The Billionaire's Secret

by Ava Miles

  “You see? It is a completely new presentation.” Then he leaned in with a cocky grin. “But there’s still more I can do.” He connected the ends of the bread and made a wreath. “Sometimes we make it this way, and then serve it with fresh berries and cream in the middle. People love it. And it’s so simple. All it takes is a little imagination.”

  “Wow!” she said, touching the cut ends of the bread. “You’re incredible.”

  “Wait until I teach you how to braid baguettes together.” He leaned back against the stainless steel counter. “You won’t believe how beautiful that can be. But that’s an advanced lesson. For now, you practice making baguette. Then I will show you how we bake the bread.”

  She glanced over at the ovens and saw Fabian and Ronan working in tandem, taking out an enormous batch of piping hot golden bread loaves.

  “You will have your own baguette to take home, ma petite,” Andre said. “Be sure to savor it. There is nothing like sampling the first baguette of your hands. It is like a first kiss.”

  Margie immediately thought of her first kiss along the Seine—how the willows had wrapped her even closer to Evan, how his mouth had felt as it moved in urgent, heated passes over her own.

  “And share it with your man,” Andre said with a knowing smile. “But know you will be sharing a part of your soul with him.”

  She trembled a bit, hearing that. She’d already shared parts of her soul with him by divulging her dreams and her past with her parents, but somehow she knew sharing this bread with Evan would be huge and intimate. It would leave her feeling even more vulnerable than she already did.

  “Do not overthink love, ma petite,” Andre told her and handed her another ball of dough like it was a queen’s crown. “It is like bread. Keep it simple and do not over-mix or over-knead it. Now, practice. I am going upstairs for a while.” He spoke in smooth French to Fabian and Ronan. The men smiled and nodded at her. “They will keep you company. You do not need to speak French to speak the language of bread. They will advise you if you have questions.”

  She looked over at the men and gave them a kind of bow, like she would at the end of a yoga class. Somehow it seemed appropriate.

  When he reached the stairs, Andre turned to look at her with that wicked smile of his. “And have fun with the bread, Margie. Always have fun.”

  After that, time fell away. She made baguette after baguette. Her early ones took longer to form and showed the marks of a beginner. She was still feeling out the best way to roll the dough into a circle with the heel of her hand. She had the three tucking steps down. The hardest part remained rolling out the dough to look like a woman’s arm. A few of hers looked like a crooked water pipe while another resembled a dog’s leg.

  When Andre returned, he hovered near her and eyed her progress. “You are improving, ma petite.”

  “I hope you aren’t selling the baguettes I am making,” she said honestly. “I will give your bakery a bad name.”

  “No worries, ma petite,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “We will put your loaves in a special basket that says apprentice bread and discount it. If it doesn’t sell, we will give the rest to the neighborhood church. We rarely have bread left at the end of the day, but when we do, either Belle or I walk to the church to give them to Father Charles. He hands the loaves out to the poor who visit their door every night. I cannot abide bread being thrown away. If I could make it for free and still live well, I would. It is not about the money.”

  She nodded. “I feel the same way.” She knew how hollow the happiness bought by money felt.

  “But money makes the world go around, as they say, and so we play our role,” Andre said. “Now, show me what you have done.”

  He critiqued each loaf, noting the unevenness of some of them and a few lazy pinches that would come apart as the bread started to rise. “Remember, ma petite. You must give the bread its structure because once it starts rising again, it will break free of any loose shaping.”

  She nodded, and he moved down the row of her baguettes, which Fabian had helped her lay out on baking trays that would eventually go into the oven.

  “Your slashing technique is improving as well,” he said. “I would say it’s your best feature so far.”

  Picking up the baker’s blade, she made a slashing motion. “I’ve kind of fallen in love with this tool. It’s rather fun.” When she could concentrate on her cinnamon rolls again, she wanted to consider other options besides simply rolling them out and placing them in a pan. What might her imagination inspire her to create?

  She and Andre continued to work side by side as she practiced and practiced. When he finally called out for her to stop, satisfied with her progress, she’d made fifty baguettes to her count. Not too shabby.

  “Now for the easy part,” he said. “The baking. Come closer to the ovens.”

  She stood as close as she felt comfortable. Andre was about a foot closer to them than she was.

  “The heat is impressive, no?” he asked. “I use a Winkler oven to bake my beauties. As you can see, it’s a gas oven. I’m old fashioned this way. I like having the hint of fire bake my bread. What kind did you buy?”

  “I have a Bodgette I inherited from the former owner. It still works beautifully. I used it to bake cinnamon rolls with the former owner before she handed the keys over to me.”

  “It is a good brand, I think,” Andre said, “and how nice that you did not have to pay for it yourself, although I’m sure the equipment was included in the price of the bakery.”

  “It was,” she said, thinking back to what a dance she’d had to do to make it all work. She and Grandma Kemstead had itemized all the equipment in the store, and Margie had chosen what she wanted to keep. “The bread slicer I inherited goes back to the 40s, and it’s still in top shape. There’s a man in town who’s been sharpening the blades for forty years.” And now he would sharpen the blades for her.

  Whenever she thought about continuing the special legacy begun by Grandma Kemstead, she got teary-eyed. After walking away from the legacy her parents had tried to force on her, she’d never expected it would make her this happy to find a connection to something that spanned the generations.

  “Good equipment can last forever with the proper care,” Andre said. “So, after all the shaping, it’s pretty simple to bake the bread. We just pop the trays inside. At this point, they don’t need to rise much. The dough has already reached its apex, so to speak. The heat takes it home. Would you like to do the honors? They’re your baguettes.”

  “I’d love to,” she said and picked the first of the three heavy trays she’d filled with her baguettes.

  “You are stronger than you look,” Andre commented as he opened the oven door for her.

  “I added extra weights to my routine when I decided to buy the bakery.” Not that she’d been doing much working out lately. She hadn’t the time.

  The heat was intense on her face as she slid in the first tray and then followed suit with the next two. Andre shut the door and gave her an impromptu hug. Fabian and Ronan clapped, interrupting the cleanup they were doing near a small sink next to the stairs.

  “You have made your first magic in Paris, Margie,” Andre said. “I feel like a proud papa. Oh, I will teach you so many things. Now, we will let the bread bake. Come upstairs with me. We have some champagne in the refrigerator. Belle insists on keeping it. We must celebrate.”

  “Ah…maybe we should wait to taste my baguettes before we celebrate,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” Andre said, leading her to the stairs. “You are using my dough. They will be perfect. Now, when you make your own dough…”

  She saw where he was going with this. “It’s going to take practice,” she said and almost winced, wondering how much. But it was exciting too. She was learning how to make baguettes in Paris with a master baker. She needed to kick her perfectionism to the curb and enjoy this.

  “You will get it right, with practice and my fine instr
uction,” he said with a laugh. “After all, you will be using my recipe. And it’s perfect, no? The angels weep when they eat my bread. Jesus himself might have—”

  “I get it,” she said, climbing the steep stairs. “You’re a regular saintly baker.”

  “There is already a Saint Andre,” he teased when they reached the top. “But I will figure something out to ensure I leave a legacy.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Andre called out to Fabian and Ronan, and they climbed the stairs as well. In the small back room of the bakery’s first floor, Andre produced a bottle of champagne. His wife came through the swinging door with a huge smile.

  “Success!” she said and hugged Margie. “There is no better feeling.”

  “No, there truly isn’t,” Margie answered, accepting a glass of champagne.

  Once everyone had a glass, Andre raised his to her. “To Margie from America. May she learn to bake bread like a Frenchman.”

  “French woman, ma cherie,” Belle said, nudging him in the ribs.

  “As you wish,” he said with a laugh. “To making the bread of life.”

  The words held a spiritual significance she’d never fully understood before. Bread was life. She’d known that for some time. Now she understood the deeper nuances of that statement. Bread did give life. It had given her life. And now she wanted to share that life with others—like she had with Evan. Her new knowledge humbled her mightily.

  “To making the bread of life,” she said and connected their glasses in the toast.

  Chapter 4

  Evan was counting the minutes until Margie texted him to tell him she was free. He had no idea how long her master baker would keep her today. He hadn’t been able to resist looking Andre Moutard up on Google. The guy seemed legit, but who knew if he was a good boss?

  The events of last night had shaken his foundation, everything from their kiss to her revelations about her painful past. As he glanced around his luxurious penthouse apartment filled with every modern convenience—and not a hobbit door in sight—he felt a familiar fear rise up in him.

  She wasn’t going to like him when she learned he was obscenely rich—billionaire rich—and had been entrenched in the same shallow circles as her parents until recently. He just knew it would ruin everything between them.

  The ruse would have to continue…at least until he knew she cared about him as much as he did about her. Since she wanted to make love with him, he knew she cared. A lot. And it both humbled him and excited him.

  He decided to call L’Hotel again to make sure everything was ready for them should she still want to be with him tonight. His body tightened with lust as he imagined slowly undressing her and kissing every inch of her glorious body. But they wouldn’t have the entire night together. She’d have to leave for the bakery before two a.m. Normally he didn’t stay with women afterward. He rather liked his space and solitude, but he wondered what it would be like to wake up with her all warm and tousled from sleep. And he found himself wanting something he’d never before thought to want.

  The phone rang, and he snatched it up, seeing it was Chase. “Did you see the new prototype for the Paint Prep Mistress? It’s looking great, isn’t it?”

  “Evan. I told you we can’t do this.” His friend paused. “I know you’re happy about the invention, but we need something else. Something that will complement the rest of what we do.”

  This was an argument they’d carried on every day for a week—ever since Evan had diverted a few key staff in their Research and Development Department to work with him on improving the design.

  “Chase, I know you don’t see this going anywhere, but it will. I can’t explain it, but there’s a defense application here somewhere. I can feel it. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  “You keep saying that,” Chase said in an aggrieved tone. “And I keep trying to believe it. But most of our clients in the countries we currently serve don’t need help painting their buildings. Or their planes or their ships…”

  Didn’t he know that? But there’s something there. He kicked the desk, feeling the frustration well in his gut. The key that would unlock this whole thing was hidden from him. But he couldn’t find it. Right now it was like he was trying to walk the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral outside Paris in the dark. He couldn’t find the center.

  “I’ll use my personal funds on this, Chase,” Evan said in a hard tone. “I know I’m blowing your perfect corporate budget right now.” Some of the materials he’d ordered to modernize the invention and make it sleek and lightweight were astronomically expensive.

  “Did you really need the specially insulated titanium?” Chase asked. “That seems kinda excessive for a painting tool.”

  It probably was, but he hated working with inferior metals. And besides, the voice that kept telling him this was more than a painting tool wouldn’t be silenced—not by him, not by Chase.

  “I’ll send you a check today.” They’d never done it this way, but if Howard Hughes could finance his own projects, so could he.

  “Dammit, Evan, this is about more than money, and you know it.” Chase let out a tortured breath. “You’re taking our best R&D people away from their current projects. We have contracts, Evan, with strict deliverables. If you keep having them work on this project, we’re going to end up defaulting, and that’s a whole other ballpark of hell. One we cannot dig ourselves out of. Right now, all I can do is deliver your old designs. If we lose that, with nothing new to sell plus the defaults, we will lose this company, Evan. It won’t be quick, but it will happen.”

  He crossed the room to the French doors leading to the balcony. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower speared the sky. After the inventor, a civil engineer named Gustave Eiffel, created it for the 1889 World’s Fair, he came under significant criticism for its design. People had said he was crazy. But he stuck to his guns like every other famous inventor, and look how things had turned out. No one could imagine Paris without his invention. Gustave had combined art and aerodynamics and a whole stream of other theories into an awe-inspiring collage of metal. Evan wished he could buy the man a beer for reminding him to press on.

  “So money isn’t going to fix it,” he said, realizing he was seeing way too much evidence of this lesson in his life right now. “What will? I need my staff, Chase. And they are my staff.”

  “Did you just hear what I said?” Chase asked. “If you keep diverting staff and funds in one of the most critical departments in this company, we’re going to hit rocky shores, Evan. I love this company as much as you do. Do you want this ship to go down?”

  “Of course not,” he said, gripping the curved metal rails of his balcony as he thought through a solution. In some ways, it had been so much easier to invent things when his future had been the only one at stake. “How about this? We need more staff to accommodate this new project and our existing orders. How about you start hiring, and in the meantime, I’ll ask who wants to work overtime on my special projects?” He hadn’t unleashed his next idea on them yet. He was still fussing with the drawings in his head.

  “There’s more?” Chase asked. He sounded downright appalled. “How much painting did you do in Dare Valley anyway?”

  “A lot, and I liked it. Chase, every unnatural surface is painted.” He saw it now, everywhere he looked. Paint was a common thread throughout all modern life. “There’s something here.”

  “You keep saying that!” Chase said, losing his usual cool. “Are you sure the fumes didn’t go to your head?”

  It was enough to make him think of the chemical composition of paint. There was something about the polymers. They were trying to tell him something. He’d been playing with the equations, trying to decipher the secret.

  “Chase. I want this to happen, so I’m telling you. Make it happen. I gave you a solution. If you don’t like it, find another one and run it by me.”

  “You don’t usually play hardball with me, Evan,” Chase said.

  �
��Do you call this hardball?” Evan asked. “If so, you need to take up poker.”

  “I don’t share your appetite for risk,” Chase said, “which is why I manage the company and you invent. You know that, Evan. It’s why you hired me. But I’ll see what I can do about implementing your solution.”

  “I’ll finance the employees’ overtime myself so it doesn’t cut into your budget,” Evan said. “As my way of not playing hardball with you.” His gut burned a bit. “I don’t like fighting with you, Chase.”

  “I don’t either,” his friend admitted. “Usually we’re on the same page.”

  But not this time. And damn if that didn’t make him feel alone. If not for Margie…

  “Chase,” he said quietly, feeling the geeky boy he’d been emerge through the ether. “Do you trust me?”

  The man blew out a breath. “Mostly. Evan, you know how much…oh hell…you know what I’m saying. I do trust you. It’s only that you haven’t been yourself these last couple of years.”

  Truer words were never spoken. “I know. But I’ve found a lost piece of myself. Only this time it’s better.”

  The long pause made Evan shuffle his feet. He could feel Chase gathering himself to say something unpleasant.

  “I know Margie Lancaster is in Paris, Evan,” Chase said. “And I know you care for her. If you’re falling for her… Don’t mistake love for creative inspiration.”

  Chase was wrong. What he felt for Margie had opened up his creative inspiration, but the two things were still separate, like hydrogen and oxygen. Both interacted to become water under the right circumstances, but they still retained their separate properties. And when added to other elements, each could become something else, something new.

  “You’re still jaded after your divorce, so I won’t try to explain this to you.” Chase’s wife had taken him for all he was worth in the divorce. His friend’s private wealth had suffered, but it was his spirit Evan was still worried about.