to be kept quiet.’
‘Great. I appreciate it.’ He tipped an imaginary cap, then headed out to the main road.
To get his bag, Serena realised. So he could sleep in her bed with her.
Oh. Hell. No.
She fished her mobile out of her bottle green apron pocket and punched in the digits for The Bullion. ‘Answer, answer, answer,’ she chanted as it rang through.
‘You’ve reached The Bullion. How can I help?’ Tony the publican’s cheery voice boomed down the line.
‘Tony, thank God. I’m so glad you answered. It’s Serena. Do you have any rooms available? Any at all. Big. Small. I don’t care. I just need a bed.’
‘But you already have a bed? Don’t tell me you’ve family coming for Christmas too? Seems everyone’s family’s returning to the Leap this year.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s something like that. So, do you?’ Serena’s foot tapped impatiently.
‘Sorry, Serena. All booked up.’
‘Shit.’
‘I’ll give you a beer next time you’re in to say sorry.’
‘Sweet of you, Tony, but no beers needed. I’ll figure something else out. Gotta go.’ Serena hung up and began to pace back and forth. Where could Ritchie stay that was far, far away from her? A place that would preferably hasten his desire to leave?
She stopped, a mix of guilt and delight tugging her heart in two opposing directions. Ritchie didn’t deserve what she was about to suggest, but he had left her no other option.
‘Brrrrr.’ The man himself shivered as he dropped his duffel on the floor in the front of her.
‘Pick that up.’ Serena ordered. ‘I’ve found a place for you to stay.’
‘I’m staying with you.’
‘No, you’re not. I won’t have you underfoot while I finish getting this place ready for its grand opening.’ She scooped up her keys and marched towards the back door where she’d parked the pick-up truck her father, against her mother’s wishes, had insisted she use when she left home. ‘Go get into your car. I’ll meet you out front. Follow me. Stay close or you could take a wrong turn and get lost. And be sure to close the latch on the front door when you leave – I don’t need the local kids waltzing in and helping themselves.’
Ritchie’s brows drew together in confusion. ‘Where are you taking me, Serena?’
Serena allowed a small smile to flirt about her lips. ‘You’ll see.’