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held her breath, waiting for Gina’s response. She caught herself crossing her fingers as the seconds ticked by.

      “No,” Gina finally admitted. “I can’t say that I have,” she added, still waiting to find out just what it was that Theresa was going to ask her to do.

      Theresa slowly released the breath she’d been holding, being careful not to alert the young woman on the other end that there was anything out of the ordinary going on.

      “Well, because I have all these other catering affairs between now and Sylvie’s wedding, I was wondering if you could handle ordering the cake from this Cassidy person. Sylvie will give you all her requirements when you talk to her.”

      The request was doable, but it struck her as being a little strange. “Wouldn’t she and the groom want to sample the cake before they put in their final order?” Gina asked.

      In her experience, the bride and groom usually sampled a great many cakes before they settled on their final choice.

      “Oh no,” Theresa quickly shot down the idea. “Sylvie worked furiously to diet down so that she could fit into this dress. Now that she’s the right size, she’s desperately trying not to gain any weight between now and the wedding. That also includes not doing any cake sampling.”

      Theresa paused for a second to catch her breath before continuing. “That would be what she wanted you for, along with an entire myriad of other bride-related things that ordinarily don’t add up to that much but right now, as I told you, Sylvie is tottering on the brink of a nervous breakdown. To be honest, no one knows what might just push her over the edge. Would you mind terribly meeting with this cake designer and taking care of this for her?”

      “Eating a slice of cake made by an in-demand cake decorator? No, not a bit,” Gina answered with a laugh. She glanced over at her melting rum raisin. “Is there anything else, Mrs. Manetti?”

      “No, nothing I can think of at the moment,” Theresa answered breezily.

      “Then thank you for the call and the opportunity. I’ll get right on this tomorrow morning,” she said again. “And I’ll call you once I speak with Sylvie.”

      “Wonderful. And I look forward to meeting you in person, dear,” Theresa told her. “And again, I’m sorry for having to call so late but I just got off the phone with Sylvie and I knew that something needed to be done quickly.”

      She did have one question. “Who told you about me again?” Gina asked. The woman hadn’t been quite clear as to who had given the caterer her name when she’d first called.

      Theresa quickly checked her notes, finding the name that she was told to use.

      “Virginia Gallagher told me about you, although her name is Price now. The Gallagher-Price wedding,” she threw in to substantiate her story.

      Gina thought for a moment. “I was in that wedding party over a year ago,” she remembered.

      “And Virginia—she’s a friend of my daughter’s—is still singing your praises,” Theresa said, hoping that would seal the deal.

      She knew that she and her two coconspirators in matchmaking needed to make sure that Gina didn’t suspect anything was amiss as she engaged the professional bridesmaid’s services to help smooth out another wedding in possible turmoil. That meant not focusing too much on the additional assignment of selecting the cake. The whole idea here was to get her down to the Cakes Created by Cassidy shop so she could cross paths with Shane after all these years.

      From everything that she and her friends had managed to uncover, Gina and Shane had once been the absolute epitome of a perfect match and for all intents and purposes, it seemed that they still were. They just needed to be made to realize that again.

      “Oh, and I intend to pay you extra for this cake service you’ll be performing since technically, it isn’t something you would ordinarily do,” Theresa interjected, hoping that would do the trick.

      But Theresa hadn’t counted on Gina’s integrity. “How’s that again? You want to pay me extra for procuring the wedding cake.”

      Theresa hesitated for a moment. “Well, the caterer usually provides the cake unless the bride has other ideas.”

      “Wouldn’t that still come out of the bride’s pocket—so to speak? That makes it part of the package deal between the bride and me,” Gina concluded.

      “Perhaps, but I don’t want Sylvie stressing out any more than she already is,” Theresa said, hoping that would satisfy Gina and put an end to any further questions, at least for the time being. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, dear,” Theresa promised just before she quickly terminated the call.

      Strange, Gina thought. But then, so was what she did for a living. Especially in her mother’s eyes. The bottom line was that she was employed again.

      This was good. This was very, very good.

      She could feel herself growing enthusiastic, the way she always did at the beginning of a new assignment.

      She looked over toward the coffee table. Her ice cream had turned into soup.

      Getting up, Gina picked up the rum raisin container and took it back to the freezer so that she could turn the soup back into ice cream again.

      She was whistling as she went.

       Chapter Three

      Gina felt that her phone call to Sylvie the next morning went well.

      Just as she’d been warned, she found that the anxious young woman she spoke to was indeed two steps away from becoming a bridezilla.

      Speaking in a slow, calm voice, Gina made arrangements to meet with the woman early the following morning. She promised Sylvie that everything would turn out just the way she wanted, then proceeded to give her a few examples of other weddings she had successfully handled.

      Listening, Sylvie seemed to noticeably calm down. She sounded almost eager to look up Gina’s website to read what other brides had posted about their own weddings and how potential disasters-in-the-making had been successfully averted, thanks to a few well-executed efforts.

      By the time she hung up, Gina was fairly certain that Sylvie had calmed down sufficiently to be downgraded from the level of “bridezilla” to an almost normal, anxious bride-to-be.

      While talking to Sylvie, she’d gotten very specific directions about the kind of multitiered wedding cake the bride and groom had their hearts set on—although she strongly suspected that the groom’s “heart” wasn’t nearly as involved in this choice as the bride’s was. She’d even had to promise Sylvie that she’d stop by the bakery to engage this so-called sought-after cake “artiste” known as Cassidy right after she ended their call.

      All in all, Gina thought, pressing the end call button on her cell, this was shaping up to be a really productive day.

      But before she did anything else, she decided as she grabbed her purse and her squadron of keys, she needed to stop at Manetti’s Catering. It was only right for her to thank the woman who had sent this new bit of business her way.

      Because of its ever-expanding clientele, the catering company had recently moved out of its former rather small, confining quarters to a genuine homey-looking shop where the shop’s homemade pastries and sandwiches-to-go could be properly showcased and also seen through the large bay windows.

      Located in the heart of an upscale shopping center, the sight of the food enticed shoppers to come in, sample, and, ideally, be inspired to book a future party ranging from small and intimate to a blow-out bash.

      Walking into the shop, Gina was impressed by what she saw and exceedingly pleased that she had managed to catch the attention of someone like Theresa Manetti. She was certain that if she came through for Sylvie,

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