When Chocolate Is Not Enough... (6 page)

‘Aha!’ she exclaimed. ‘Now things have started to become clearer. You’ve trawled your idea around every dessert chef in town and no one wants to work with you.’

Daisy stood up to her full height and glared at him. ‘I don’t know whether to be insulted
by the fact that I’m a last-minute stand-in, or delighted that you happened upon my food stall this morning and now we have had this most entertaining chat. Lovely to meet you, Max. Best of luck!’

‘Would it make any difference if I told you about the rather special prize the hotel chain is offering to the winner of this contest?’ he said hurriedly.

‘It would have to be spectacular to interest me—not merely special,’ Daisy replied with a flick of her hair.

‘How about a one-year contract to supply handmade chocolates to the entire hotel chain around the world? You would be expected to travel to promote the chocolates, and do a few demonstrations. But we are talking international first-class travel, and the finest and freshest organic ingredients from hand-picked growers and beautiful estates. Your name would be on every box of chocolates they sell or serve to their guests, and of course the hotel would pay for a full publicity campaign—giving you the kind of prestige marketing that money cannot buy.’

Max paused, then waggled his right hand in the air.

‘Oh—and a five-figure cash prize to be split between the grower and the chocolatier. Just as an extra incentive.’ He looked at her
through his long dark brown eyelashes and smiled, so that creases crinkled in the corners of his eyes. ‘All you have to do is work with me for four days at the end of this week. With your talent and my chocolate how could we lose?’ he asked, in a voice as seductive and warm and smooth as the finest melted chocolate and cream sauce.

Daisy inhaled through her nose and tried to calm her racing Irish temper.

A contest at an international conference of cocoa growers!

This man had clearly not the faintest idea about how much work would be involved in putting together a range of recipes fit for a specialist conference in a five star hotel. The standard would have to be stellar.

Of course she wanted the marketing and publicity that the hotel chain could afford, and the cash prize was precisely what she needed to show the bank that she was serious and had some capital behind her, but even to have a chance in this contest she would need a huge investment of time and energy—and she only had a few days to make it happen!

There simply wasn’t time to get ready.

She could not risk damaging her rising reputation by being ill-prepared for a contest in
which the judges were probably going to be master chocolatiers—could she?

A clatter from the kitchen at the other side of the restaurant brought her back to the real world. She had just been offered a proper job by Marco, in the restaurant. She didn’t want to work for anyone else, but Marco was offering her a great opportunity—instead of fairytale ideas of winning prestigious chocolatier contests.

‘You have gone very quiet,’ Max said, and bent down slightly so that he could look up into her face. ‘Stunned? Excited?’

It was no good. Max was like a large, gorgeous puppy which bounded around the house full of beans, dragging goodness knew what onto the carpet, but no one could be angry with him because that was who he was. And there was no changing him.

‘I am very sorry, but there simply is not enough time to prepare for a contest next weekend. I would be letting both of us down if I agreed to do it.’

She took a breath, only too aware that his boyish grin had been replaced by a look which screamed out disappointment. But she could not let that sway her. Even if he
did
look utterly dejected.

That was probably why she started babbling—just
to fill the awkward silence with the sound of her voice.

‘The truth is I don’t want to work for a hotel chain full-time. My dream is to open my own artisan chocolate shop, under my own name, working for myself and creating the things I am passionate about. What you’re suggesting is something completely different. I’m sorry, but I’m not the chocolatier for you. I am sure you will find someone else who is perfect for this contest,’ she told him.

She smiled and stretched out her right hand. Max wrapped his long, tanned fingers around her small hand and gently squeezed it. His skin was warm, and she could sense the calluses on the palm of his hand. It was the hand of someone who worked on the land—rough-skinned, with broken cuticles and nails—it was an honest hand, and she paused just too long before sliding her fingers from his.

‘Will you at least think about it?’ He reached into the pocket of his trousers and picked out a grubby business card from his wallet. ‘Oh—and don’t forget your sample.’

He passed it to her, and was just about to speak again when his cell phone rang. He instantly checked the caller identity. ‘Oh, excuse me. I need to take this. Apologies.’

Daisy stepped back from the table. She was about to plunge her hands deep into the
side pockets of her chef’s trousers when she noticed that the lid was still open on the plastic box of cocoa paste that Max had produced from his bottomless rucksack. As she clicked it closed a blob of raw cocoa slid down the side of the box. Totally instinctively, and without even thinking about what she was doing, she scooped up the piece of cocoa mass on her fingertip and popped it into her mouth.

She almost reeled at the explosion of flavour and aroma and utter bliss that bombarded her tastebuds with such power that she had to hang on to the table as her mind tried to process the sensory overload in the firework display that was happening inside her mouth.

She closed her eyes and revelled in the exquisite delight of the most remarkable chocolate she had ever tasted in her life. No added sugar or vanilla—just pure, one hundred per cent unadulterated pleasure. It was almost too much for her to take in. Her brain was already whizzing through her list of recipes, seeking out anything that could cope with flavours so intense and overpowering and coming up with dozens. This was not simply an ingredient. It was amazing. If one tiny taste had given her that kind of rush … Treveleyn Estate cocoa was better than sex. There would be girls all over England walking around with smiles on their faces if this stuff got out onto the market.

‘I do have one question,’ she finally managed to whisper as Max strolled back to the table after finishing his call.

‘Go on.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you force this down my throat before? I have just changed my mind. I’ll do it. I
will
go to this conference and I
will
cook up a storm and I
will
win. For both of us. Now, when would you like to start work? Because there is a lot to do and not much time to do it in. Oh—and you can call me Daisy if you like, Mr Ormandy.’

She picked up the plastic box and stared at it. ‘This is … truly astonishing.’

Max was just standing there. Watching her. Grinning with delight.

‘Well, at last we agree on something. And, seeing as we are going to be working together, you should know that Ormandy is Kate’s maiden name. She decided to go back to it after we divorced. So please allow me to introduce myself.’ He bowed slightly from the waist. ‘Charles Maximilian Treveleyn, at your service. But, as I’ve already said, please call me Max.’ He flashed her that grin again. ‘Can you be at my place first thing Wednesday morning?’

An hour later Max was dealing with another troublesome female.

‘Come on, Daddy. We are going to be
so
late.’ Freya sighed with an exaggerated
humph
.

Max held on tightly to her tiny hand and pretended to be dragged along as they skipped across the road between the parked cars in the exclusive London suburb where Kate lived, then laughed down at her once they were safe on the pavement.

‘Hey, what’s all the rush for? Ashamed to be seen out with your old dad in public? Is that it? If you like I can take my jacket off and wear it as a hat. Or maybe carry you over my shoulder? Would that make it better?’

‘No. Silly Daddy. My TV programme starts in ten whole minutes.’

Freya giggled as Max deliberately took smaller and slower steps. Just to prolong these precious few minutes when he was a real dad, picking up his daughter from school, and not just some tourist who breezed into her life every so now and then. Because no matter how often they spoke on the phone this was the real thing.

He glanced down at her as they slowed outside a cake shop. Freya had inherited her mother’s lovely blonde hair and button nose and fine features, but those blue eyes which were currently ogling the window display of horrendously expensive cupcakes were the same ones he looked at in the mirror. Some
day, way too soon, that killer combination would be breaking boys’ hearts.

Luckily for him, apparently there were also genes for greediness and a sweet tooth.

‘Look, Daddy. Look! Mummy forgot to ask the man who brings the boxes from the supermarket for biscuits. Again. And Tracey will be coming over to play soon.’

Freya looked up and gestured with her hand for him to come down to her level so that she could whisper.

‘I am going to have my party at the swimming pool. But you have to promise not to tell anybody,
ever
, because it is a totally
mega-
secret.’ She pressed her forefinger to her lips for emphasis and made a loud shushing sound. ‘
It has to be a surprise
. But Tracey has to know because we have to plan what we are going to do and what we are going to wear and what games we are going to play and—oh, loads of stuff like that. It’s so exciting that last night I kept waking up, thinking of all the things that we could do. It was amazing. And cool.’

Max nodded seriously. ‘Not a word,’ he said, and used his right finger and thumb to run a pretend zipper across his mouth, then twisted an imaginary button in the middle. He narrowed his eyes and looked to the right and then to the left, then back into her wide blue
eyes. ‘I hope that you haven’t forgotten the most important thing?’

‘What’s that?’ Freya asked in a hushed excited squeak.

‘The chocolate rabbits, of course,’ Max teased, and then clapped his hand over his mouth.

Freya rolled her eyes and took a tighter hold of his hand. ‘I had those when I was, like, five. We don’t
do
chocolate rabbits any more, Daddy.’

‘You don’t?’ He blinked. ‘How about ice cream with sprinkles? Or homemade cupcakes? Or doughnuts with cream and jam and icing and all kinds of gooeyness squishing out from the sides? Do you do them?’

She nodded furiously, and licked her lips and rubbed her tummy at the same time.

‘Well, in that case we had better make a start on the baking—but how about we take a few of those cakes in the window home to practise on first?’

He did not have to say it twice, and Freya leapt into the shop, completely unaware of the heartache she left in her wake.

He would have liked to celebrate Freya’s birthday at his cottage, with just the two of them, over a supermarket birthday cake and fizzy lemonade on the patio, instead of at the elaborate birthday party Kate was planning in
London. According to the latest report, professional swim coaches, entertainers and a catering company were involved.

And that was what Freya wanted. It would have been cruel to take it away from her. She was so excited about the one and only time she would celebrate turning eight in her life.

She didn’t want just her silly old dad and a couple of birds’ nests and plants to look at in the cottage. Nor his chocolate bunnies, nor his hand-carved parrots and not his life.

His little girl was growing up and away from him.

His heavy lunch turned and growled inside his stomach. It was still early days yet, but the signs were all there. Would there come a day when she did not want him to pick her up from school because in her eyes her dad was a loser? A dreamer who had made his life on an island with some foolish dream of selling organic cocoa beans for a profit? A dad who was not there for her when she needed him? A dad who had let her down?

He waved at her little face as it grinned from inside the shop.

He had to make this estate a success. He had to. For her sake as well as his own.

‘Y
OU
have
got
to be kidding me.’

‘I know. It does look a little unassuming. But you can’t deny it is close to home.’

Daisy pressed her lips together and blinked at the long thin building which took up almost the full length of the bottom part of the country garden. Hidden on the other side of a hedge, it was almost invisible from the pretty thatched cottage which Max called home—which was probably a good thing, because this brick monstrosity was one of the ugliest buildings she had seen in a long time. And she delivered to cafés all over London!

But this—this was something else.

Ivy grew out of the guttering and pigeons called to her from the tall trees almost touching the sloping metal roof, which was covered in splats of what pigeons did best.

The address that Max had scribbled down on the back of a restaurant menu had seemed at first just like any other location, with a
house number and a street and the name of a village in block capitals, just in case she got lost, but it had taken her almost an hour to drive from the city that hot Wednesday morning, and for the last ten miles she had barely exceeded twenty miles an hour. Winding narrow country lanes had led to villages with names like Nately Broomwood and houses called Badger’s Tail Cottage. And she
had
got lost. Twice. Only her pride had prevented her from ringing Max and asking for directions. She had resorted to thumping the steering wheel and peering at her map of rural Hampshire instead. By the time she had found the cottage, down a remote country lane, her hair had been frizzed, her print sundress creased beyond repair and her special occasion sandals had been biting into her swollen feet.

Which went some way to explaining why she was now hot, sticky and tired, and the longer she stood in the heat the more exasperated and cranky she became.