The Oddest Little Chocolate Shop in London (7 page)

  
‘The
sack,’ she corrected him crisply. ‘It sounds nicer. Anyway, you are far too
late. I already got it.’

  
Dominic
stared at her. ‘Got what?’

  
‘The
boot. The shove. The sack.’ She sighed and perched herself on one of the high
kitchen stools, looking back at him with a candid smile. ‘So you see, I’m free
for the foreseeable future.

  
‘You
lost your job? I’m so sorry, Clementine.’

  
She
waved her hand. ‘Oh, don’t be. I never enjoyed it anyway. But I do need to sort
out a job for myself. Something I can stick for longer than a few weeks.’

  
‘I
would love to have you here, but I can’t afford to pay you,’ he told her
bluntly.

  
‘Pay
me in chocolate, then. Or cover me in it,’ she said, then blushed fierily when
his eyebrows shot up. ‘Merde, that didn’t come out right.’

  
He
laughed then, meeting her gaze. ‘No, but it was funny.’

  
‘Thank
you,’ she said drily.

  
Deciding
to reopen the shop seemed to have galvanized him; she had never seen him
looking quite so energetic and positive. ‘You make me laugh, you’re very
amusante.’ His eyes locked with hers, suddenly intent. ‘Clementine. Such an
unusual name. If only I had met you before.’

  
‘Before
your business went down la toilette?’

  
His
handsome Gallic smile turned lopsided. ‘Something like that, oui.’

  
‘C’est
la vie,’ she murmured.

  
‘C’est
la guerre.’

  
‘That
too.’ Then she jumped up, hands on hips. ‘Well, if this is a war, Dominic, what
are we doing sitting about on our bottoms?’

  
His
gaze flashed instantly to her bottom, then back up to her face, but not before
she caught a flicker of interest in those dark eyes.

  
Heat
flooded her cheeks and she stared back at him in mute embarrassment.

  
Suddenly,
bottom was the only word in her head.

  
‘I
d … don’t know why I said that,’ she stammered.

  
‘Said
what?’

  
‘Bottom.’

  
He
smiled. ‘You said it again.’

  
‘Merde.’

  
‘But
why should you not say it?’ His eyes watched her darkly. ‘It is not a rude
word. I am not offended.’

  
‘It
… It makes me feel silly.’

  
‘Silly,
non. Charmante, oui.’ He stood too and took her hand, drawing her close.
‘Though in that tight dress, I’m afraid your … derrière … is perhaps rather
prominent.’

  
‘Oh
my god, I knew it must be.’ She stared at him blankly, horribly aware that he
was holding her hand, then could not stop herself from chortling, ‘Wait … You
mean, my bum looks big in this?’

  
His
eyebrows rose slowly. ‘Pardon?’

  
‘Sorry.’
Typical. She had managed to ruin the moment. He must think her a total idiot.
‘I added bum to the faux pas of bottom. What must you think of me?’

  
‘That
you are very British.’

  
She
wished her face was not so hot. And now she was gabbling. Like a schoolgirl
with a sugar-rush. ‘Well, yes, I do have that distinction. I only hope it’s not
a disadvantage. But maybe it is. I hadn’t thought of that. You don’t think it
will put your customers off to be served by someone … Well, by someone not
French?’

  
‘Rachel
is not French,’ he pointed out calmly.

  
‘Good
point.’

  
He
put an arm about her waist, and suddenly she could not breathe. He was standing
far too close, their bodies hip to hip, touching in all the right – she
meant wrong, of course – places. She remembered Dominic kissing her by
accident. The ghastly embarrassment of it all. The way she had trembled afterwards
as though she had been walking a high-wire…

  
‘Clementine,’
he murmured.

  
‘Yes?’

  
He
smiled, looking deep into her eyes, then leant forward and put his lips against
hers.

  
This
time the kiss was quite deliberate.

  
Her
toes curled and she leant into him, closing her eyes, letting her lips part.
His breath smelt delicious, and his body was so warm against hers. She could
hear the muffled beat of his heart take off as their kiss deepened.

  
‘I’m
glad you came back,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘There’s something about
you, Clementine. I don’t know what it is, but having you around makes me feel
like … like I can do this.’

  
‘You
can do this,’ she agreed, smiling.

  
‘I
was so low before you appeared. You were talking nonsense and holding that poor
lost chat in your arms. I could not see my way ahead that day. But as soon as I
met you, I started to get new ideas … to regain my confidence.’ He laughed
softly. ‘Does that sound crazy?’

  
‘Not
at all. It’s kismet.’

  
He
pulled back, his eyebrows raised. ‘Kiss what?’

  
‘Kismet.
It means destiny.’

  
‘Ah
oui ... I begin to like this destiny.’ Dominic kissed her again, their bodies
nestled together warmly, and she started to feel a little hot under the collar.
Except she did not have a collar. Just a too-skimpy polka dot halterneck that
seemed to be giving him ideas, the way his hands were straying over her body.
His mouth nuzzled at her throat. ‘Perhaps we could take a short break. Go
upstairs for a while.’

  
She
was shivering, clinging to him, when a loud sneeze disturbed their dreamy
love-making.

  
Dominic
raised his head.

  
The
bead curtain rattled noisily, then suddenly Rachel was there in the doorway,
staring at them.

  
What a time for an interruption!

  
Clementine
could have sworn aloud with frustration. Then she looked at Rachel properly. Her
face was red, her eyes bloodshot as though the poor girl had been weeping inconsolably
for hours, convinced her heart was breaking.

  
Clementine
knew the feeling.

  
‘Oh,’
Rachel exclaimed, then tried to back awkwardly through the curtain again, and
managed only to entangle herself in a tangle of beads. There was a tiny break
in her voice, the merest hint of a sob. ‘Am I disturbing you? I’ll … come back
later.’

  
Dominic
shot forward. ‘No, Rachel, stay. I want you!’

  
‘You
want me?’ the girl echoed in surprise.

  
Clementine
nodded fervently. ‘Yes, he wants you.’ Then looked at him suspiciously. ‘You
do?’

  
He
glanced from her face to Rachel’s wide-eyed expression, the distinct beginnings
of a flush along his cheekbones. It made him look rather vulnerable. In an
adorable kind of way.

  
‘I
want you to serve.’

  
‘I
beg your pardon?’ Clementine folded her arms, watching him. ‘You want her to do
what?’

  
 
‘I want Rachel in the shop. To serve …
the customers.’ Dominic blew out a harsh breath. ‘I can’t take this. As if my
life was not complicated enough … Bien, I’m going to start unpacking these boxes
and setting up the displays again.’ He pushed through the bead curtain, calling
out over his shoulder, ‘Perhaps one or both of you ladies could join me?’

  
Rachel
sneezed violently – that cat again! – then looked at her, only now
noticing her tiny polka dot dress. Her blue eyes widened still further.

  
‘Why
on earth are you … ’

  
‘Don’t
ask!’ Clementine interrupted her, then turned round, hurriedly showing her the
rear view. ‘Honestly though,’ she hissed, ‘don’t spare my feelings. Does my bum
… you know?’

CHAPTER FIVE

In Which Clementine Reveals Herself As A Latex Pervert

Despite her romantic yearnings, Clementine was
a practical soul at heart. She had not expected to be mobbed by thousands of choc-starved
customers, all clamouring for Lemon Creams and Strawberry Surprises the moment
Dominic flung open the door at three minutes to noon the next morning.

  
Nonetheless,
she found the ‘grand re-opening’ of
Ravel’s
Chocolaterie de Londres
surprisingly low-key. Few passers-by, it seemed,
had noticed the sign in the window advertising the event. Or if they had
spotted it on their way home yesterday, they had not particularly cared. She
suspected some people had not even noticed that the chocolate shop had closed
in the first place.

  
Besides
which, it was another hot, dry day – wonderful weather for ice cream vans
and ice-cold drinks, but not for visiting chocolateries, clearly.

  
And
if anyone had been daring enough to poke their nose round the door, they would
soon have scurried away again, driven off by loud music, thanks to Rachel's
bizarre idea of a warm welcome.

  
Clementine
thought she was there fairly early, knocking on the back door at a few minutes after
eight o’clock. But Rachel had bustled in soon afterwards, red-eyed and still
sneezing, but determined to be helpful.

  
‘I
wasn’t sure you’d be in today,’ Clementine admitted.

  
‘Yes,
well, it seems to take my mind off … you-know-who … if I work hard,’ Rachel said
a little tremulously, her chin jutting out, ‘so here I am. Single and proud. Oh
god. Quick, find me something to do or I’ll start crying again!’

  
Much
to Dominic’s annoyance, Rachel had cheerily insisted on rigging up a line of
bunting with clusters of blue, red and white balloons – the colours of
the French flag. And she seemed to have the Marseillaise playing at full blast
every time someone came through the door – which wasn’t very often,
admittedly.

  
Several
people glanced inside and asked Clementine, in bemused tones, if it was a
French public holiday. On learning that it was just a re-opening, they
hurriedly disappeared again, no doubt concerned they would be expected to buy
something. Others took one look at the balloon-festooned shop interior and marched
out again, to the refrain of ‘Aux armes, citoyens!’

  
While
Rachel endlessly rearranged the shelves, Clementine busied herself with
learning how the till worked. After an hour, she made her first solo sale and
felt quite proud of herself.

  
A new skill!

  
Despite
the quiet start, the reopening was not a complete washout: once the trumpeting
Marseillaise had been silenced, customers wandered in and out every few
minutes, occasionally making a purchase. Concentrating on her work, Clementine
barely saw the gorgeous Dominic – who spent most of the afternoon in the
kitchen area, preparing new chocolates – until much later, when he
finally drifted down the shop at half past four to see how their first day’s
sales had gone.

  
His
hair was a little messy, he was wearing a pinstriped apron, tied twice about
his waist, and there was a kind of burning intensity to his gaze which Rachel
had already warned her to expect. ‘Dominic gets excited when he makes
chocolate,’ she had whispered earlier, at the sound of a crash from the kitchen
followed by a spate of agitated French.

  
He
was still hot-looking though. Hot and decidedly edible, despite having stripped
off the see-through latex gloves he apparently
always
wore while preparing confectionery.

  
Health and safety pervert
, she told
herself sternly.
Getting turned on at the
sight of latex!
But it was sadly too true; she had found it hard not to
stare earlier, her mouth ajar, when Dominic wandered out in search of a mislaid
chocolate mould, snapping the thin gloves onto his wrists like a surgeon about
to take a scalpel to somebody’s thorax.

  
Now
he looked less like a sadistic surgeon and more like a sex god with domestic
skills. Plain white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, both sleeves rolled up, a
teensy smudge of chocolate on the inside of one muscular forearm, and the
chef-style black and white pinstriped apron over body-hugging black jeans.

  
Oh my.

  
‘How
is it going, Clementine?’ he asked in that very sexy French accent, then leant
his elbow on the glass-topped display counter, gazing across at her.

  
‘Fine,
oh just fine.’ She jabbered on for a moment about sales and customers, waving
her hand expressively across the touch-screen till. ‘I’ve nearly got the hang
of this till. It’s not so very hard when you … ’ The till beeped at her
furiously, and she realised she had inadvertently hit the screen. ‘Oops.’

  
His
grin made her insides dissolve. ‘Ah yes, I know it well. Le “oops.”’ His tone
was mocking. ‘That’s why I prefer to leave all these sales transactions to
Rachel, and stay safely in my kitchen.’

  
‘Barefoot?’

  
One
eyebrow rose slowly. ‘Pardon?’ he queried in French.

  
‘Barefoot
and pregnant. In the kitchen.’ Her voice trailed off as incomprehension turned
to bafflement on his face. ‘Never mind. Very silly joke. Here, we’ve sold all
these.’

  
Hurriedly
she showed him the handwritten list of sales she had been marking up herself
after each transaction, just in case she pressed the wrong button on the
computerised till and it ate all the information.
 

  
He
took the list and studied it seriously. His dark eyes lifted to hers. ‘But this
is very good news. Excellent, in fact. Bien fait, Clementine. Merci.’

  
Oh
goodness.

  
Those
seductive eyes …

  
Mercy, indeed.

  
Clementine
managed an unsteady, ‘Thank you.’

  
He
handed her back the list, his fingers drumming lightly on the glass counter.
‘Perhaps later, when we have closed up, you will come upstairs for a drink with
me? For a little toast to our success?’

  
‘Absolutely.
I bet Rachel will love that too,’ she replied without thinking, then could have
pinched herself with frustration when she saw his eyes darken.

  
‘I
thought perhaps we could be alone,’ Dominic admitted huskily.

  
She
met his gaze, and found herself unable to look away. So this was why it was
called magnetic attraction. ‘Oh. Yes. Well … ’

  
Rachel
came up to the counter. ‘Ahem,’ she said, clearing her throat loudly.

  
Her
boss straightened up and looked at Rachel, frowning.

  
Flushed,
Clementine turned to her in surprise. ‘What is it?’

  
Rachel
sneezed, burying her face in a large white hanky, then nodded pointedly past
Dominic. ‘You have a customer. You were too busy chatting to notice, and I
can't serve while I'm sneezing every few minutes, so I thought I’d give you a
nudge.’

  
Clementine’s
eyes widened as Dominic moved aside, and they all saw the little old lady
standing just behind him.

  
White-haired
and rather sad-looking, it was the old lady Clementine had seen yesterday.
though today she wore no hat. She had to be in her eighties at least,
Clementine thought. She was wearing a light blue dress with a white collar and
a woollen cardigan, despite the sunny afternoon. Bent over a walking stick, she
was staring into the chocolate counter with a distracted air. Her handbag
hanging from the crook of her arm, she looked frail and confused, as though not
quite sure why she was there.

  
‘I’m
terribly sorry to have kept you waiting,’ Clementine apologised at once. ‘Can I
help you, madam?’

  
Dominic
took Rachel to one side and began speaking to her quietly about the new display
shelves.

  
Clementine
tried to focus on her customer and not feel jealous. Just because Rachel had
fallen out with her fiancé, that did not mean she was shopping for a new one.
And besides, Dominic was not her property. They liked each other, that was all.
It might never go any further than that. Especially if every time they spent
more than a few moments together, they were interrupted!

  
The
old lady was pointing at the chocolates on display in the glass-topped counter.
‘My husband likes … liked … the little ones with a cherry on the top. Not a
real cherry, a chocolate one. I thought I would buy a few. But you do not
appear to have them anymore.’

  
Clementine
peered at the display. She had no memory of a cherry-topped chocolate. ‘I’m
sorry, madam,’ she said, concerned now. The old lady seemed so sad, it would be
a shame to disappoint her. ‘You’re right. There aren’t any on display. But
perhaps Monsieur Ravel could …. ?’

  
Suddenly
Dominic was there, bowing his head to the old lady. ‘Forgive me, madame, you
would like some of my Cherry Bombs?’

  
‘That
was the name, yes!’ She smiled back at him, her face transformed. ‘Oh thank
you, do you still have them?’

  
‘I
do not have any ready-made, madame,’ he admitted, smiling persuasively at her,
‘but if you could return tomorrow afternoon, I will make sure there is a bag of
Cherry Bombs set aside.’

  
‘That’s
very kind,’ she said at once, and sighed. ‘My husband Ernest did love them so
much. He often came in for them on a Friday afternoon. Perhaps you remember
him?’

  
Dominic
looked uncertain, but Rachel nodded. ‘I remember. Gentleman with a blue scarf.
Always smiling!’

  
‘That’s
him, that’s Ernie.’ The old lady nodded, smiling herself. Then her smile trembled
and faded. ‘Sadly, Ernie passed away not long ago. It’s just me now. The
funeral was held yesterday. A quiet affair, that’s what he asked for. Only
family. And there are so few of us left. But today I thought … Well, today I
thought I would buy some of his favourite chocolates.’ She tapped her walking
stick gently on the floor, staring at the chocolate display without seeing it.
‘Ernie would have liked that. For me to treat myself.’

  
‘Bien
sûr, madame. I’m sure he would.’

  
Clementine
suddenly remembered the funeral procession she had seen, and the mourners in
the solitary car following the flower-decorated hearse. So few of them. That
must have been Ernie’s funeral.

  
No
wonder the poor old lady looked so sad.

  
‘I’ll
make sure they’re wrapped up and waiting for you when you came back, madam,’
she said, and could have wept herself when she saw how damp and shiny the old
lady’s eyes had become.

  
‘Thank
you, that’s very kind,’ the old lady repeated, then turned for the door,
groping her way.

  
Dominic
helped her out into the busy street, then stood a moment to see the old lady go.
When he came back inside the shop, he had a thoughtful look in his eyes. ‘She
reminds me of my own grandmother,’ he told them quietly, then nodded brusquely
at her and Rachel. ‘Bon, allons-y. There’s still plenty to do. I had better go
back to the kitchen.’

  
‘Poor
old lady,’ Rachel said, looking wistfully after her.

  
‘It
must be awful,’ Clementine agreed, ‘being alone at her age.’

  
‘Being
alone at any age is pretty bad,’ Rachel muttered, biting her lip, then sneezed
dramatically several times.

  
Clementine
could have kicked myself when she realised what she had said. Rachel had only
just split up with her boyfriend, and there she was, making insensitive remarks
about loneliness!

  
Clementine
tried to stammer an apology, but Rachel shook her head. ‘No, it’s not your
fault. I need to sort myself out, not keep moping like this and waiting for him
to call.’ She scooped up some empty display boxes that had to be filled with
freshly-made chocolates. ‘Oh, by the way. That cat’s out the back again. You
know I’m allergic to fur, so if you want to feed her, I’m afraid – ’

  
‘Yes,
sorry, no problem. I’ll do that.’

  
The
beautiful white Persian was sitting, tail curled neatly about her paws, outside
the back door of the shop. Her head tilted to one side as Clementine came out
onto the step, open tin of tuna in hand. The cat miaowed, showing rows of
elegant white teeth.