When Chocolate Is Not Enough... Page 5

  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.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘YOU 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.

  Max Treveleyn, on the other hand, seemed totally impervious to the hot weather. He was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt promoting a long-defunct rock band and loose cotton work trousers which had dropped a couple of inches onto his taut round hips to expose the top of black boxers.

  There was a smudge of dirt down one side of his long straight nose, the sun-bleached hairs on his tanned arms were grubby with grease, he had not shaved, and his hair was set with trails of cobwebs. His body temperature might be set to normal for a man used to the Caribbean, but to Daisy he still looked hotter than a hot thing from hot land, with a big dollop of hot and gorgeous on the side.

  Which was more than a little annoying, considering how bedraggled she was feeling.

  ‘It’s a garage, Max. I was hoping for stainless steel and air-conditioning. And please tell me that you don’t actually make the chocolate here. Food standards? Hygiene? People are very picky about that sort of thing in this part of the world,’ she grumbled.

  ‘Ah—to you it is a simple garage,’ Max replied with a broad sweep of his right arm, totally unaware that he displayed a remarkable bicep at the same time. ‘But to me it is the manufacturing powerhouse of the entire Treveleyn cocoa empire. And you haven’t seen the best part. Come on inside. That is where the magic happens.’ He waggled his eyebrows up and down several times, then gestured with his head towards a solid metal door. ‘You wouldn’t want to miss that.’

  Stifling a groan, Daisy flashed Max an eye-roll, then stepped through as he held the door open for her. She stood to one side and took in the long, airy room.

  Much to her surprise, the space was cool, clean and tidy, and apart from a few cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling, and a very musty smell, quite serviceable.

  She had seen a lot of kitchens worse than this over the years.

  Max had converted the brick shell of a very basic garage into a chocolate workshop by covering up the interior brickwork with generous applications of white paint and installing one long kitchen worktop which ran the full length of the far side of the room below double glazed windows. A smooth cement flooring soaked up what heat penetrated the white false ceiling, which was bright with halogen lights.

  Sacks of cocoa beans and large plastic tubs were lined up on metal racking against one wall, and Daisy could make out a refrigerator at one side and various pieces of catering equipment covered in clear sheeting. But the centre of the room was dominated by a monster stainless steel mixing unit.

  ‘Isn’t she a beauty?’ Max asked, as he whisked away the covers like a magician demonstrating his latest conjuring trick. He stood with a hand on each hip, grinning at the mixer as though they were looking at some stunning example of Italian motor engineering. ‘Top of the range. I picked it up at a great price from a small Belgian company that had been bought out by one of the big firms.’ He rubbed the palms of his hands together in delight. ‘I can’t wait to see the old girl in action at long last.’

  At long last? Oh, no …

  ‘Please tell me that you have used this machine before?’ Daisy asked with a whimper.

  ‘Nope,’ Max replied. ‘I was waiting for the perfect occasion—and this is it.’

  Daisy stared at the shiny steel behemoth, then chuckled to herself and shrugged as a totally silly idea popped into her head. ‘I bet you have even considered giving your mixer a pet name.’ She glanced up at Max, who was still stroking the metal cover. There was a slight tension around his eyes that made her gasp. ‘Oh, no, please—not that. You have, haven’t you?’

  ‘Dolores is a perfectly respectable name for a lovely piece of engineering which is going to make our fortune.’

  ‘Dolores?’

  Max patted the mixing bowl. ‘Dolores, meet Daisy. This is her first time at the cottage, so I need you to be on your very best behaviour. Just for me. Okay?’

  Daisy closed her eyes for a second, and fought down a very unkind comment about boys and their toys. Because Dolores was not a toy. Far from it. Dolores was going to have to work first time or there simply wouldn’t be any chocolate. And if she did not have any chocolate to work with, then there would not be a contest.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Dolores. It’s good to have you on the team.’ Daisy smiled through half gritted teeth. This was what she had been reduced to—she was talking to inanimate objects.

  ‘Excellent,’ Max replied, rubbing the palms of his hands together again. ‘Team Treveleyn. I like the sound of that.’

  With an athletic spin on his heels, Max turned to Daisy and gestured towards the carefully labelled large white tubs on the worktop. ‘I have everything you need. I have my cocoa paste, I have cocoa butter, I have vanilla and organic sugar, and a whole range of gorgeous extras in the fridge in the corner over there. So just say the word and Dolores and I will spring into action. Your wish is my command.’

  He smiled at her with all the energy and enthusiasm of a teenager high on sugar and additives. His eyes were gleaming with an expression of such infectious excitement and happiness that she could feel his energy from across the other side of the mixing bowl.

  ‘We can’t wait to get started on my first commercial batch of Treveleyn Estate chocolate. All you have to do now is tell me what the recipe is, and my lovely Dolores here will show us what she can do.’

  Something close to a playful giggle threatened to bubble up inside Daisy, but she covered it with a quick cough. Because her brain had finally caught up with what Max had just told her.

  ‘Wait. I don’t understand. Did you just say that this was your first batch? You mean your first batch using Dolores or …?’

  When he didn’t reply, Daisy became aware that her mouth had half fallen open, but she simply couldn’t help it.

  ‘No. You can’t mean to say that this is the first batch of chocolate that you have ever made?’ she asked with horror.

  ‘Of course.’ Max shrugged. ‘Oh, I have seen it done dozens of times at other estates where they make their own couverture, but not me. I have been holding back for the right time and the right opportunity. Why else would I drag you all the way from London? This is going to be a first for both of us.’ He frowned. ‘Didn’t I mention that part?’

  Daisy closed her eyes and tried the deep breathing exercises her assertiveness training evening classes had suggested. They had never worked before, but it w
as worth a try.

  You see? This is what happens when you are swayed by a handsome face waving amazing cocoa under your nose.

  Duped.

  Sold down the river.

  Taken for granted by yet another hunkalicious fella who thinks you are going to be putty in his hands.

  Again.

  ‘Not to worry,’ Max said with a smile in his voice. ‘It will be fine. How about a cold drink before we get started? I think I must have eaten all the biscuits last night, but the village shop might still be open.’

  Nope. Still not working.

  She slowly creaked open her eyes to find that Max had slid over next to her and was bending over from the waist to peer at the contents of the refrigerator. His tight, delicious bottom was pushed back, so that his scratchy trousers were low on his hips, and the rough fabric brushed against her bare legs as he tugged two cans of fizzy orange drink from the bottom shelf. To her horror, a shiver of delicious pleasure quivered through her traitorous body.

  Oh, no—she was so not going to that place. Especially not now she knew that she had pinned her hopes on a dreamer with delusions of grandeur.

  Max was a charming, attractive, passionate man who produced wonderful cocoa. But he was a dreamer all the same.

  Normally she liked dreamers. She had to. She was one herself. But right now, at this moment, the futility of what she was trying to achieve hit her hard—then hit her again like the cold draught from the refrigerator as Max stood back to his full height. There was a time and a place for dreams—but this was not it.

  ‘Actually,’ she murmured through clenched teeth, ‘there are a few things that you forgot to tell me when you suggested that I drive down here for a … how did you describe it? Oh, yes. A planning meeting. Planning. Yes, that was the word you used.’