“If you two are so tight, how come she wasn’t leaving from your place this morning?”
Adam took a sip from his mug. “It’s a long story, but once this competition is behind me and we get back from Paris, I plan to fill her in on my background and then do everything in my power to make Brandi Collins my wife.”
Kyle shook his head and held up his mug in mock salute. “Damn, another dead soldier.”
Chapter 16
Three days later, Brandi pressed her face to the glass of the chauffeured car’s window and marveled at her first glimpses of Paris.
Paris. She bit back a girlish squeal of excitement.
Even as Adam pointed out the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and other iconic sites on the impromptu tour he’d directed the driver to take them on en route to the hotel, Brandi still could hardly believe she was in the City of Lights.
“Any regrets about leaving Nashville?” Adam asked.
“Not one.” She kissed him and snuggled into his embrace in the backseat of the luxury car. This ranked highly among the best moments of her life, and she wanted to savor it.
“I promise to bring you back in the spring when it’s not so cold and gray,” he said. “It’s beautiful here when everything is in bloom.”
Brandi shook her head. “I don’t think it can be any more perfect than it is right now.”
A light coating of snow covered the ground when their plane had arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport. The butter-soft leather seats and delicious meal aboard the first-class transatlantic flight had spoiled her. She’d think of it every time she sat packed like a sardine aboard her usual discount airline munching a complimentary pack of stale peanuts.
They walked inside the lobby of their hotel located in the first arrondissement, and Brandi’s mouth fell open at the splendor of the ornate, old-world decor. She smoothed a hand over a marble statuette before sinking into one of the plush, red-velvet armchairs and surveying the room’s intricate woodwork and gilded crystal chandeliers.
After Adam checked in, a bellman led them upstairs to a luxurious suite that managed to maintain the nineteenth-century, Belle Époque charm of the lobby without sacrificing modern-day luxury.
The bellman wasn’t out of the room a second when Adam pulled her into his arms. His mouth took possession of hers, and Brandi’s fingers clung to his broad shoulders as his tongue teased and tantalized, sending ripples of delight through her.
“Do you know how hard it was to sleep in the seat next to you all night on that plane and keep my hands to myself?” he asked when they finally came up for air.
She pressed herself against him. “No, but I can feel how hard.”
He released her and dropped a kiss to her forehead. “First, you’d better take a nap before jet lag kicks in,” he said and she yawned. “If it hasn’t already.”
“But I want to see…” Another yawn short-circuited her protest. “Okay, but only for a few minutes.”
Two and a half hours later, she awoke to find Adam stretched out beside her on top of the covers. He was on his side, smiling down at her with his head resting on the palm of his hand.
“Have I been dreaming or am I really in Paris?”
“We’re really here,” he confirmed.
She threw her arms over her head in a long, catlike stretch. “You smell good.”
“I’ve already showered and changed.”
She sat up abruptly and scooted toward the edge of the bed.
Adam pulled her back. “Hey, where are you off to so fast?”
“I can’t sleep and stink through my first day in France.” She kissed him on the mouth and scampered off to freshen up.
She emerged from the bathroom showered and dressed in a leopard-print pullover sweater paired with brown wool pants and leather ankle boots. The light in Adam’s eyes when he saw her made her glad she’d taken extra care with her hair and makeup.
“Vous êtes trés belle.”
“I know just enough French to know you said something very sweet.” And it made her want to drag him right back on that king-size bed. “Thank you.”
“De rien, Mademoiselle.” He held out his hand to her. “Now come here, I want to show you something.”
Adam opened the room’s glass doors and led her onto the snow-covered balcony. The icy February wind sliced through her wool sweater and he came up behind her, staving it off with his embrace.
Keeping one arm wrapped protectively around her, he used the other to point out the highlights afforded by their panoramic view.
“There’s the Jardin des Tuileries, which probably isn’t much to look at in the height of winter. Over there you can see the Musée d’Orsay, and of course, straight on is the Eiffel Tower.”
It was a gray, cold day and snow lined the streets, but none of it detracted from the heady feeling of being in the world’s most romantic city with a man she was absolutely crazy about.
Brandi shivered, and reluctantly allowed herself to be led back inside.
“Adam, I know we agreed to settle up after the trip, but I don’t know how many installments it’s going to take to reimburse you for my half.…”
He silenced her with a shake of his head and touched a finger to her lips. “We’ll figure it out when we get home. For now, let’s simply enjoy, okay?”
“Okay,” she reluctantly agreed.
“Besides, you just got notified two of your microloans were approved before we left, right?”
Brandi nodded.
“So once you find a new spot for Arm Candy, it won’t be long before you’ll be bringing me to Paris.”
Brandi laughed. She was buoyed by the news those loans were approved, but she was still holding out hope for the one from Lina Todd. Not only was it larger than the other two put together, it came with Lina’s expertise.
Adam held out her coat and she slipped her arms into it. “I know you’re eager to get out and explore the city, but do you mind if we make a detour?”
“Your grandmother?”
Adam nodded. “I have something for her. Also, I’d love for her to meet you.”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
After a light meal in the hotel’s restaurant, they took a ten-minute taxi ride to Adam’s grandmother’s apartment in the city’s Le Marais district.
Holding a wrapped gift box under his arm, Adam punched the code into the keypad to unlock a large wooden door to a very old stone building and led them through a courtyard. Three flights of stairs later, he knocked on the apartment door.
A tall woman with skin the same dark chocolate shade as Adam’s answered. She wore slim Levi’s on her lithe frame, ballet flats and oversize white shirt. Fine lines etched her smiling face, and her hair was a riot of kinky, silver curls.
“Adam.” She held Adam’s face between her wrinkled hands and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “It’s so good to see your face, mon chou.”
The bangle bracelets encircling her wrist clinked as she beckoned them both inside the surprisingly modern dwelling. Considering the aging stone exterior of the building and his grandmother’s age, Brandi had jumped to the conclusion she’d be walking into a space cluttered with lace doilies, ancient furniture and decades of mementos.
She couldn’t have been more wrong. The small apartment made the same first impression as its owner. It was stylish, elegant and filled with natural light.
“It’s the same face you see nearly every day via Skype,” Adam told his grandmother.
She shook her head. “Skype and that fancy tablet computer you gave me are good, but they aren’t a substitute for being able to hug my grandson.”
Brandi felt Adam entwine his fingers with hers and pull her to his side. “Mémé, I have someone I want you to meet,” he said. “Brandi Collins, meet my gr
andmother, Catherine Rousseau.”
The stylish elderly woman greeted her with a kiss on each cheek. “My grandson told me you’ve been helping him perfect his recipes,” she said. “Do you think he’s ready for the competition?”
Brandi looked up at Adam as she answered the elderly woman’s question. “Yes, I do,” she said honestly. “He’s an extraordinary pastry chef.” And I believe in him with all my heart, she added silently.
Catherine touched her grandson’s cheek. “He may look like me, but he has his grandfather’s passion for pastry and chocolate. We both always knew it was just a matter of time before he started to fulfill his true destiny.”
The elderly woman excused herself and left the room for a moment. When she returned she held several worn, leather notebooks held together by a red ribbon out to Adam. “These are yours now.”
Brandi watched Adam’s face as he took the books and thumbed though pages yellow with age. “It’s Grandpa’s recipe notes,” he said, his voice filled with reverence.
“I’ve been selfishly holding on to them because they so remind me of him,” his grandmother said. “But I know, especially now, he would want you to have them.”
“Thank you, Mémé.”
Brandi could feel the emotion in his voice.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. I have something for you, too.” Adam handed his grandmother a box wrapped in silver paper.
Brandi had forgotten about the red, poppy-flower print bag he’d bought from her until his grandmother pulled it from the white tissue paper and gasped.
“What a beauty. I’m going to be the envy of every woman at the market.” Her eyes narrowed and focused on Brandi. “You must have had something to do with this, because my grandson’s presents are usually the latest electronic gadgets. My mobile phone’s so fancy, I don’t know how to answer it when it rings.”
“Actually, Mémé, Brandi made the bag. She’s a handbag designer.”
Catherine ran a wrinkled hand over her new bag. “You’re a very talented young lady. The handiwork is exquisite.”
Brandi thanked the older woman. “I’m planning to scour the city’s fabric district for new material tomorrow while Adam’s doing his last-minute prep for the competition.”
“Would you like some company?” Catherine asked.
“I’d love some.”
Catherine looped her arm through Brandi’s. “Also, it’ll be good to have someone to sit with during the competition. I just knew I’d be a nervous wreck sitting there alone.”
“Me, too.” Brandi laughed and stole a glance at Adam. “What are you grinning about?”
“I’m just thinking about the competition,” he said. “Now that I have my two favorite ladies cheering me on, I can’t lose.”
Chapter 17
The wee morning hours the day of the competition found Adam much as he’d been since they’d left his grandmother’s apartment: his head bent over the hotel room’s small secretaire studying his grandfather’s faded handwriting in the tattered notebooks.
The volumes’ ragged appearance belied their pricelessness. They represented his grandfather’s fifty years in pastry. The secrets, techniques, triumphs and catastrophes were all meticulously detailed in the familiar scrawl.
Unfortunately, they were in French, which slowed the pace at which Adam could get through them. Still, at this moment, he could not feel any closer to his late grandfather if he were sitting beside him.
He felt a light touch on his shoulders and lifted his chin to see Brandi standing behind him.
“You stayed up all night reading, didn’t you?” She stood behind him and massaged his shoulder blades with her fingertips.
Adam rolled his shoulders, feeling the stiffness in them ebb away under her gentle touch.
“The competition starts in a few hours. Shouldn’t you try to get some rest?”
“I want to get through as much of them as I can before the competition begins,” he said. “I can’t explain it. I just do.”
He lifted her hand from his shoulder and tugged her around the chair until she was sitting on his lap. “Thank you for being so understanding. It wasn’t my intention to bring you all the way to Paris to pawn you off on my grandmother,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Catherine is a joy, and I enjoyed spending yesterday with her. She also has excellent taste and helped me find some sensational remnants in the fabric district yesterday. Not to mention, she translated so I didn’t have to bumble around with my French phrase book.”
“Still, you’ve been a good sport about it, and when this is over, I promise to make it up to you.”
Brandi encircled her arms around his neck. “I plan to hold you to that.”
“You should get your beauty sleep,” he said. “It’ll be daylight in a few hours.”
She nodded and started to get off his lap, but he pulled her back to him and kissed her long and deep. Her soft curves and rounded bottom felt so good against him, he didn’t want to let go.
Brandi broke the kiss and inclined her head toward the journals.
“I’ll let you get back to them,” she said.
This time he reluctantly let her go, but couldn’t resist watching the sexy sway of her hips as she walked away, reminding him of everything he was missing as she crawled back into bed.
* * *
By noon, the competition was in full swing, and the large auditorium was buzzing with the sounds of harried chefs clanging about their individual spaces and the murmured conversation of the audience looking down at them from their stadium seat perches.
Adam spied Brandi and his grandmother sitting together, but hadn’t been able to do much more than nod in their direction.
The jury of international judges had already come around to his table to taste the triple chocolate creation he prepared as his first entry, but he hadn’t been able to glean any hints from their stone faces.
Not that it mattered.
Poring over his grandfather’s notes had given Adam a new perspective to the competition and what it truly meant. Before he was using it as the sole barometer to judge his worthiness as a pastry chef and give him credibility.
He had made it all about himself and his ego when it should instead have been about his food and how it made those who ate it feel.
His grandfather’s notes reminded him of being a boy and watching the patisserie’s customers catch their breath at the sight of the day’s offerings in the glass display cases, and the moans of pleasure accompanying their first bite of his chocolate tarts.
Or, in Adam’s case, how the scent of his own pastries had lured the woman of his dreams to his doorstep.
It was about food and people, not sculptures or weird, trendy flavors. Just rich, intense, powerful, magical chocolate desserts and the people who loved them.
So when he donned his pristine white chef jacket and pleated chef hat that morning, he’d decided to ditch the entry he’d stressed over for weeks in lieu of a classic opéra cake using his grandfather’s old recipe.
Absolutely no one made the almond sponge cake soaked in coffee syrup and layered with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache as well as his late grandfather.
Adam slid the parchment-lined jelly-roll pans filled with batter for the sponge base into the oven. While they baked, he went to work at the stove. Three burners were on as he began to prepare the coffee syrup and chocolate ganache filling.
Adam had never made the French cake before. So all he had to go on were his instincts, an old recipe on faded paper and memories of watching his grandfather prepare it countless times.
The timer buzzed and he checked the status of the sponge cakes. Their light brown color was just right so he pulled them from the oven and immediately turned them off the pan.
Adam c
ut the cooled sponge into rectangles to fit the square pastry rings in which he’d assemble the cakes. Placing a layer of sponge in the bottom of each of the rings, he used a pastry brush to apply a generous layer of coffee syrup.
Over the next hour, he carefully layered the sponges with smooth buttercream, chocolate ganache and coffee-syrup fillings.
Adam chilled the cakes before completing the final stage of spreading chocolate glaze over the top layers of buttercream, gingerly removing them from the pastry squares and trimming away the rough edges.
The final cakes had a half hour to chill in the fridge before the announcer signaled it was time for the judges to make their rounds.
Adam stood by his table as the judges began tasting the three opéra cakes he’d prepared. As with the earlier judging, their expression remained impassive.
When all was said and done, Adam claimed second prize, losing out to a chocolate praline cake from a chef from Denmark.
“You’ve made me so proud today,” his grandmother said afterward.
Brandi touched the silver medal hanging around his neck. “I hope you’re not too disappointed,” she said. “Catherine’s right. You’ve made us two extremely proud women today.”
Before he could answer her, one of the judges approached them. The silver-haired man leaned on his cane with one hand and extended the free one to Adam.
“Chef Ellison, I wanted to tell you personally how absolutely superb your opéra cake was today,” he praised in French-accented English. “I haven’t tasted cake so delicious since Chef Rousseau’s old patisserie in Le Marais.”
Emotion rose in Adam’s throat at the compliment, and he simply nodded his thanks, not trusting himself to speak.
“I’m Chef Rousseau’s widow, Catherine, and Adam here is our grandson,” his grandmother interjected.
“Ah, Madame Rousseau, you’re every bit as lovely as you were when I used to visit your bakery years ago.”
The two began talking in French and soon, Adam and Brandi found themselves alone as the two left together to discuss old times over an early dinner.
Taste for Temptation (Kimani Hotties) Page 16