The Billionaire's Courtship

by Ava Miles

  She watched as he walked to the cooler with the “present” he’d just made and returned with another of the same type. “Tricky.”

  He laughed. “I always have croissant dough around. It’s no wonder my children adore me.”

  It was hard to imagine anyone not adoring Andre. He was joy itself, wrapped up in a big, muscular body.

  “Now, you take your rolling pin.” His was a white plastic one, not the wooden one she favored. “And you slap the dough like you’re being frisky with it. This lengthens the dough and the butter, which is now the same temperature. Remember how I said that was the key?”

  “Yes,” she said, wishing it was easier. “I’m just not sure that’s going to help me.”

  “Of course it will. I am teaching you, am I not? How do you say smart mule in English?” he asked.

  She thought about it for a minute. “I think you mean smart ass.”

  “Oh, I did,” he said, chortling. “Smart ass. Smart mule. It is all the same, no?”

  If she hadn’t been so nervous, she might have laughed with him.

  He slapped the dough strategically with his rolling pin, and it lengthened another few inches. “Now that you have removed the big bump in the road, so to speak, you use all the strength you have in your body to roll the dough out into the longest rectangle imaginable.” He handed her the plastic pin. “We get to see how strong you truly are, ma petite.”

  So, this was a test, was it? She pressed her lat muscles down and squeezed her shoulder blades together, the way Grandma Kemstead had showed her. And then she pushed as hard as she could to roll the cold dough. It was next to impossible at first.

  “Keep rolling. Put your body into it. Do not use just your arms.”

  Before long, she was sweating profusely. But he was right, the more she rolled, the more it gave. The process was slow.

  “The more you roll, the more the temperature changes,” Andre said. “It becomes easier as the butter and dough merge into one.”

  If he cracked another lovemaking joke, she might swat him with the rolling pin. Sex was the furthest thing from her mind right now.

  “You need the dough to be about a quarter inch thick, ma petite.”

  Which meant she had a long ways to go. So, she huffed and puffed and rolled.

  When she was finished—breathing hard, of course—Andre put his hand on her shoulder. “Now, that is how you make the layers, ma petite.”

  She was exhausted, but happy she’d finally transformed the dough to a rectangle of the right thickness.

  “Now, you wrap it up all over again.” He demonstrated. “Take the one side three-fourths of the way to the other, and then let the other side kiss its length like a lover. Now you fold the long end to the other edge. Voila. You have another present, but different.”

  Another wrapping? She groaned. “Again?”

  “Again,” he said with a pat on the back. “And here’s another secret. Press two fingers into the top of the dough so you’ll know which way is up once you finish chilling it again.”

  “You have to chill it again too?” she asked, rubbing the ache between her shoulder blades from all the rolling.

  Many of the recipes she’d looked up didn’t require all this work. But then again, most of the cookbook authors didn’t compete in croissant competitions like Andre did.

  After seeing what making them entailed, she was no longer sure she wanted to offer them at Hot Cross Buns. Cinnamon rolls would be enough for Dare Valley, wouldn’t they? And she could return the croissant roller she’d bought, couldn’t she? It was like a lawn mower, but bigger. She’d been naïve to think she could pull this off. She’d have to tell Brian since she was supposed to supply his restaurant. Okay, she was having a croissant freak-out here.

  “Maybe I’m not cut out to make croissants,” she said. “I don’t think I can make them like you do.”

  “You don’t make them like I do, ma petite,” he said, taking her shoulders in his hands. “How many times do I have to tell you? You make them like Margie.”

  After all the time she’d spent trying to get her cinnamon rolls to taste just like Grandma Kemstead’s, it felt good to have someone tell her that she should pour something of herself into each of the things she baked. “I think the jet lag and my general lack of sleep are talking,” she said. “I’m sorry for having a moment.”

  “Few masterpieces are made in a day, Margie,” Andre said, walking to the cooler again and swapping out the dough they’d just made with a chilled one. “And I had to practice too. We are all beginners when we try something new. Look inside yourself. You have courage. You are starting your own bakery.”

  “You’re right. I can do this. Thanks for helping me remember.” She straightened so she could prepare herself for the next round.

  He arranged the dough in a quarter turn away from his body. “See the two fingerprints on top like I taught you? When you have gathered your strength, you can begin again.”

  Gripping the rolling pin in her hands, she took a deep breath and faced the dough. The first run was difficult. “It feels like skating over bumpy ice.”

  “No, no, no. You’re trying too hard. Close your eyes,” Andre said, close to her ear. “Don’t fight it so much. Let your strength flow. You’re the water, and the dough is the sand. It smoothes out beneath your touch.”

  She went by feel, fighting the urge to open her eyes to see if the dough was uniform. But then it clicked, and she felt the incredible power of her force meeting the dough. Everything seemed to roll out before her. She knew she’d gotten it right before she even opened her eyes.

  Her mouth formed a grin, and she did a little jig.

  “Very good,” Andre said, patting her on the back. “We make more magic when we let go. Now, you fold it again. One end to the middle and the opposite side to the other end.”

  “Not another fold?” she asked. She’d thought they were done.

  “Ah, don’t complain, ma petite. When you master this, you can use the machine to roll it out.”

  She gave a longing look to the machine in the corner.

  He lifted his brows playfully. “I only allow my bakers to use technology when they have mastered the technique. It’s like letting a child use a calculator. You must still know how to add and subtract before you let something think for you. Besides, the bakers of old never had anything to make their lives easier. Goodness, even Marie Antoinette’s personal baker didn’t have a machine to make his life easier.”

  “He probably was getting paid better than we are,” she mumbled, watching as he took yet another “present” to the cooler and brought back a chilled one.

  “You do know the story of how croissants came to this country, right?” Andre asked.

  She touched the chilled dough he’d set on the counter and picked up the rolling pin, ready to tackle the next step. “I only know what you just said.”

  “So, you don’t know why they are shaped like a crescent?” he asked.

  Shaking her head, she started to roll out the dough.

  “Well, it’s not very politically correct, but when has Europe ever been?” He sighed. “The crescents are the symbols of Islam. In 1683, the Ottoman Turks had surrounded Vienna and were starving the town. One night, bakers—the only ones up in the middle of the night—heard strange sounds and discovered soldiers trying to tunnel under the walls so they could sack the city. They alerted the authorities and saved the town. To celebrate, they made pastries into crescent shapes.”

  She wondered if Evan knew that story. She’d have to tell him when she saw him again.

  “Now, close your eyes again,” Andre said, adjusting her rolling pin slightly. “You do better that way. We might need to get you a blindfold.”

  “Har-de-har-har,” she said, doing as he asked. He was right though. Everything did seem to roll out better when she wasn’t looking. Was this like that old adage about a watched pot never boiling?

  “Good,” he said.

  She ope
ned her eyes and beheld the long rectangle she’d rolled across the metal table.

  Andre took the pin from her and gave it a few more strokes, lengthening it by another several inches. He made it look so easy.

  “Now, we are ready to cut them into triangles.”

  He cut the edges of the dough so they were straight and then started slashing the dough with a knife, cutting perfect shapes she knew it would take her years to master. She’d seen some people on YouTube actually measure with a ruler.

  Andre stopped and handed her the knife. “Your turn, ma petite.”

  She was slower than he was, but when wasn’t she? Not all of her shapes were uniform, but at least they resembled triangles.

  “Good,” he declared, pulling one of the shapes toward him. “Now, you take the end and roll it over until it kisses the other side.”

  Like a snowball gathering mass, the croissant slowly appeared as he rolled it up. “Then you dab them with an egg wash, and you let Mother Nature take it the rest of the way.”

  “How long does it take to rise?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I let mine proof for three hours. We have to keep the dough up here so the butter does not separate from the bread from the heat of the ovens. When they’re ready, we bake them at one hundred and sixty degrees Celsius—not sure what that is in Fahrenheit—for twenty minutes.”

  Only twenty minutes to bake after all that work. “And what about chocolate croissants?” she asked. “They’re a different shape.”

  “Correct,” he said, nodding. He walked to the cooler and took out another “present” and rolled it out into another long triangle. After trimming the edges to make them straight, he cut the dough into short rectangles. “Now, all you do is add a chocolate baking stick. Behind you, ma petite.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and spotted a box on the shelf that said, “Cacao Barry, making chocolate since 1842.”

  “Take the stick,” he said, reaching into the box for one. “Lay it about a quarter inch from the top and then roll it up. Voila. Pain au chocolat. Now, you practice for a while. I must go kiss Belle. My lips are all parched from missing her. She tastes like cherries, you know?”

  Laughing, she grabbed the knife and started cutting the shapes for the chocolate croissants as precisely as she could. “I think that comes under the heading of too much information.”

  He made a very French noise. “Not in Paris.” Then he disappeared through the door to the bakery.

  As she made her cuts and rolled her croissants, she wondered what Evan thought she tasted like. Was it cinnamon rolls? Or baguette? She fell into a dreamy state as she worked with the dough.

  “You are far away, ma petite,” Andre said, startling her. “But the bread is satisfied. You have done well for the day. Put your croissants in the baking racks so they can finish rising. Fabian and Ronan will help you bake them when they are ready for the fire.”

  She smiled at her work. If the bread was satisfied, she was satisfied.

  “I will show you how to use the machine to roll out the croissant dough,” Andre said, pointing to the corner. “But not today. You might cry when you realize how easy technology makes things. And I think you have cried enough while you are in Paris.”

  She looked down at the spread of croissants to center herself. “Things are better,” she said. “With Evan.”

  “I am glad.” He tipped up her chin and studied her. “But I will not be the cause of more tears. When you bake your first croissants, you must take a few of them with you. And I think you might give one to the Lady. She will comfort you if you have need of her.”

  As he left the room again, she pressed her hand to her forehead, only then realizing it was dotted with butter and flour and dough.

  Was she in need of comfort? Maybe not now, but she knew she would be. She loved Evan so much already. How was she supposed to leave here without him? But their lives were in two different places. He loved Paris as much as she loved Dare Valley.

  They would make the most of their time together.

  She was lying to herself if she said that would be enough.

  ***

  Evan was trying to find out how he could share more about his inventions with Margie without breaching his security clearance. He’d contacted the head of legal at Quid-Atch to find out if there was any wiggle room. She wasn’t an employee, so he wasn’t sure how to make it happen. And a lengthy process of forms and background checks was involved. But that’s what they paid their legal department to figure out.

  Her openness to hearing about his new invention and seeing his lab had buoyed his faith in their connection. She hadn’t even freaked out about the paint samples marring the sitting room wall. She’d kept her cool. How might she react when she saw the invisibility cloak and some of his other inventions?

  Maybe he would have a work-around soon. Right now, he couldn’t wait to take her on the next outing in what he’d dubbed his Courtship Schedule.

  He was working in his lab when an alarm sounded. Glancing over at the pop-up screen in the corner of his computer, he saw Chase coming up the back stairs. A few years ago, Chase had insisted on having the codes to access Evan’s apartment in case he went all Mad Inventor. Now, he wondered if there was more to the request. Sighing, he closed down what he was doing and made his way to the entryway to greet him.

  Chase was letting himself into the apartment when Evan emerged from the hallway.

  “How did you get here so quickly?” he asked, crossing his arms. “Last I recall, the Concorde is no longer flying.”

  His friend closed the door and studied him seriously. “I was in Berlin meeting with our key partners. Something you’d know if you’d agree to keep a copy of my schedule.”

  They walked side by side into the sitting room, and Evan rather hoped Chase wouldn’t notice the wall behind them. Maybe he could coax him into the kitchen.

  “I don’t feel the need to micromanage you,” he said, giving Chase a look. “Apparently you feel differently. Can I make you some coffee?”

  “After hearing you want to divulge key company secrets to Margie? Make it a bourbon. A double.”

  He wasn’t surprised his friend knew. Most times, he asked Chase to implement the things he wanted. This time he hadn’t. Chase would understand why. “You’re being dramatic.”

  “You’re being stupid,” Chase said, following him to the antique bar caddy by the window.

  “Watch it,” he warned, splashing amber liquid into the glass. “I told you to mind how you talk about her.”

  Chase took the glass and downed it. “I’m not talking bad about her. I’m talking bad about you. What in the hell are you thinking, Evan?”

  He faced him down. “That I can trust her. I want her to know about the things that are important to me. Just like she tells me about the things that are important to her.”

  “Our work isn’t bread making, Evan. It’s national security!”

  “Dammit, I know that!”

  For a moment the only sound was Chase tapping his finger against the rim of his crystal glass; then he downed the remainder of the contents. “Has she told you she loves you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I told her I loved her too. She also knows who I am.”

  “And she’s still here, huh?” he asked, setting the glass down on the bar with a crack. “Well, well.”

  “You sound surprised.” Now, he needed a drink. He poured himself a single shot of bourbon and downed it.

  “I wasn’t sure how she’d take the news,” he said, “given her upbringing. Are you still sure she doesn’t want you for your money?”

  Evan had the urge to pour another shot of bourbon and throw it in Chase’s face. “I’m still driving the Fiat because I know my other cars would only make her uncomfortable.” But the way she’d acclimated to his apartment made him hope she was softening her stance.

  “I don’t know how to take that,” Chase said and then suddenly cursed. Fluently. In French. English. And G
erman. Evan looked over to see him shaking his head at the multi-colored wall.

  “Are you crazy? Splattering paint on your walls like this? Anyone could infer what you’re working on. Wait. Did you tell her about the invisible paint?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in my ability to make that happen,” he said dryly, turning his back on his friend. If he didn’t calm down, he would be at Chase’s throat, and they’d been friends way too long for that.

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you,” Chase said, mollifying him. “But we don’t need a loose end knowing about this new idea. If our competitors got wind of what you’re trying to do—”

  “They won’t, Chase,” Evan said, turning back around. “You need to trust me on this.”

  “Evan, I am staring at a wall in your sitting room, not in your lab. Don’t ask me to just let that go! I’m here to protect you from being too trusting. You don’t know women like I do.”

  “Margie is not your ex-wife,” Evan said in a hard tone. “Stop this.”

  “I can’t,” Chase said. “I can’t let you do this. We could lose everything if she so much as peeps. I don’t believe Margie would do that maliciously, but she doesn’t know what a big key she’s holding.”

  “She wouldn’t use it like that.”

  “Evan, I have never interfered in your personal life, but I have to draw the line here. If you tell her what you’ve invented at Quid-Atch without having her sign a non-disclosure or a pre-nup, I’m walking, Evan.”

  Chase might as well have slapped him in the face with a white glove like an old French dueler.

  “Don’t give me that kind of ultimatum, Chase,” he said, feeling sick.

  Chase’s eyes were hard. This was the man who played hardball in the boardroom. Evan had never faced off with him this way.

  “I’m asking you to put the wellbeing of the company before her, something you’ve never had a problem doing before. I’m reminding you of your responsibility as the owner—to me, to our stockholders, to the board, and to our employees. Being with her has hurt your judgment. You know not to take risks like this. Evan, you’ve agreed to observe the protocols for the highest security clearances we have, the ones our company has. You’re breaking your word here.”