A Taste of Passion

by Ashley Lister

  ‘Don’t make excuses for her,’ Donny growled. ‘He’s old enough to be her grandfather. I’ve done the maths. It’s utterly obscene.’ Turning back to Trudy he said, ‘Seriously, unless you were fucking the old bastard in exchange for a recipe, your behaviour equates to being pretty damned disgusting.’

  Trudy blinked.

  She tried to work out what he had just said but it didn’t make much sense. Had Donny suggested it would be acceptable for her to exchange sexual favours in return for knowledge that would benefit their business? But it would be wrong for her to find a mature man attractive? How was a prostitution-like exchange of goods more morally acceptable than the mutual passion she shared with William Hart?

  She tried to respond but words refused to come. Her mouth worked soundlessly.

  ‘This is coming from the man who had a three-way with Gemma and Daryl?’ Charlotte broke in. ‘Don’t pretend you’ve got your footing anywhere near the moral high ground, Donny. None of us are going to buy into that sort of bullshit.’

  Trudy’s eyes widened.

  Her jaw dropped.

  She’d had no idea that Donny and Gemma had been involved in a three-way with Daryl. She wasn’t wholly sure she understood what a three-way was, although she suspected it involved three consenting adults being naked and sexually excited. She frowned trying to work out where various parts would fit into such a scenario, and then decided she didn’t want to know. If the matter ever became truly pressing she suspected she could look it up on the Internet.

  ‘Back off, Charlotte,’ Donny warned.

  Trudy wondered if this revelation explained the animosity she’d seen creeping between Charlotte and Donny over the past few weeks. It certainly explained the number of times she had seen an inordinate amount of cups and glasses in the breakfast bar at Eldorado.

  ‘Gemma and Daryl come over for the occasional three-way,’ Donny agreed. He tried to brush the matter away as though it was of no importance. ‘We’re consenting adults. More importantly, we’re all of a similar age.’ He sneered at Charlotte and said, ‘And the only reason you’re jealous is because you weren’t invited.’

  Charlotte’s look of fury was cold.

  Donny seemed oblivious. ‘William Hart is so old I suspect he needed a stairlift to get his erection up. Is that right, Trudy? Or did you have to chemically enhance his erections with some of those blue tablets?’

  Charlotte slapped him hard across the face.

  The sound echoed loudly around the conference hall.

  If there had been any more weight behind the blow Trudy guessed it would have knocked him to the floor. She saw the blazing red handprint on his cheek and she turned away, stifling the threat of tears. If anyone had the right to slap Donny, she thought that would have been her privilege.

  ‘Well this has been a waste of time, hasn’t it?’ Charlotte hissed. She rubbed at her palm as though it was stinging. ‘We haven’t even started trading yet and already Donny’s trying to tear us apart with his mean-spirited nastiness and his bitter jealousy.’

  ‘Jealousy?’ Donny scoffed. ‘What the hell have I got to be jealous about?’ He scowled at Trudy and added pointedly, ‘I don’t even like the idea of fucking old men.’

  Charlotte raised her hand to strike him again but he raised a warning finger.

  ‘You landed one slap,’ he told her. ‘You won’t get to land another.’

  Charlotte lowered her hand. ‘You’re just jealous that Trudy fucked William Hart but she never fucked you.’

  Trudy wanted to moan in protest.

  She had no idea where these personal revelations were coming from but she didn’t want to be a part of them. She saw something flicker at the back of Donny’s eyes and knew Charlotte’s accusation had struck a chord of truth in him. His eyes were glassy and red at the rims. His expression was furtive.

  Donny fancied her? Had he kept that quiet or had she simply been oblivious to him since they first started studying together? She couldn’t answer any of the questions and she wasn’t sure she wanted to dwell on them. She only wanted this awful presentation to be over with so she could get home and forget every hateful thing that had been said.

  ‘Stop talking shit, Charlotte,’ Donny snapped. His cheek remained red from where her hand had struck. There was also the colour of a flustered blush rising up from beneath his collar. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t care who Gertrude fucks.’

  Trudy rolled her eyes and walked away from the pair. She didn’t think it was possible for this experience to get any worse. Even as that thought was tumbling through her shocked and reeling mind, she looked up to see that the door to the Admiralty Room had opened and three familiar figures stood there.

  None of them were smiling.

  ‘Hello children,’ said Charlotte’s father evenly.

  Donny and Charlotte turned to stare at him. Trudy was already studying the three of them in disbelief. Charlotte’s expression was instantly pinched with pain. Donny flashed a smile of self-deprecatory embarrassment.

  ‘The money’s here,’ Donny said with forced cheer. ‘Let’s all act professional.’

  Charlotte’s father did not seem impressed by the attempt at humour. ‘When you’ve all finished your high jinks and name calling, I’d like to introduce you to our consultant for this project of yours. This is the owner of a local Michelin-starred restaurant. His name is Mr William Hart.’

  Chapter 11

  Trudy wouldn’t let herself fret about what had been said. She didn’t want to know how much William Hart might have heard from their exchange. She had no desire to learn what Charlotte’s parents had gleaned. It was sufficiently mortifying that she and her friends had been caught in a childish argument with raised voices, name calling, petty accusations and face slapping. If she believed William Hart had heard the things Donny had been saying she knew she would have simply wanted to curl up in a corner of the Admiralty Room and beg for the walls of the Hadfield Hotel to fall in on her and bury her beneath the rubble of an embarrassment-induced earthquake.

  Instead, because she knew it was the only real option available to her, Trudy flexed a plastic smile of artificial cheeriness and asked if she could organise champagne for everyone.

  Charlotte stepped in and began to usher the three visitors to their seats whilst Donny composed himself and radiated his usual dynamic levels of charm and magnetism.

  Mr and Mrs Collins, Charlotte’s father Charles and her stepmother Rebecca, took a seat on either side of William Hart. For the first time since meeting Charlotte’s parents, Trudy realised Rebecca was at least a decade younger than her husband.

  Charles was a dapper man, dressed in an immaculate business suit but with a kind face that balanced the stand-offish austerity of his clothes. His eyes glittered with approachable charm. The smile beneath his salt-and-pepper moustache was easy and full.

  ‘Trudy, Trudy, Trudy,’ he grinned. He repeated her name in the same fashion each time they met and she liked the familiarity of the greeting. He took her small hand in his large one and shook it warmly. ‘It looks like they’ve got you doing all the work again.’

  She laughed politely and poured him a glass of champagne.

  ‘Charlotte and Donny are the ones who do the real work,’ she demurred. ‘I just bake – and that’s not working.’

  She turned to Rebecca, Charlotte’s stepmother. Now that she had noticed the age difference between the couple she wondered how she had managed to overlook the detail each time she had met them. Rebecca was clearly a decade or more younger than Charles. She wore designer labels that flattered her well-preserved figure. Rebecca’s good looks were spoilt only by the threat of a scowl that constantly wrinkled her nose.

  Her hair was styled into a youthful disarray.

  Her make-up looked as though it had been professionally applied.

  But her perfect smile was only ever flashed as an afterthought. She nodded a curt greeting to Trudy and then glanced meaningfully at
the two empty champagne glasses that remained on the table. ‘When you’re ready,’ Rebecca prompted.

  Obligingly, Trudy began to pour.

  She noticed that Rebecca was paying little heed to her husband and, instead, seemed to take great pleasure from touching Bill. As she spoke with the restaurateur, Rebecca repeatedly placed a protective hand on the cuff of Bill’s jacket. Whenever she spoke with him she leant in close, one hand touching his chest as her lips moved against his ear.

  Trudy tried not to acknowledge the spike of jealousy that threatened to intrude on her thoughts. Admittedly, Rebecca Collins had no right to be touching William Hart so intimately. But that was a detail that should worry Charles or Charlotte Collins, or William Hart himself. Trudy wanted to believe it was none of her business and she forced herself not to glare at the woman or jealously accuse her of being inappropriate.

  It took a superhuman effort of restraint.

  Bill eyed Trudy doubtfully as she served champagne. He pulled away from Rebecca and lowered his voice to a whisper.

  ‘What the chuff are you doing here?’

  ‘What am I doing here?’ she repeated. ‘What are you doing here? You didn’t tell me you were the consultant on this project. You said you were consultant on some sort of geriatric venture capitalism.’

  He pulled a face. ‘I didn’t know this was the project you were working on. I thought I was dealing with old people. I was told this was a business being set up by people called Charlotte, Donald and Gertrude. Those aren’t names that I associate with the recently graduated. I take it you’re Gertrude?’

  She set her teeth into a grimace when he used her full name. ‘You could have said that your meeting was here at the Hadfield Hotel,’ she told him.

  ‘I had no idea where it was,’ he responded hotly. ‘You could have said your full name was Gertrude. I might have put two and two together then.’

  ‘Do you two know each other?’

  There was a saccharin sweetness to Rebecca’s tone made bitter by an underlying edge of jealousy. She spoke to Bill in a lowered voice, lowered enough so her husband couldn’t hear but sufficiently loud so Trudy could make out each word.

  ‘No wonder you’ve not been returning my calls, Billy. Now I can see what’s been keeping you so busy.’

  Her hand on Bill’s cuff tightened.

  Trudy wanted to tell her that she should stop mauling Bill and remember that she had a husband who was sitting on the other side of the man. Prudence made her keep the thought unspoken.

  ‘Mr Hart lectured briefly during the final year on my degree,’ Trudy explained. ‘His input was insightful and helped better shape my understanding of food.’

  ‘How nice.’ Rebecca’s smile was bereft of humour. ‘You got a very good result on your degree in bun-making, didn’t you?’

  Trudy’s grip tightened around the bottle of champagne. Bill spoke quickly, before Trudy could respond.

  ‘I had an extensive meeting with Ms McLaughlin last night at Boui-Boui,’ he added. ‘She was kind enough to share some of her culinary expertise in my patisserie. I’m hoping to learn more from her soon.’

  Rebecca’s hand lingered possessively tight on his cuff. Her smile had stiffened to a sharp grimace. ‘I’m so pleased you both know each other. It saves time on introductions, doesn’t it?’

  Charlotte tapped Trudy on the shoulder.

  ‘I think Donny wants to begin. If you’ve finished serving champagne here?’

  ‘Donny,’ Bill murmured softly. His voice was a growl of thinly veiled disgust. ‘Not Donald. Of course.’

  Trudy was barely listening. She resisted the urge to tell Charlotte that Donny could go and boil his head after the mean things he had said before. Knowing that such an outburst would probably make the presentation look even more unprofessional than they had already managed, Trudy flashed a stiff smile, took her bottle of champagne to the hostess trolley at the rear of the room and settled back into the shadows so that Donny could take the floor.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Mr and Mrs Collins,’ Donny began. ‘Mr Hart.’ His voice was as silky smooth as a game show host. His smile beamed with a likeable falseness that was irresistible. He held himself with the assured confidence of a veteran salesman and, if he didn’t generate an air of trustworthiness it was fair to say that he exuded charm. ‘Before I begin I need to introduce myself and the Sweet Temptation team. My name is Donny Welles. With me are Charlotte Collins and Trudy McLaughlin. The three of us are all graduates in culinary arts and we’ve got an idea that we think is exciting, challenging and potentially very lucrative.’

  Charles Collins shifted forward in his seat. Rebecca remained fixed in hers. Her rigid posture suggested she was so far unmoved. Trudy suspected the woman was unhappy that Bill was not responding to her flirtatious touching. She guessed Rebecca’s lack of interest was merely a symptom of being rejected by William Hart rather than a legitimate disdain for Donny’s sales pitch.

  Donny snapped his fingers and gestured for Trudy and Charlotte to step in.

  It was a choreographed move with Charlotte placing branded doilies on the plates for their guests whilst Trudy served freshly boxed muffins.

  ‘What we’re proposing with Sweet Temptation,’ Donny explained, ‘is to deliver excellence in cakes around the world.’

  Hart raised an eyebrow. His lip curled slightly.

  Trudy could not recall seeing any man look so deliberately unimpressed.

  Her stomach folded and her spirits began to sink. She had an idea of how the day was going to develop but it didn’t promise to be a good one. She had argued to the point of acrimony with a dear friend and now it looked like their idea for a company was not going to impress the investor’s advisor.

  It took every effort not to sigh heavily.

  ‘Taste those cakes,’ Donny urged. ‘You’ll see that Trudy is a culinary genius of unparalleled ability.’

  Trudy blushed. She didn’t think she deserved such high praise. She watched as Charles Collins opened the box containing his muffin and sampled a small piece. He nodded enthusiastically. Rebecca Collins grudgingly sampled a piece and gave a reluctant smile.

  William Hart left his box unopened.

  His muffin was untouched.

  His steely gaze was fixed on Donny.

  His expression was dark and foreboding. Trudy thought his scowl was so severe he looked potentially murderous. Was Hart unhappy that Donny had called her a culinary genius of unparalleled ability? Did he think that Donny was saying she was better than him? Was he jealous?

  ‘Please, Mr Hart,’ Donny insisted. ‘You must try Trudy’s baking.’ He chuckled good-naturedly and added, ‘Or is it right that I hear you’ve already sampled her muffins?’

  Hart’s lips thinned. He sat forward in his chair. He leant his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. His eyes never left Donny’s. Looking at the hardness in his gaze Trudy would not have been surprised if Hart had stood up and punched Donny on the jaw.

  ‘How do you propose to get these pastries round the world, Donald?’

  ‘Sales would come from online orders,’ Donny explained genially. ‘I have options with a variety of couriers who can get our product around the world at maximum efficiency with minimum cost. Although my degree is based in culinary arts, my personal skills are focused on marketing and project management. I’m proud to say I’m the architect behind this company.’

  Bill nodded. ‘So, one of your colleagues does all the cooking. The other one does the web design and brings in the financial support. And you’re the architect?’ He pronounced the final word as though it meant something repulsive.

  Donny’s smile faltered.

  A sprinkling of sweat speckled his furrowed brow.

  He pressed a button on the control in his palm and the screen behind him changed. The Sweet Temptation logo disappeared to reveal the ordering page of the Sweet Temptation website. This was the area where Charlotte had invested most of her time. The page showe
d a mouth-watering array of high-definition images, each displaying a picture of a glossy and desirable pastry. Buttons for purchasing, along with delivery options, were highlighted on the screen. Beneath the company name was the strapline: the ultimate in satisfaction.

  ‘We can have a Sweet Temptation product arriving anywhere on the planet within forty-eight hours of receiving an order,’ Donny explained.

  ‘Charlotte is more than our web design specialist. She’s also a genius in art and design and has come up with the concept of these functional yet attractive cake boxes.’

  He pressed a button and another screen appeared. It showed the sturdy constructions Charlotte had designed. They were plastic and airtight but robust and designed in the Sweet Temptation colours of velvet-black backgrounds with sultry scarlet lettering. Even though she had seen them dozens of times before, and had helped her friends finalise some of the design details, Trudy still thought they looked exciting on the huge screen in front of the potential investors.

  ‘I intend to bring in marketing colleagues to help develop our advertising campaign,’ Donny went on. ‘If it’s as successful as we hope it should push us firmly into the public eye. Hopefully, if I can exploit a couple of my media contacts, there’s a strong chance we can go viral and hit global sales figures early on.’

  ‘This all sounds very good,’ Charles said enthusiastically.

  ‘The bun is tasty,’ Rebecca admitted.

  Bill said nothing. His fingers remained steepled. He continued to glower at Donny with an expression of thinly concealed loathing.

  ‘We’re hoping to open industrial kitchens near here and this is where your investment money would be needed.’ Donny clicked his remote again and the screen changed. An image of a prestigious industrial kitchen appeared on the screen. A further click showed that the kitchen was housed in a large building near the marketplace.

  ‘The cost to secure and operate this kitchen is outside our current budget. However, if we were to start our venture in these local premises, we could be operational within a month and trading within two.’