Book One: Thirty Days, Book 1

  THIRTY DAYS

  BOOK ONE

  Bibi Paterson

  Copyright Bronwyn Paterson 2013

  Kobo Edition

  The right of Bronwyn Paterson to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.bibipaterson.com or @BibiPaterson.

  SEPTEMBER

  ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’

  William Shakespeare

  The First

  I look up and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. With annoyance I rub my panda eyes, cursing that I had not thought to buy waterproof mascara. Typical, I think to myself. The one day I actually took some effort in getting ready for work, everything is undone by a five-minute downpour at the bus stop. I glance down at my watch and realise that if I don’t hurry, I am going to miss my opportunity to deliver my packages.

  Swiping at my eyes with a tissue, I manage to repair most of the black streaks hurriedly. With that done, I pick up my bags and, glancing around, sneak out of Hudson International’s ladies’ toilets. Taking a deep breath and summoning as much stealth as I can muster, I hurry down the corridor towards the staff kitchen, grateful to find it empty. Glancing over my shoulder, I quickly unpack my packages onto the counter.

  “So you are the diet assassin, then?” The voice startles me, and I almost drop the box that I am holding. I can feel the flush spread up my neck as I spin round to find myself staring into a pair of delicious dark chocolate brown eyes.

  “Um, um,” I stutter, completely disorientated by the man standing in front of me.

  “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me,” he replies, helping himself to one of the chocolate cheesecake muffins that I had been placing on the countertop. He takes a bite and lets out a small sigh.

  “No good?” I ask tentatively, my heart sinking. I had spent hours the previous evening getting the recipe exactly right, and I thought I had finally nailed it. But obviously not.

  “No,” he replies, my heart sinking. “Too good,” he says with a grin. Unwittingly I find myself grinning back.

  “Um, I’d better get these offloaded, then,” I reply. I quickly place the remaining few muffins on the counter, pack up my boxes and turn around expecting the mystery man to have taken his muffin and left. But no, he is still leaning nonchalantly against the door frame, grinning at me as he slowly eats the muffin.

  “Sorry, have to dash,” I mutter, glancing at my watch. “Meeting in ten minutes.” I feel completely unnerved by this stranger who I have never seen in the office before. Almost grudgingly he lets me pass, loaded with my empty boxes. As I draw level with him, it feels as if time stands still. The hairs on my neck stand on end as I take in his citrusy smell, the dark eyes crinkling with humour and his lush, full lips that seem to be inviting me to kiss him. I swear I am about to swoon, and that is seriously not a good thing.

  “So why do you do it?” he asks in a husky voice, as if he is affected as much by this chance meeting as I am.

  I can feel the heat flaming my cheeks as I reply, “I love to bake.” I shrug my shoulders as if trying to shake off his gaze and swiftly push past him. I find myself hurrying down the corridor at almost a running pace, and I have to mentally give myself a nudge to slow down. It seems that luck is on my side, and I make it to my desk, where I quickly stow away my boxes in my drawers.

  I breathe a sigh of relief as I turn on my computer but find my mind wandering back to the mystery man. I cannot understand why he has affected me so much. It is not even as if he said very much to me. Yet his presence seemed to speak volumes, and I have to admit to myself that at this moment I feel incredibly turned on. At the memory of his lips, I actually feel my heart quicken and my pelvis tighten. Banishing these thoughts, I turn to concentrate on my email, fearing that my tell-tale blush will give me away.

  I lose myself in my inbox for several minutes, when I am suddenly brought back to reality by a tapping foot. “Come on, Abby, you are going to be late for the staff meeting, and I hear today’s muffins are to die for.”

  Michelle Harrington-Black sends me an arch look, knowing full well who is responsible for today’s cakes, but as my confidante and best friend at Hudson, she has been sworn to secrecy.

  .........................

  My love for baking started at an early age. Having two parents who were largely absent through my childhood meant I was effectively brought up by various nannies. Some were great, but others were horrendous. What they largely all had in common, though, was that none of them lasted particularly long. I think many took the job on thinking that being nanny to the daughter of two international models would mean plenty of glamorous travel and parties, but the reality was that I was normally left behind in our North London home as mum and dad flitted around the world.

  The one constant in my life, however, was my Nonna. It was in her Brighton kitchen that I spent Saturdays learning to cook. First, it was simple things, like scrambled eggs and basic cakes, and then on to harder, more complex dishes where Nonna would encourage me to experiment with flavours and texture. By the age of twelve I could make my own bread and had pretty much taken over from the nannies in the kitchen.

  Once I got into my teens and the nannies were given freer rein, it was deemed that I was independent enough to take myself on the train down to Brighton, where I would spend whole weekends with Nonna, lapping up her knowledge of the Italian cuisine she had grown up with.

  While Nonna has always encouraged my love of food, my parents have always been less than enthusiastic about it. Food equals calories, and there is no place for those in a jet-setting model’s life. For them a stocked fridge is Evian and lettuce.

  It doesn’t help either that I was a beautiful baby. Seriously, I look back at pictures of myself up to the age of about six and you would be hard-pressed to find a more gorgeous child. I was everything expected of the offspring of Gina Albertelli and Michael James, two of the world’s leading models in the ’70s and ’80s, and my parents positively lapped up the attention. I was on the cover of too many magazines to count, and everyone said I was going to be the next star in the family.

  But in that age where milk teeth were lost and school started, something happened and things changed. I got plump and round, my auburn ringlets started to frizz into a carroty mess, my pale freckly skin was no longer in vogue, and that was the end of my child modelling career. And with it the adoration heaped on me by my parents. Don’t get me wrong. They have never been cruel or horrible, just, rather, that I no longer fitted into their world and so I wasn’t of great interest to them from that point onwards. And therein my love of food grew. Because we all know that food heals the soul, particularly if it comes with a healthy dusting of icing sugar!

  Throughout my teens and my years at university, food had been my comfort. But even more than the eating, it is the actual cooking I love. During final exams I co
uld always be found whipping up grand meals for my housemates simply to ease the tension, even if I was so full of nerves I couldn’t end up eating what I made. All that measuring and being precise is a balm to a control freak like me.

  Which is where my anonymous cake baking has come in. My first week at Hudson after graduating was terrifying. Thrust from the world of academia, I was suddenly being expected to put all that I had learnt into practice. Each night I went home a wreck and did the one thing I knew I was good at…bake.

  By the end of the week, I had so much food I didn’t know what to do with it, so on the Friday morning I snuck it into the office and left it on the kitchen counter. Not feeling confident enough in my position given that I had been there only a week, I didn’t put my name to my goodies.

  It was somewhat of a relief to me that day when word spread like wildfire about my cakes. The people in the office loved them. And while they may not have noticed me tucked away in my cubicle, they were all talking about the texture of my coffee sponge with walnut crème and the crispness of my mini pavlovas, not to mention the taste of my chocolate and beetroot brownies!

  So what started as a little stress relief became a regular occurrence where I would sneak in goodies and leave them anonymously in the kitchen. Hearing how much people enjoyed my cakes made me feel good inside, even on those days where I felt lonely and unsure of what I was doing. I even earned the nickname ‘diet assassin’ as no one could resist trying out what I left.

  For the last three months, people have been trying to find out who their mystery baker is, and so far the only person who knows is Michelle. She caught me one evening on my way out when I dropped my cake boxes in the lift, and she put two and two together. But she has been sworn to secrecy and I trust her with my life. Plus the extras I send her way certainly help. But now my anonymity is in danger and I am unsure what to do.

  .........................

  I follow Michelle through to the boardroom, where the staff meeting is being held. This is the first time I have attended one of these meetings as they only happen quarterly, and I am somewhat surprised to see so many people in the room. So many in fact that the partition walls have been slid back from two of the meeting rooms to turn them into one huge space. As we file into the back, I glance around and realise that I definitely did not make enough cakes. But people seem to be happily sharing, so I breathe a sigh of relief.

  I am just about to dart off to grab a coffee off the table when a voice catches my attention. There, standing at the front of the room, is my mystery man. All eyes have turned towards him as he welcomes everyone to the meeting.

  My heart plummets. This can’t be good. I feel the heat starting to rise in my cheeks. Taking a deep breath, I lean over to Michelle’s ear and whisper, “Who’s that?”

  Michelle looks over at me incredulously. “That’s Taylor Hudson, you duh-brain. You know, like the owner of the company?”

  Oh shit. This is really bad. Not only does he know that I am the ‘diet assassin’, but I realise that the guy who turned me on so completely fifteen minutes ago is my boss. Well, technically not my boss because Eddy is my line manager, but now we are just about splitting hairs.

  I am finding it hard to breathe, and I am sure the temperature in the room has just shot up by ten degrees. Michelle looks at me, curiosity burning in her baby-blue eyes. She may look sweet and innocent with her blonde curls and cute smile, but I know that she can be a shark if she smells blood in the water. And now I am her prey.

  I desperately try to focus on what Taylor is telling us about market share and profit dividends in an effort to calm down. Not once has he looked my way, and I start to breathe normally, thinking that I can get through this okay.

  “So thanks to all of you for making the effort to come in today, particularly all the sales guys who I know have come in from far and wide,” says Taylor. Ah well, that explains all the faces I don’t recognise. “And special thanks to our ‘diet assassin’,” he continues.

  Oh my god! My breath catches in my throat, and I actually feel like I am about to throw up. It is all I can do not to bolt out the door, but that would make things too obvious. My eyes are glued to Taylor’s face, trying to assess whether he is going to ‘out’ me. It is then that I notice he is purposely not looking at me.

  “Without her, or him—I don’t like to gender stereotype here…” Taylor continues with laughter in his voice, “Our Fridays would not be as tasty and we wouldn’t get a chance to try such interesting concoctions.” Phew. It takes me a moment to realise that I am safe.

  “Well, that’s about it for today. I have an open door for anyone who needs to see me this morning, so line up, line up,” Taylor jokes, putting on a ringmaster’s voice. As everyone starts to file out of the room, I glance across to Taylor, and there he is looking directly at me with a smile on his face. Giving me a quick wink, he then picks up some papers and leaves the room.

  “What the hell is going on, Abby?” hisses Michelle in my ear.

  “Not now,” I murmur back. “I’ll tell you at lunch.” With that, I bolt back to my desk as fast as I can without actually running.

  I slide into my chair and reach for my bottle of water with shaking hands. Sexy mystery man is Taylor Hudson, owner of Hudson International. An importer of exotic spices, teas and coffee, Hudson has made a mark supplying celebrity chefs, high-end restaurants, boutique shops and even royalty with unique blends not found elsewhere in the world. A relatively young company, Hudson has been operating for five years and in that time has grown to be a multimillion-pound business employing over 150 staff worldwide. This I know from the corporate literature, but I now realise that I never actually thought about the man behind the company. There are no pictures of Taylor anywhere, not even the website, and I guess I figured he would be older, maybe in his forties. Certainly not the young man I encountered in the kitchen.

  I find myself picturing his face. The dark chocolate brown eyes that stared so intently into mine. The gorgeous lips that made me want to stand up on my toes to kiss. The strong jaw. His spiky black hair, just that tiny bit long for the corporate world.

  Get a grip, I scold myself. Yet even as I steer myself to start responding to my morning’s worth of emails, my hand has a mind of its own, opening Google and typing his name. Milliseconds later, everything I wanted to know about Taylor appears before my eyes.

  His biography informs me that he is actually twenty-five years old. Wow, only twenty-five and a millionaire with his own global company. I read about how his gap year and passion for exotic foods inspired him to start his company, Hudson International, with backing from his grandparents. I feel a stab of jealousy for having such supportive family. As I scroll down, I come across images of Taylor with numerous girls, all with one thing in common: flowing silky blonde hair, tiny waistlines and legs that go on forever. In short, gorgeous, everything that is completely the opposite of myself.

  Angry at myself for indulging in my cyberstalking, I quickly close down the window, which is just as well as Eddy chooses this moment to walk up to my desk.

  “Morning, Abby,” Eddy sighs, the bags under his eyes signalling another sleepless night in the Jones household.

  “Hey, Eddy,” I reply. “Bad night with Sophia, then?”

  “Yeah, she pretty well screamed till 1:00 a.m. and then was up again at 4:00. Meg is shattered, and so am I, actually.” Eddy rubs his eyes, and I give him a sympathetic smile. A two-month-old baby with colic must be a nightmare.

  “Anything I can do? I can go over and watch Sophia for you if you and Meg need a break,” I offer. Eddy is a great boss, and I want to do anything I can to repay him for being so kind and helpful when I started three months ago.

  “That’s so kind, Abby. I will speak to Meg,” he answers, a smile lighting his face. “But what I really need help with is a report. I have just been in with Taylor”—at the mention of his name I feel my spine stiffen, and my heart starts to beat a rapid tattoo in my chest—“and
he is looking to start sourcing some nut mixes from Costa Rica.” Eddy continues talking, oblivious to my inner turmoil. He outlines that Taylor has a last-minute meeting on Monday with Fortnum & Mason and pretty much needs a report on the global nut market as soon as possible.

  “Could you give me a hand compiling the basic data today so that I can come in tomorrow to write the report?” Eddy asks.

  “Um, aren’t you going to Meg’s mum’s this weekend?” I ask Eddy, remembering Eddy’s excitement at organising a surprise birthday night out for Meg. Eddy’s face falls as the reality of the situation sinks in.

  “Look, I have nothing on this weekend”—nor any other weekend, I think to myself—“I don’t mind doing the legwork and pulling the report together and then emailing it to you so you can tweak it. That’s if you think I am ready…” I trail off.

  “Abby, you are a star.” Eddy grins at me. “You are more than capable. If you don’t mind, that would be great.” With that, Eddy sits down and outlines what he needs me to research and how the report needs to be laid out.

  .........................

  I love my job, but I never meant to become a data analyst. I always harboured this thought that one day I would open up my own dessert café, but when I had to start making choices about where my career was headed, my parents were quick to step in and quash any thoughts I had on becoming a chef. To them a career in food was up there with porn and accountancy. I am really not sure where they get their ideas from, but given that they held the purse strings, I let them push me into a general degree in business.

  While most of my course bored me to tears and I discovered there was no way I wanted to become an accountant, I found that I had a natural aptitude for looking at data and putting meaning to it. I still wanted to pursue my love of food, but I was rational enough to know that wouldn’t happen until I had saved enough money up for myself. So when it came to graduation time and I heard that Hudson was looking for a junior analyst, I jumped at the chance. Not only would I be able to do a job that I was vaguely competent at, but I could still be involved in a company in the food industry.