When Chocolate Is Not Enough... Page 13

  Daisy pressed the side of her cheek against Max’s face and took hold of his arms, locking his body against hers. ‘Both. But most of all I was angry that I had allowed myself to be used by a professional con man like Pascal Barone. He never loved me. He saw that I was a shy, quiet girl who was in Paris for the first time on her own, and that I was talented enough to create something he could use for his own benefit. He used me to get what he wanted. Then dumped me when he had everything he needed to go out on his own.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit harsh? Don’t hit me. But you could have laughed in his face and tied him up with lawyers at the first mention of a partnership.’

  ‘Have you never been in love, Max? Have you never trusted someone so much that you would give your life for them in a heartbeat? Can you understand that? Understand what it is like to be so infatuated that you see only the good and the best in the other person? So in love that you could never even imagine a time when your lover would let you down or not want to be with you? Have you?’

  Max froze as the impact of each word of Daisy’s question washed over him, penetrating his heart and his mind with such ferocity that he had to pause for a second to pull himself together before answering.

  Oh, he knew what that felt like. He knew only too well.

  He had been totally blown away from the moment he’d seen Kate walking up the long curved road that led to the plantation house on that hot, sultry January afternoon all those years ago.

  She’d been wearing a simple white sun top, and tiny shorts which had displayed her stunning long model-perfect legs in all their glory. She might as well have been an alien creature, dropped into his life from outer space.

  And he had been totally dazzled.

  So dazzled that the thought of what their lives were going to be like going forward had never even crossed his mind. Of course she would have to adjust to life in a hot climate, in a rambling old family house with little in the way of luxury and modern conveniences.

  They’d loved each other and that was all that mattered—they would find a way to make it work. Kate had loved the beach and her life in the sun.

  The fact that he had only known her for a few weeks hadn’t been important. They had a lifetime to get to know one other. Why wait to start their married life together? They had nothing to worry about, did they?

  Max lifted his chin and tried to keep the sadness from his voice when he replied. This was Daisy’s story. She needed his support right now—not to hear about the mistakes he had made in his need to bring love into his life.

  ‘Yes. I know exactly what you are talking about. I was married for three years before I started to realise the difference between infatuation with a dazzling human being and real love, and what that means when you are struggling to hold your marriage together. Good and bad.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Kate walked into my life in January and we were married in the June. The weeks in between were like a total whirlwind, with no time to think about the small print. When Kate met me she thought that life on an island in the Caribbean was going to be like one long extended beach holiday. Three years later she was a young mother, with a husband who was working every hour of the day on the estate just to pay the bills. That is a lot for someone so young to handle.’

  Daisy half turned in the circle of his arms and looked up at him with such wide-eyed pain and sadness that his heart melted.

  ‘Then you understand. But I thought …’ She faltered, and seemed to swallow hard before pressing her forehead against his chest so that he could not see her tears.

  ‘You thought?’ he encouraged, and moved his hands higher up her back.

  ‘I thought that I was going to spend the rest of my life with Pascal—working with him side by side to create a chain of remarkable artisan chocolate shops. Of course I trusted him. I adored him. And he used me. He broke my heart. And I will never forgive him for that.’ She gave Max a wavering smile. ‘I thought that I was the only one who had made a fool of myself when it came to love. Looks like I was wrong about that.’

  She blinked away tears of anger and pain.

  ‘But do you know the worst part? Just seeing Pascal again brings back all my old feelings of not being good enough. It’s infuriating that he can still suck away my self-confidence like that.’

  ‘Then don’t let him get away with it. You have just as much right to be here as anyone else. More. You have learnt your craft the hard way. The way I see it, your apprenticeship is well and truly over, Miss Flynn. It is your time to take your place with the master chocolatiers. And don’t you dare forget that. Especially when it comes to one Pascal Barone,’ Max replied, with a fierce smile that made her heart sing. ‘You know you can work your magic with this contest. Team Barone won’t stand a chance against the mighty power of Team Treveleyn.’

  ‘I don’t know, Max. Pascal wasn’t joking about the work involved in this competition. He will have the best team in Paris cooking up a storm tomorrow. I really am sorry. You have worked so hard, and now I have screwed this up for you. But you still have the conference. The people here will still want to buy your cocoa. Maybe you should focus on that side and leave me to salvage what I can?’

  Max startled her by standing up and drawing her to him. ‘We’re in this together.’

  Daisy scanned his face, which was creased with concern and regret, and could not bring herself to disappoint him. But he deserved to hear the truth about how she felt.

  She reached up and smoothed the lapels of his jacket, and as he looked down at her in astonishment she looked up into his eyes, pulled him closer towards her and, in a very clear voice, said, ‘Pascal knows me. He knows how I work, he knows my recipes, and he knows the kind of desserts I do well. He’ll have done something similar to try and cut me out. This party is over for me, Max. I only have a few hours to come up with replacement desserts. And I don’t know if I can do it.’

  With that she patted him on the lapels, took a long swig from her champagne glass and walked with as much dignity as she could out across the patio towards the entrance to the kitchens.

  Only with her small high-heeled steps and his long-legged bounds it only took a moment for Max to catch up with her and stand, hands on hips, blocking her way forward.

  ‘Not running out on me are you, Flynn?’ Max asked in a strong accent which matched the pitch of his jaw. Then his voice softened and he stepped forward and took both her hands in his. ‘I have news for you. Team Treveleyn is still very much alive and well. I got us into this mess and it’s my job to do what I can to get us out. Just tell me what you need me to do.’

  Daisy tried to focus on his face, but her eyes were too full of tears. Through a burning throat she forced out a hoarse reply. ‘You have to talk to your customers. The estate needs you to sell what you grow. I’ll be okay.’

  Max slid towards her, and before she knew it she was trapped inside his arms, his hands pressed against the thin fabric of her dress. Her head fell forward, so that when he spoke, the sounds of his words reverberated inside his chest and through the bones of her head.

  ‘You are more important to me than the cocoa beans.’

  Hardly believing that he had just said that, Daisy lifted her head and saw his earnest face. And she knew that he meant it.

  He stroked her cheek with the most gentle and featherlight stroke, but his blue eyes were focused tight onto hers, bright with smiling energy and excitement. ‘All that was in the past, Daisy Flynn. You’ve come a long way since then. A very long way. I believe in you and your ability. You won’t let yourself or me down. You can do this. I know that you can.’

  Daisy opened her mouth to call him on that promise—but what she saw in his face at that moment made her question seem petty and insulting. What she saw in those eyes and that expression told her more powerfully than words or a written contract that he meant what he said.

  ‘Time to let the battle commence. Are you ready? Good. Let’s go back, then—and we are so n
ot going through the kitchens, Barone or no Barone. Let’s do this, Daisy. Let’s show them that Team Treveleyn is not so easily thwarted.’

  Max shuffled inch by inch across the bedroom carpet in his stockinged feet so as not to wake Daisy. She had fallen asleep, exhausted, in the crook of his arm well past midnight, after many long hours working through every possible gourmet chocolate dessert which could beat the chocolate mousse cake combination which she was convinced Pascal would expect her to make. And so far she’d failed to come up with anything she was happy with.

  He sat down slowly on the bottom corner of the bed and watched her as she slept. She was lying on top of the soft bedcover on her side, dressed in an old T-shirt and men’s pyjama bottoms which stretched seductively over her lithe body, revealing curves he should probably not be ogling.

  But it was no use. He wanted to see her breasts lift and fall under the thin fabric covering her chest. He wanted to run his hands over the long line of her back as it curved away from him. He wanted it so badly he could almost imagine what it would feel like to touch her warm skin from neck to toes with his fingers.

  Heat bubbled up, tingling in his hands and neck. His throat was dry, his palms sweaty.

  Daisy Flynn was a lovely woman who had seen a lot in her short life. She deserved to be treasured and loved and cared for by someone worthy of her.

  And, if there was a queue, he wanted to be the first in the line.

  Was he even capable of giving her the love she needed?

  Just the thought of loving someone again was hard to get his head around, and yet here he was. Looking at a stunningly lovely woman he had only met a few days earlier—and yet somehow he felt as though he had known her always. She had waltzed into his life and made a place for herself in his heart which had been vacant for a long time.

  Like it or not, he was falling in love with her.

  He had never expected to feel this way again. Hoped, maybe—but had never expected it to happen. But where did that leave him? Leave them? Because, unless he had got it hopelessly wrong, she felt the same way about him. And just the thought that she might care about him made his heart sing.

  What could he offer Daisy?

  How many times had she told him that her dream was to open her own chocolate shop in the city? That was never going to happen if they got together.

  He had sacrificed everything to make the Treveleyn Estate a success, and telling her how he felt now would be the best way to set them both up for years of hard work with little to show for it and a lifetime of regret and broken dreams.

  Daisy stirred gently in her sleep and sighed gently as Max looked into her calm, unlined and relaxed face.

  Twenty-four hours from now they would be heading back to London and their separate lives. He had Freya’s birthday party and Daisy had a full workload with her friend Tara.

  And then he had to fly home. Back to St Lucia. Alone.

  Without Freya. Without Daisy.

  Max shuffled around the woman he loved and bent down to press the gentlest of kisses on top of her mussed-up hair so that she did not even stir.

  His fingers longed to ripple through that hair just as much as his body willed him to slide next to her on the bed and hold her in his arms.

  But he couldn’t be so selfish. The weight of his past and what she had come to mean to him were too heavy to ignore.

  It was time to let Daisy Flynn become the girl who got away. Even if it meant keeping his true feelings locked inside for the short time that they would be together.

  He had to let her go. So that she could fly high on her own wings without feeling trapped on an island without the chance to realise her dreams.

  So he slowly slid away, his eyes never leaving her face, until he reached the bedroom door and was forced to return to his own room, where he knew that sleep would be impossible.

  Because the truth was too hard to take.

  He had broken his promise to Daisy. He had let her down.

  He pressed the palm of his hand flat against the bedroom door, reluctant to break the connection. Right next to a poster for the hotel chain’s newest hotel. Set in an old tea plantation in the tropical highlands of Sri Lanka.

  Strange how the colonial style plantation house looked so much like his own house on St Lucia. They had probably been built around the same time.

  According to the poster, the hotel group were looking for other innovative virgin eco sites, and were offering eco-tourism, employment, and guaranteed investment in the local community.

  Max tapped two fingers against the poster.

  Maybe he should follow Daisy’s example and take a completely fresh look at how to solve his problems?

  Time to crack open his laptop. He had some research to do, and he had to do it fast.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MAX pulled up his chair at the breakfast table in Daisy’s bedroom and poured himself a glass of cool, freshly pressed orange and mango juice.

  ‘Oh, I needed that.’

  He smiled across the table at Daisy, who was huddled on her chair, both hands clutched around a large beaker of very strong-smelling coffee. She looked exhausted, and had jumped at his suggestion that they take advantage of the room service option rather than face the other contestants over a sumptuous breakfast buffet in the main dining room.

  ‘Have you eaten yet?’ he asked, and started cutting into his organic bacon, mushrooms, sausage, poached eggs and fried bread. ‘You really should. You need strength, energy—whatever.’

  ‘Do you have hollow legs?’ she moaned as he speared a mushroom and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘Who? Me? Just a healthy appetite,’ he replied, waving his fork around. ‘And you forget that a traditional full English breakfast is hard to find in the Caribbean, unless I make it myself. English bacon and sausage are in very short supply in that part of the world.’ He paused, his reloaded fork halfway to his mouth. ‘I tried to cook eggs once. I think my housekeeper threw the frying pan away rather than try to clean it. Not a success. How about you? Have you had enough to eat?’

  ‘I’m good. Lots of carbohydrates. Juice. Now all I need is another gallon of coffee and I might stay awake long enough to cook this morning.’

  Max put down his fork long enough to spread a generous slice of butter on his toast. ‘There have to be some advantages to being in the fifth round. For one, you can watch the first four pairs of contestants and find out how they work—or don’t work—before you start yourself.’

  She shook her head. ‘Too late for that. I handed the conference office my full menu and recipes as soon as it opened at eight this morning. So, unless I have some kind of disaster, I am locked into those three dishes. Only small tweaks are allowed now. That’s it,’ she said fatalistically, and took another long sip of coffee. ‘I am doomed. All that work in the run-up to this competition and I’ve wiped it out in one huge risky decision. I should probably apologise now and get it over with.’

  Max wiped ketchup from his upper lip before sitting back in his chair. Daisy bent over from the waist and banged her forehead twice on the tablecloth before closing her eyes. Her fingers were still clutched around the coffee mug, and Max slowly untangled them one by one.

  ‘Come on,’ he said with a smile, as he stood up and walked around the small bedroom table. Before Daisy could complain, he slid one arm under her legs, the other around her waist and lifted her into his arms so fast that pure instinct made her fling her arms around his neck.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Taking you over to the bed, of course. You need to lie down somewhere comfy while you tell me all about the new dessert you are going to make. Because last time we talked there wasn’t much progress on that front.’

  He lowered her onto the bedcover, flicked the quilt over her bare feet, and went back to pour himself a coffee before perching on the end of bed and staring at her over the rim of his cup.

  ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. What have you come up with? I presume it con
tains some form of chocolate?’ he teased.

  Daisy pushed back against the solid wood bedhead and pulled a pillow onto her chest. ‘Oh, Max. The more I think about it, the more I think I might have made a horrible mistake. It’s just too risky for a contest where so much is riding on the results. I am an idiot. I should have chosen something more conventional.’

  Max shook his head from side to side. ‘We went through all this at some ridiculously early hour this morning. That’s precisely what Pascal and the rest of the competition will be expecting you to do. So—what strange and magical culinary delight have you come up with?’

  She exhaled slowly. ‘When my dad came to visit me in Paris, Chef Barone spent hours with us almost every evening, eating, drinking and talking—lots of talking. Sharing our love of confectionery and chocolate. On our last evening we cooked a meal together—just the three us. And my dad made this dessert. It only took twenty minutes to bake—but wow! I mean wow. Even Chef Barone asked him for the recipe, but he said that it was going to be one of the last things he would ever make after a lifetime of experimenting. He called it a Fleur Delice and it was his legacy to me.’

  A single tear slipped from the corner of Daisy’s eye and Max passed her a box of tissues from the bedside cabinet. But she had already used the pillowcase.

  ‘Then it must be something very special,’ Max replied in a low voice. ‘Because if it’s good enough for your dad it’s good enough for this contest.’

  She glanced up at him, then her fingers started making shapes in the quilt by crunching it into tight rolls of fabric.

  ‘That’s why I may have made a mistake,’ she whispered. ‘You see, I’ve actually only made it once before. It was my dad’s birthday, and he was having a lot of problems. We both knew that he had already lived a lot longer than the doctors had expected. This was going to be his last birthday.’

  Without saying a word, Max walked slowly around to the other side of the bed, slipped off his shoes and sat on the bed next to Daisy, his back against the bedhead so that his left side was touching her right.