I don’t know if I should take the slice of chocolate cake as her drawing a line between us after I made the joke about offering up her whoopie or if it’s simply her thanking me for the work I did for her.
Why I made the joke in the first place is beyond me. I already told myself not to mix business with… whatever this thing is between Audrey and me.
I thought helping settle her worries over her business name would make things less awkward.
I thought wrong.
Because there is something about seeing her in something other than her chef’s coat, or the way the table rattles from her leg bouncing beneath it like she’s bracing to bolt, or the way her brown hair flashes auburn in the candlelight that has me wanting to make bad decisions.
A family of four laughs at the table beside us, and across the room, the bartender is busy slinging drinks to the guests on barstools.
Clearing my throat, I refocus. “How’s the cake?”
She cuts off the tip of the cake wedge, bringing it to her lips without meeting my eyes. “Good.”
“Good, huh?” I cut myself a bite. “Coming from a James Beard winner, that’s high praise.”
Her fork stops halfway to her mouth. “You googled me?”
“Iresearchedyou,” I correct. “Big difference. My investigation uncovered that you were the pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York and, yes, a James Beard Award winner.”
Her lips purse to one side. “That was a long time ago.”
“Long time?” I force my eyes to hers andnother lips. “I’d argue that. Four years isn’t so long.”
After a beat, she wraps her lips around her bite of cake.
Clearing my throat, I sit back. “And unless I’m mistaken, they don’t just give out James Beard awards like Santa does candy canes.”
I’m rewarded—tortured?—when her lips twitch around her fork, as if fighting a smile.
I grab my knife and butter a piece of cornbread I have no intention of eating. “So what was it like working at one of the world’s most prestigious and well-known establishments?”
She exhales a soft laugh, more weary than nostalgic. “Intense. Glamorous on the outside, relentless on the inside. You’re surrounded by marble floors, crystal chandeliers, gold-trimmed menus… and a kitchen that runs like a battlefield. Ten burners going at once, pastry bags lined up like ammunition, and everyone moving so fast you learn to pivot without spilling a drop of sauce.”
Her fork trails through the cake like she’s stirring up old memories. “And I had a small army ofrealassistants”—she does smile then, a sly one that speaks of our inside joke—“people whose entire job was to prep, fetch, clean, restock... basically anticipate what I needed before I knew I needed it.” She glances up at me with a self-deprecating shrug. “At the Ritz, if I wanted a bag of powdered sugar, someone sprinted for it. In Hideaway, I sprint—and usually trip over a mixing bowl on the way.”
I try to picture her in that gleaming, high-stakes kitchen—chef’s coat pressed to perfection, a brigade of people orbiting her every move—and it’s almost impossible to match with the Audrey I know now, hair tied up, cranberry Crocs squeaking across the bakery floor. And yet… the version of her in Hideaway feels moreher.
“I don’t regret leaving, but… I do regret not being more grateful for them.” A soft, almost reluctant smile tugs at her mouth before she sighs with longing.
I keep my voice soft, not wanting to disturb her comfortable reminiscing. “Why did you leave?”
She sets her fork down, eyes cutting to the family of fournear us. “I always knew I wanted something different, even when I first started working at the Ritz. Something… slower. More real.” She grimaces. “But when the Ritz makes you an offer, you’d be an idiot to pass it up.”
The way she says the last makes me think she’s quoting someone else.
“So what was your breaking point?” I press, curious now in a way that has nothing to do with research. “The moment you decided you were done with the Ritz?”
Her mouth tilts like she’s debating whether to admit it. “A wedding. For a groom I’d already baked a wedding cake for five years earlier.”
I blink. “Same guy, different bride?”
“Yep. First wedding—six tiers, sugar roses, fondant lace. Picture-perfect. Second wedding—eight tiers, more sugar work, imported edible pearls. Bigger, flashier… emptier.” She shakes her head. “I remember standing in that kitchen, piping the same man’s initials onto a different cake topper and thinking,This isn’t romantic. This is a business transaction with matching napkins.”
I lean back, imagining her in that gleaming hotel kitchen, surrounded by perfection that suddenly seemed hollow. “That was it?”
“That was it.” She presses her fork into the side of the cake, shaving off a sliver.
