“Please do forgive her for how she reacted back at the airport.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not how she normally is. She’s been under a lot of pressure. We just finished up our exams and then she had this cake to make—”
“Cake?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“You see we’re both in pastry school in Paris, at l’école Marondi. Stella loves to make and decorate elaborate cakes and she landed her first professional order for one—for a wedding in Florence. We’re on our way back from there now—I went along to help with the cake.”
His eyes grew wide. “What a massive undertaking. I can’t imagine the number of hours it takes to create something like that.”
“Well, it’s what we’ve been training to do for months now. But Stella has quite a talent for wedding cakes—hers are far more beautiful than mine.”
“I’m sure yours are amazing as well.”
“Actually I’m more of a pastry girl, myself. If you’re looking for an incredible croquembouche, I’m your gal,” she said, referring to a tower of puff pastry balls stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree that are secured together with the finest strands of caramel. “I’ve got little interest in a future in wedding cakes. So much pressure.”
He shrugged. “I can see that—people get uptight when it comes to weddings.”
“Understatement of the year.”
“So this friend of yours—I get the impression once she passes judgment there’s no changing her mind.”
Alexa laughed. “Wow, did you peg her.” She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. Stella means well. But she can get a little hot-tempered. Couple that with lack of sleep and all those stress hormones coursing through her body and it’s a recipe for being a little bit pissy.”
“And how does one who might happen to be on the receiving end of that pissiness undo the damage?”
Alexa shrugged. “That is the million-dollar question. I’ve yet to figure it out. Maybe you can be the one to come up with the ultimate solution.” She rifled through her purse and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled something down. “Whatever you do, don’t tell her I gave you this.”
Domenico looked at the sheet of paper. It was a phone number. And next to it was the name “Stella” with this message: Good luck. And a smiley face.
He rolled his eyes. Good luck indeed. He had the feeling he was going to need all that and then some if he was ever going to make headway with this intriguing yet mercurial woman.
Chapter Four
Stella couldn’t believe her bad luck. How could Alexa have betrayed her like that, forcing her to walk right behind the man with whom she’d made a veritable fool of herself? Well, more a virtual fool. And in doing so, she could now hardly avoid breathing in how delicious he smelled. Sort of like a hike in the woods combined with a cozy fireplace on a cold winter’s day, maybe throw in a chocolate lava cake for good measure. Damn, this was not good.
The worst thing was she didn’t have tangible proof of what had transpired—it was all left behind in the black hole that was the airplane messaging system, curse them. So she couldn’t go back to reread her messages to a) see how much of an idiot she’d made of herself and b) figure out if he was actually flirting with her or if he was simply mocking her in response. Not that it necessarily made a difference. She was absolutely not going to talk to him. She would make a beeline to catch the train into town and be done with him. That is, after she retrieved the bag they forced her to check thanks to him.
After what seemed an interminably long time, during which she went to great pains to avoid bumping into the guy—what was his name again? Romeo something?—they made it to the door of the plane, thanked the pilot for not killing them, and exited through the doorway, where Stella looked around immediately for her gate-checked bag.
There were about fifteen other small suitcases there, several that were dark gray like hers, but not a one had a pink ribbon tied to the handle as hers did. She sorted through the pile of bags over and over again as passengers continued to disembark, some of whom were retrieving their last-minute checked bags, and she barely noticed that the dick with the big dick had gotten involved trying to suss things out, and of course Alexa had as well.
“I need my bag,” Stella said to the luggage guy who’d loaded the suitcases by the doorway. “I gave it to the gate agent in Milan. They told me it would be here.” This man had supposedly taken them right from the belly of the plane onto where she stood on the jet bridge, so where else could her bag be but here?
He shrugged and handed her a slip of paper. “If your bag is missing, you’ll need to fill this out and go to customer service.”
“But you don’t understand. I. Need. My. Bag. Surely it must be here somewhere. It has everything I need. Everything. My tips, my bags, all of my accessories.”
The baggage guy only frowned at her.
“Sorry, madame,” he said. “I cannot help you. Please.” He motioned with his hand to usher her away from the airplane and toward the terminal. “This way and follow the signs to customer service.”
It hadn’t taken much for Stella’s annoyance level to skyrocket. “Dammit,” she said. “I need that suitcase. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“It’s okay, Stel,” Alexa said, pressing her hands in front of her to motion for her to calm down. “We’ll figure it out. If nothing else I can share mine with you.”
“That’s impossible. You know what it’s like in class when we’re making something new. We have to have everything right there, mis en place, in front of us at our station.” She glared over at Domenico. “And thanks to that one, now I’m going to be totally hosed.”
He looked at Alexa and shrugged his shoulders in a “what can I do” gesture.
“Would it help if I said I’m sorry for whatever it is I did that I don’t know that I did and didn’t mean to do, even if I didn’t do it?” He sighed. “Better yet, is there some way I can help?”
She threw him the side-eye. “Thanks, but I think you’ve helped enough already.” She threw her purse and laptop bag over her shoulders. “Look, Lex, I have to deal with filing a lost baggage form. You might as well hop a train back. At least one of us can catch some shut-eye.”
Alexa knit her brow. “You sure?”
Stella nodded and shooed her away. “Go, get a start on your day. I’ll be fine. Maybe we can meet up tonight. I’ll message you.”
~*~
Domenico realized right then and there that this was not going to be the appropriate place to communicate with Stella. Instead he turned to Lexie for advice as she walked away.
“Look, I seriously am not sure what I did but I’d love to try to make things right. Can you let me know what she needs and I’ll be happy to replace it? It’s something I can easily afford and I’d be happy to try to cheer the poor woman up at this point.”
Lexie stuck out her lower lip. “Honestly, it’s not your circus, it’s not your monkeys. She can figure it out.”
“I understand that, but sometimes a kind gesture is all it takes to reverse a whole host of woes.” He lifted his eyebrows to plead with her. He knew his bedroom brown eyes could warm up the coldest of souls. Then again, they hadn’t done squat with Stella’s. But surely her friend would agree to help him help Stella.
Alexa reached into a pocket of her purse, pulling out her phone. “Give me your number,” she said, entering it into her phone as he read it aloud. After he finished reciting it, she used it to send him a text. “There. You’ve got my number, I’ve got yours. In case I forget, remind me to send you the list of supplies for our cake class—that’s everything she had in that suitcase, so this way she’ll be ready when classes resume. I’ll even tell you the store where you can purchase the supplies in Paris.”
“You’re awesome,” he said. “Now one last thing—speakeasies. Rumor has it there’s one in Saint Germain-des-Prés that you two frequent.”
Alexa grinned. “Prescription Cocktail Club. Rue Mazarine. Tell Mathéo
at the door that I’m expecting you. We should be there by 22:00. I’ll look for you.” She gave him a brief nod. “Oh and we both love their Le Mazarinette. In case you’re buying.”
He nodded. “I’ll take that under advisement. And, uh, any point sticking around here in the hopes that I can offer to share a ride into the city?”
Alexa shook her head. “Don’t press your luck. It’s going to take some doing to talk her off the ledge with you. Leave that to me.”
His mouth lifted into a half grin. “Thanks. I think.”
~*~
By the time Stella finished filing her claim and took the train back to her apartment, it was lunchtime. She was hoping to hit the pillows but instead she stopped at Paul, her favorite local boulangerie and patisserie and picked up a raclette lardons, an open-faced baguette with melted cheese and cubed, sautéed bits of bacon. She knew shouldn’t waste money buying lunch and could make something equally delicious for less, but today, she needed to take the path of least resistance.
“It’s about time,” Alexa said as Stella opened the apartment door. “I’ve been waiting for hours to figure out what bee has been buzzing up your behind all day long.”
Stella frowned. “You mean with that guy?”
Alexa nodded. “That wasn’t exactly in keeping with the nonconfrontational Stella Whitaker I’ve known. Yet all of a sudden you were jumping all over that dude.”
Stella held up her hands. “Ugh, was it that bad? I swear I didn’t mean to do that. I’m not exactly sure what came over me.” She dropped her bags and plopped down on the hot pink faux Victorian sofa they’d bought at a flea market for a steal. “It’s just that he started telling me what to do and it seemed so, so, so impertinent!”
Alexa raised an eyebrow. “Impertinent?” She started to laugh. “How very Victorian of you, to go with the matching sofa you’re sitting on, I suppose. I didn’t know people used that word anymore.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Stop. I mean it threw me off. It was like he was dictating what I should be doing and that pissed me off. I guess it gave me flashbacks to my childhood or something, with my stepsiblings bullying me around all the time and that evil stepmother of mine. That sort of thing makes me bristle.”
“I felt sort of sorry for the poor guy. He seemed baffled by whatever happened.”
“Oh, Lex, you don’t know the half of it.”
“I can’t imagine there was anything else other than what I witnessed.”
“So let’s say for a minute that I was stuck with annoying seat mates and I was in a sour mood and I was tired and cranky and then I discovered I could send you messages on the plane.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you not see they had some messaging system?”
Alexa shook her head. “Honestly my eyes closed before the plane even took off. I slept for most of the flight.”
Stella glared. “Don’t make me hate you.”
Lexie laughed. “I don’t think you want to add to your enemies list, darlin’.” She leaned in. “So tell me about this message thingy.”
“Ugh, Lex, I sent this awful message to you that was intended to be funny but was super smart-ass, but I accidentally didn’t send it to you. It was totally ragging about that guy. And the thing is, do you remember when we were standing at the gate? Did you happen to notice anything prominent about him?”
“Um, he was tall? Does that count?”
Stella shook her head. “It has to do with size, but not height.”
Alexa squinted. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, I wasn’t really looking there.”
“Yeah, but that’s because you’re dating Antoine so you don’t look that low anymore when you meet a guy.”
Her friend burst out laughing. “I don’t look that low? I mean, did I before?”
“Of course you did! Remember how we’d always laugh when we saw guys with tight pants on because you could immediately tell? And remember that one guy who had those loose pants but there was literally the worn-away outline in his crotch, sort of like how men’s wallets create a permanent outline in the back of their jeans?”
Alexa grabbed the sandwich from her to mooch a bite. “All right, all right. Guilty as charged. I do remember that guy in particular.”
“I mean what can I say? Sometimes you can’t help but look there. And when I did, I noticed he was packing. And then I composed this witty note to you on the Seat Chat messaging thing and I sent it to you and finally you replied—it took forever, by the way—only it wasn’t you who replied.”
“Who was it?”
Stella turned beet red.
“No!” Alexa swatted her friend on the back, her eyes wide in amazement. “You didn’t.”
Stella hung her head. “Yup.”
“So you wrote a message to me talking about the size of his package, only you sent it to him?”
“I mean, not only that.” She finally looked up. “I did it in sort of a derogatory manner. Well, also complimentary, I suppose. I mean men love when people notice they’re well hung, don’t they? So I guess maybe he was flattered? But then again I sort of referred to him as the ‘big dick with the big dick,’ or something like that, which I’d imagine he probably didn’t quite take as a compliment.”
“Omigod, Stella! What were you thinking?”
Stella rested her face in her hands. “I seriously was so not thinking. I mean it was meant for you! It’s something maybe you and I would joke about but you know I’d never say that to another human being!”
“What else did you say during your momentary lapse of sanity?”
Stella kept shaking her head. “The thing is, I don’t know everything I said. I had no way to save it, you know? It was on the damned screen on the plane! I remember I made a lot of well-hung jokes. Some might have included things to do with horses. And donkeys.” She hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Oh. My. God. I even invoked some stupid notion about calling him Domenic the Donkey because of his dong, and maybe I said something about doing it donkey style?”
“Donkey style? What the hell is that?” Alexa burst out laughing.
“I don’t think it’s a thing. Which is why I then started talking about horses having sex. I mean have you ever seen horses going at it? It’s horrifying. You truly can’t unsee it. After that, I may have speculated about zebra johnsons.”
“Stella, Stella, Stella. You’ve done yourself a huge favor this time around.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. Thank goodness I’ll never see the man again!”
Alexa squinted her eyes. “Uh, right.” She pursed her lips. “Yeah. Thank goodness you won’t ever see him again. That would be super awkward.” She dusted off her hands as if that matter was taken care of.
Stella stood up. “Well, I feel much better getting that off my chest. I’m going to finally sneak in that nap I’ve been craving. You up for Prescription tonight? I could use an expertly made cocktail.”
Alexa nodded. “Yes. Definitely. I think we’re both going to need a couple of drinks under our belts by then.”
Chapter Five
Domenico found a charming little Parisian bistro and dug into a plate of moules frites with a glass of bright, refreshing rosé from Provence. As much as he was Italian to the core, he loved the city of Paris, the food, and the people. Contrary to reputation, he did not find the French people the least bit off-putting and enjoyed conversing with Parisians he met along the way during his day. Besides, nothing like mussels and French fries to put him in a Parisian state of mind.
It was a lovely early summer evening, and he sat back and enjoyed a quartet of older men playing jazz on a nearby street corner as he ate his meal, mopping up every last drop of broth with pieces of baguette he tore right from the loaf. He remembered a French friend from university who told him the French referred to their daily bread as a tradition, not a baguette. He loved the funny quirks you discovered about different cultures once you got to know
the locals.
He’d had a few meetings finalizing his plans for how he’d spend his time in the city and now was looking forward to trying to figure out that vexing woman, Stella the cake baker, at the speakeasy. He decided he’d arrive early and get a bead on the place, so he wasn’t caught off-guard too late. He didn’t want to show up, only to find some man hitting on her, which would completely blow his chances. Although he wasn’t quite sure what his chances were. He was hoping her friend Alexa would throw him a lifeline if necessary.
After dinner, he enjoyed a cherry clafoutis—a sort of custard-like tart—for dessert. Man, did he love French desserts: worth the price of admission, and he savored every last bite. He then paid his bill, left a generous tip to the nearby musicians, and opted for a leisurely stroll along the Left Bank for the few blocks to Prescription. Twilight had begun to descend upon the city and the lights of Paris twinkled all around. It was such a magical city; it always felt ripe with the sense of possibility.
Domenico enjoyed people watching as he strolled along the Parisian streets—that and window watching. He encountered a shop that sold what looked like hand-hewn vestments for priests and royalty. Another window featured treasures from Katmandu. Interspersed along the way were stores with hipster French furniture and sexy French underwear. He stared at a subtly erotic bra, nothing fancy, just white lace but fairly sheer, one of those demi-cups that left you guessing, but only a little bit. He tried to picture the understated yet sexy bra on Stella but had to tamp down his imagination. He didn’t want to show up at the bar “on display,” since that would be awfully embarrassing under the circumstances. For the time being at least, he had to steer the conversation away from that.
He turned down Rue Mazarine and was glad he had the address on his Google Maps app because he arrived at a completely nondescript building on a street with a few restaurants and art galleries that were closed for the night. There was no visible sign of what he was looking for but for a couple of men standing outside nearby.
“May I help you?” A short, wide, black man with a fedora hat and a snazzy pair of spats nodded at him.
Blue-Blooded Romeo (The Royal Romeos #6) Page 3
