Lex was about to speak when her phone rang. She expected it to be the receptionist at Thorpe Industries again—her call precipitated the Toss Coffee Over Your Boss incident—but, when she looked down, Lex recognised the number of St Agnes primary school and her heart lurched. Getting a call from her half-sisters’ school was never good.
If the call had come from anyone else, she would’ve ignored it, but a call from the girls’ school shot her anxiety levels sky-high. She answered the call via Bluetooth, knowing that Cole would hear the conversation. Damn, another black mark. She was racking them up today.
Within twenty seconds she established that the girls were fine but Nixi’s teacher was calling to remind Lex that she’d promised to supply the school with twenty-four cupcakes for their bake sale.
‘And we need them here by lunchtime,’ she was told.
Cupcakes? What cupcakes?
‘I’m sorry, what cupcakes?’ Lex demanded, her stomach sinking to her toes. The school frequently made last-minute requests—or, truthfully, she processed the necessary information late—but two hours to produce two-dozen cupcakes was terrifying on another level.
‘I sent a reminder a week ago.’
Lex winced. Yeah, her inbox was full to overflowing and she could easily have missed it. ‘Look, I dropped the ball,’ she told Ms Mapton. ‘Even if I could get to a bakery to buy them, I don’t think I’ll be able to get them to you in time.’
‘Just do your best, Ms Satchell,’ Ms Mapton told her before disconnecting the call.
She’d try but she didn’t see how she’d fit a cupcake delivery into her day. She didn’t know whether Cole needed her to ferry him around any more today and, if he did, she’d have to postpone her French lesson student. She also had an assignment to email off before five this afternoon, as yet unfinished. But Cole’s claim on her time came first: her part-time chauffeuring gig for Thorpe Industries, which she’d acquired through Addi, paid well and it wasn’t one she could afford to lose.
That was if he didn’t fire her today.
Lex turned her attention back to her cupcake problem. How had she dropped this ball? If she didn’t deliver the cupcakes, she knew her sisters would be disappointed, which would be quickly followed by resigned acceptance. Snow and Nixi were so used to being disappointed by Joelle, the mother all five sisters shared, that being let down wasn’t anything new or strange.
Cupcakes. What else was this day going to throw at her?
Lex slipped the SUV into the fast lane to overtake a fuel truck. She considered calling Addi, who worked at Thorpe in the hospitality section, but knew her older sister was in meetings all day and wouldn’t take her call. She’d ordinarily ask Addi’s assistant Giles, who was also a family friend, to do the cupcake run, but she couldn’t—not with their boss of bosses listening in.
She didn’t want to paint a bullseye on Addi’s back because it was her job that paid the bulk of their joint expenses while Lex provided the day-to-day care the younger girls needed. Without each other’s contribution, the younger girls would’ve been split apart and placed in the foster care system, because neither she nor Addi could look after them on their own. Addi’s salary made it financially possible for them to stay together, and Lex being present for the girls gave them the emotional stability neither she nor Addi had had growing up. But, lately, because Addi went to work early and walked in late, Lex frequently felt like a single parent.
She couldn’t believe so much time had passed since they’d taken responsibility for the girls. At twenty-three, she’d been single, and she’d just met someone she thought might be the one to change her mind about love, trust and commitment. Addi had been engaged, counting down to her wedding in three months, and Storm, their middle sister, had just left school. Then, after not hearing a word from their mother in seven years, Joelle had rocked up with Nixi and Snow—sisters they’d never met, sisters they hadn’t known about. She and Addi had been busy taking in that bombshell news—Joelle now had five daughters from five different men—when Joelle had asked them to look after the girls for a weekend.
They were still waiting for Joelle to return to the country.
As a result of Joelle’s daughter-dump, Addi’s wedding had been postponed and then cancelled. Lex’s love interest had done a runner and, yet again, her suspicion that ‘love’ always melted when came into contact with a little heat was confirmed. Addi’s father had bolted when Joelle had told him she was pregnant with Addi—Lex didn’t even know who her dad was. Joelle invariably skipped out on a person or situation when times got tough, and Addi’s fiancé had broken up with her just two months after their half-sisters’ arrival in their lives.
She got the message: love couldn’t be counted on to see you through the tough times. Determination, persistence and grit were the traits needed to deal with the reality of a stunningly fickle mum and raising her two half-sisters.
Love was outstandingly unreliable and, frankly, useless.
The onboard GPS broke into her thoughts by telling her to take the next exit and Lex shook herself out of her introspective reverie. She was normally too busy to look back, and she rarely allowed herself to think of the past and the rough hand she and Addi had been dealt. It was what it was, and no amount of thinking, or wishing, could change reality.
Enough now. She was tired and stressed and that was why she was being bombarded with memories of the past. And, at twenty-eight, she couldn’t operate on three hours of sleep night after night and be expected to be Positive Polly.
Two more years of studying, she told herself as she took the exit. Then she’d have her degree in Forensic Psychology and, with the girls being a little older, she could look for a full-time job. She could maybe even think about having a fling, some fun.
Until then, she just had to keep trying her best. It was all she could do. But sometimes Lex felt that her best wasn’t nearly good enough and she was letting her sisters down, just like her mother had let her down, time and time again. But she, at least, was showing up, climbing into the ring, doing her best.
She was doing all she could, in the best way she knew how. All she could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other and trudging on.
‘Do you have kids?’
Lex looked in the rear-view mirror and her stomach flipped over when her eyes connected with Cole’s. Was that disappointment she saw? No, she was just projecting her attraction onto him. Rich, handsome guys who operated in nose-bleedingly high social circles didn’t waste their time, energy or emotions on women who were anything less than stunningly beautiful or incredibly talented—possibly both.
But his question broke the tense silence between them and for that she was grateful. ‘No, the cupcakes are for a bake sale at my sisters’ school.’
‘And why did you get the call? Where’s their mum?’
Lex stopped at a traffic light and her grip on the steering wheel tightened. ‘Me and my sister Addi—she works as a VP at Thorpe in your hospitality and leisure sector—are raising our half-sisters together.’