Of course, Ariel just kept talking. She had ripped out a load of “perfect outfits” from Teen Vogue. But if Portia ever had money again, she wouldn’t be buying short, pleated skirts and platform tennis shoes.

The Cutie’s cupcakes were missing something. The more Ariel talked, the more Portia craved the cupcake fix. She mixed the dry ingredients in a bowl, stirring slowly, feeling a sense of peace come over her. Ariel battled on, talking about how tights could be coordinated with a short skirt.

Portia finished her first “fix” on the cupcakes, writing down what she had done, just as her grandmother had taught her.

Ariel peered at her. “Are you sure you’re listening to me?”

Portia put the batch in the preheated oven. “You bet,” she answered.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t you have homework to do?”

“I spent a lot of time on this. The least you could do is listen.”

“I am! Think of me as a multitasker. I can bake and listen. Tell me more about stockings.”

“Not stockings,” Ariel said with disgust. “Tights! There’s a big difference, you know.”

“Sorry. Of course.”

Ariel’s eagle eye stayed on her as Portia went back to the mixing bowl and started on a second batch. An hour or so passed with Ariel talking and Portia baking.

Oddly, it felt good to have Ariel’s high voice providing a counterpoint to the sounds of baking. But by the time cupcakes covered every inch of counter space, Ariel was running out of steam. “Looks” from Teen Vogue and Tiger Beat battled with the cupcakes for space on the counter and kitchen island.

“I just can’t believe that Tiger Beat is still in business,” Portia said. “And you know I’ll never wear pants like that, don’t you? I’m not seventeen.”

“These are totally swaggy pants,” Ariel said indignantly. “Justin Bieber—not that I’m a Belieber or anything, but still—he wore them on his last tour. In leather.”

“Do I really look like a woman who would wear swaggy leather pants?”

“Well, the other things, then. I got these magazines out of Miranda’s room. She totally knows how to dress and she marked the pages, so everything I told you about is like picked by an expert.”

“Picked by a teenager,” Portia said, pushing the cupcakes on the table closer together so she could put out another tray. “For a teenager.”

“My dad says she dresses like she’s sixteen going on twenty-six. You can’t be much older than twenty-six. Right?”

“I’m twenty-nine, and fashion isn’t a priority for me right now.”

“Like I didn’t already know that.”

Portia just laughed and kept working.

“You know, you’re not really like other adults. Just saying.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t get worked up like the teachers at school. They always look mortally wounded or bear-woken-in-winter mad whenever I start talking without thinking my words through, which is pretty much all the time.”

Portia just laughed again, concentrating on the elaborate designs she was swirling into the cupcake frosting.

Everything was nearly done when the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Ariel said, as though she lived there.

Miranda followed Ariel back into the kitchen, which was unexpected.

“Hi, Miranda,” Portia said.

The girl stood there scowling, not looking even a bit happy to be there. “Yeah, hi—” The words froze in the air, and she stared at the table. “Oh, my gosh! How did you know?”

Portia took a deep breath. “Know what?”

“The cupcakes! How did you know I needed cupcakes? We’re having a sophomore class bake sale and everyone has to bring something.”

Portia couldn’t speak. She hated this feeling, hated that she couldn’t just bake like a normal person. In the morning she’d had the Kanes’ favorite breakfast without knowing a single thing about what they liked to eat. Now this.

“Awesome!” Miranda exclaimed.

Gabriel chose that moment to walk into the apartment. “I rang the bell, but no one heard,” he said.

When he saw Miranda laughing, the hard planes of his face eased, if only slightly. “I got your text that you needed cupcakes,” he said to Miranda. “There’s that cupcake place on Columbus.” His eyes shifted to the kitchen counters. “What’s this?”

“Cupcakes,” Ariel said.

Portia tried to ignore the way Ariel eyed her.

“Can you believe it! Portia already made them,” Miranda crowed. But then she seemed to realize what she was doing and stopped, the glower firmly back in place.

“How did you know?” he asked Portia.

“I didn’t. I was experimenting.” She refused to give in to the queasy emotions she felt. Maybe she just made the cupcakes because of Cutie’s. And maybe she was going stark raving mad. She turned to the girls. “Can you find some boxes to put them in? How many do you need, Miranda?”

“A lot. Like six dozen,” Miranda said.

Portia didn’t need to count. She knew on a sigh that if she did, there would be exactly six dozen sitting on the counter.

The girls went out to find boxes, which left Portia and Gabriel standing alone.

“You have batter on your face. Again.”

“Last time it was frosting.”

She would have sworn he swallowed back a smile.

She wiped her cheek and found a swipe of strawberry shortcake cupcake mix.

“How did you know about the cupcakes? Really.”

“I didn’t. I was trying to come up with a way to make Cutie’s cupcakes better. And I did.” She took a mock little bow. “The German chocolate cake was easy. So was the vanilla buttercream. But the strawberry shortcake gave me fits. Turns out, the final fix came when I baked a fresh strawberry in the middle of a vanilla sour-cream batter instead of strawberry batter with chunks of strawberries. Here, try one.”

“No, thanks.”

“What, you’re watching your boyish figure?”

Gabriel gave a surprised bark of laughter, snagged the cupcake, and took a bite. The amazement on his face made her smile. He stared at her concoction almost suspiciously before looking at her.

“And?” Portia prompted.

“And what?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you can bake.”

“I’ll take that as your way of saying you think it’s good. Thank you.” She shot him a saucy look, to which he raised a brow, his eyes intent on her.

The memory of him dragging her through the window and pulling her close made her light-headed, and she wondered if he was thinking about the same thing.

After a second he focused and saw the books. He picked up one with his free hand. “‘Hospitality and Restaurant Practices’?” He cocked his head. “What’s this for?”

“My sisters and I are going to open a restaurant.”

Saying it out loud thrilled her and terrified her in turn.

For a second she thought he was going to laugh. She just held his gaze.

“You’re serious.”

“As serious as an accountant at an IRS audit.”

His face closed off, reminding her of the ruthlessness she had first noticed about him on the front steps. “You have no business opening a restaurant.”

“Says who?”

“Says the guy who watched you try to extricate yourself from a burger suit with a knife.”

Her mouth fell open. “Burger suits and restaurants are two different kettles of fish.”

“Kettles of fish? Now there’s great business terminology.”

“Yep, Texas style.”

“You’re in New York, sweetheart.”

“I am not your sweetheart, thank my lucky stars.”

“Another of your quaint Texas sayings? What was the last one I heard you use? ‘Bless your heart’?”

She sliced him a tooth-grinding smile. “While you might not like them, you can bet your backside that a café that serves the kind of fare we create in Texas would have people lined up around the corner. Or, as we say in Texas, till the cows come home.”

He raised a brow as he eyed her. “Did you know that sixty percent of all restaurants fail?”

“Really, I thought the number would be higher.”

“Eighty percent in New York City.”

She refused to gulp. “Wow, I thought the number was more like ninety-five percent.”

“Some statistics put the number that high.”

Double non-gulp.

“Is it possible that something has left Portia Cuthcart speechless?”

She glared at him. “Okay, funny guy.”

His head cocked, but she kept going.

“I stand by my belief that a Glass Kitchen in New York will work.”

“Then tell me, if you’re such a prodigious businesswoman, what’s your cost-to-baked-goods ratio?”

“What?”

“Don’t know? How about margins? What kind of margins do you expect to achieve?”

She stammered.

The way he looked at her liquefied her insides, and she felt sorry for anyone who went up against him.

“Nope?” he said. “Then how much does a bushel of flour cost? Or how about the cost of small-business insurance?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“There’s more to running a café,” he finished, holding up her cupcake for demonstration, “than being good in the kitchen.”

Finally she broke free of her shocked stupor and walked over to him. “One, bakers don’t buy bushels of flour. We buy it by the pound, and last I checked—namely, this morning—a five-pound bag was going for $4.95; ten pounds, $8.95; twenty-five, $20.50. As to two on your rapid-fire list of insulting questions, small-business insurance varies, depending on the size of the small business, how many employees, what the business is, not to mention the city and state in which said small business is run. Having been a prodigious part of my grandmother’s restaurant, The Glass Kitchen, back in Texas, I’m well aware that there’s more to running a café than being a good cook.”