by Ella Brooke
“What?” Vanessa stepped away from the door and took off her coat.
“I was waiting for you, and she made me earn my keep,” James said. He set the coffee down for the smiling customers. “Can we get you anything else? Are the turnovers okay?”
“Just lovely,” the woman said. Her husband nodded.
James wiped his hands on the front of his apron and walked up to Vanessa, who was frowning in a way that indicated she was trying to figure something out. The incomprehensibility of James doing a service job.
“Did you hit your head?” she asked.
“No.” James reached over and grazed his fingers against her hand. She flushed slightly and averted her gaze. “If you want me to leave, I will. I just thought that I could get my morning obligations done here, and when you were available, we could spend time together.”
“I don’t have that much time free in between work,” she said.
“I know. Which is why having ready access would be helpful.”
“I could just call you, you know.”
“You could.” James squeezed her hand. “But you don’t always know when you’ll have those few moments when, what did you describe it as? A cone of chocolate needs to set? And you don’t have another obligation immediately. I want to be flexible for you.”
Vanessa twisted her lips and gave him a look. “In return for my future flexibility?”
“I’m not looking for a quid-pro-quo here. I just want time with you, and your time is precious.”
Vanessa looked to Anisa and Davis at the counter, and she pulled James with her into the back. “I wasn’t interested in the audience out there.”
“Probably wise.”
“Isn’t your time precious, too? You’re supposed to be here for a concert in a few weeks. And after that? Are you leaving?”
James hesitated. “Not immediately.”
“A few weeks, James…”
“Which is why every second counts.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t you think? I wouldn’t ask you to sacrifice too much from your work or from Jonah, so I have to be the one to be here.” He paused and closed his eyes. “For once.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. If we’re going to move forward, we just have to let that go. Maybe I don’t trust that you’ll be able to stay with me, but—” Vanessa ran her fingers through her hair nervously. “I can’t keep punishing you for what happened. I believe people show you who they are, if you’re willing to look. Or I wouldn’t have decided to try this again.”
“Aw. And here I thought I was just irresistible.”
“Maybe a bit of that too, my handsome, feckless prince.”
“Feckless?” James huffed in false indignation.
“Okay, so… go… clean something.” She waved him off. “I have to wash up and get to work.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Vanessa turned to do just that, but stopped mid-step. “Where’s Lorenzo?”
“In a car on the street. He’s watching the front of the shop from there.”
Vanessa laughed. “Tell him hi for me.”
James shook his head and went back out.
James Agosti’s new norm: rising early. Covering emails from the Senate and whatever face-to-face conversations he needed to have right away. Going to the shop. Bussing tables (although they only had four small ones) and running whatever errands Anisa asked of him, while waiting for Vanessa to finish her duties as the best baker in Brooklyn. It was growing familiar and comfortable very quickly.
He could even deal with the teasing from Anisa and their employees, whenever he and Vanessa flirted.
“I thought Vanessa was on track to join a monastery, to be perfectly honest,” Davis said one day.
“Women become nuns,” James told him.
Davis shrugged. “Nah, I mean, like, monks who are the master of their art and live off the minimum. She’d be the kind of person who has you holding buckets of heavy water for eight hours for the honor of studying under her.”
James nodded, accepting that assessment. In some ways, Vanessa had taken on a very ascetic life, just to keep everything that she wanted. She was in such a tenuous position, and reaching out for new things could cause everything to fall.
The best part of James’s day was lunch. She sometimes wouldn’t come out to see him for breaks, just needing a few minutes to sit and decompress, but lunch, she saved for him. And since he was running errands anyway, he made sure to bring her food she liked. That park bench became theirs.
The only problem was that he was, somewhat frequently, getting messages from home. None directly from Marcus, so far, and thus safe to ignore, but clearly the media had little to cover back home, because pictures of the prince waiting tables in Brooklyn amused them nearly to death. His mother and his cousin Arlon were not so amused.
Eventually, he would have to call them, but for the moment, he was enjoying his lunches and his foray into the working class.
They had been in this holding pattern for a little over a week when Vanessa took them from their bench to a space on the lawn. She’d brought a patchwork blanket for them and told Anisa they would be out for an hour or so. She’d made a basket for the two of them.
“You must be tired of fetching sandwiches for us by now,” Vanessa said as she opened the basket. It had blue and white checks on the inside, and straps holding a few plates and silverware to the underside of the lid.
“Not really. How do you get tired of something in a week? I’m not that feckless.”
She grinned and set out the Tupperware. There was a salad of fresh vegetables with some kind of smoky cheese, which she sprinkled what were probably homemade croutons on, and a berry and quinoa dish with spiced nuts. Then there were the cold Thai noodles with chicken, grilled perfectly.
“Good grief, you’re going to spoil me,” James said, picking up a fork.
“I love cooking. I don’t often get the chance to cook for someone with a sophisticated palate.” She swirled some noodles on her fork. “Small children aren’t super open to a full spice cabinet.”
“You don’t like eating spaghetti every night?”
“It does get old. I put some extra kick in mine sometimes.” Vanessa gave him a wink.
James shifted himself on the blanket and tasted the fruit. “Well, you know exactly how to add the spice in.”
“Shut up.” She looked away and chuckled. “Not much spice to be had.”
“I can wait.” James put his hand on her knee.
She sipped her drink slowly, meeting his eye. “Maybe I’ll come over sometime… and see what I can get cooking in your kitchen.”
“Vanessa, you can come over whenever you like. I have nothing if not an adventurous appetite.”
“This metaphor is getting weird.”
James laughed and moved closer to her. They leaned together as they ate. Somewhere in the back of his mind, James was worried about the pictures that might be taken of them. They didn’t appear in the print tabloids in the States because they only obsessed over the British royal family. Still, there was no shortage of internet news streams that loved to share videos.
For now, though, he allowed the two of them to be in the moment. These moments were few and fleeting, but each was so sweet and delicious, each needed to be savored.
Chapter Seven
Vanessa
Things were different dating James the second time around. He was as handsome as ever, as warm as ever. He still preferred such strange and refined things that had never been a part of Vanessa’s experience. However, he was more even-tempered now. More quietly intense. More himself, perhaps, than he’d ever been.
When they’d first dated, it had seemed James was in a race to show her all the elements of New York that were out of her reach socially. Maybe they were also out of her reach financially, but even if she’d squirreled away the money for a fabulous weekend, they’d eaten at places she would never have been able to get a reservation for, entered clubs that wou
ld never have had her, and seen art exhibits that were closed to the public. For a girl of twenty who had barely been out of the city before college, it had been a wild ride. Her time with James had been exciting and intoxicating.
Now, they were both so different. He was so patient, waiting for her to be available, keeping his plans flexible. Vanessa had a hard time imagining this James getting into a fist-fight; something she’d definitely witnessed him do in a club more than once. He was still trying to offer her things he thought she’d been denied, though. That helicopter ride had been breathtaking. She was lucky, frankly, that he’d insisted on taking her home afterwards. Between that and the Bellinis, Vanessa probably would’ve jumped him.
That Monday morning, as she went into the back to work (after sharing a kiss with James), she reflected on their second day-date. This time, he had taken her out on a yacht. He’d correctly guessed that the woman who had never been on a plane had never been out to sea before either. The only boat she’d ever been on was the ferry. As it turned out, being ten thousand feet off the ground didn’t bother her much at all, but the endless skyline of the ocean was enough to make her heart pound and her legs get shaky. James had wrapped his big arms around her, holding her steady as she closed her eyes, breathing deeply until she got used to the feeling of the boat moving. Then, she slowly opened her eyes again and focused on a point on the horizon until she felt comfortable taking a few steps.
In the end, she’d enjoyed it. But she was glad she’d only had some milk for breakfast that day.
Vanessa was wrist-deep in dough when Anisa came up to her with a phone, looking incredibly stressed.
“What?” Vanessa whispered.
Anisa held the phone to her chest. “Mr. Anderson is calling. He wants all these changes done.”
“What does he want changed? Decorations, or—”
“Practically everything. He wanted to change the vanilla cupcakes to vanilla caramel, and the chocolate to chocolate raspberry, and he wants a different decoration on them. Plus he wants them to be mini-cupcakes, and—”
“Christ. Um.”
Vanessa scraped the dough from her fingers and went to wash her hands and get a pen. Order changes weren’t usually accepted without 48 hours’ notice. Mr. Anderson was particularly self-important, as Vanessa remembered. He’d refused to let Anisa even take the original order and had demanded Vanessa come up front specifically to hear what he needed for his event. It wasn’t even that particularly complicated, despite some specific preferences in decoration. It was going to be complicated now, though.
“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” Vanessa said brightly.
The next twenty minutes of her life were eaten up explaining their policy on last minute changes again, trying to get him to compromise on his desired changes, and quoting and requoting what those changes would cost him.
“I don’t see why this would cost so much,” he complained. “I already gave you the deposit.”
“Yes, Mr. Anderson, but as I said before, we’ve already made your order. Any changes now mean that we lose profit on all the cupcakes we’ve already made and decorated specifically for your event.”
“Can’t you sell them in the store? You’re a bakery.”
“Yes, sir, but we have regular cupcakes for sale already. We cannot move 500 extra cupcakes without selling them to another shop wholesale. I’m happy to remake your order—” A lie. She was actually pretty pissed at him by now. “—but our policies are on the agreement that you signed, and I explained them to you verbally as well. If you agree to pay the extra cost, I’ll get to work on these changes. If you don’t, then we’ll deliver the cupcakes as arranged, and pick up the rest of your payment.”
Mr. Anderson continued to grumble and haggle, but eventually he agreed to a new arrangement, as Vanessa suspected he would. People arguing over cost didn’t usually react with indignation. There was a different level of emotion when the customer truly didn’t have the money, and they didn’t tend to put down $1850 for cupcakes without blinking.
“Um, okay,” Vanessa said, after getting off the phone. “Anisa, we’re gonna be pressed today.”
“Shit.” Anisa sighed heavily. “Okay. Um, I’ll see if Candace can come in, and I’ll start calling the local shops to see if we can resell those cupcakes at cost. Are we replacing all of them?”
“And then some. This is gonna be quite the soiree.” Vanessa took in a deep breath, trying to figure the logistics of getting this done today, along with everything else. They really needed a third oven, but they’d have to make do.
A few minutes later, James poked his head into the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”
“Not really. I have some last minute stuff today.” Vanessa sighed as she pushed the stiff dough she’d been working with into a bowl and covered it before putting it in the refrigerator. “I’m not going to be able to make lunch. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s okay. Anything I can do?”
Vanessa shrugged and looked around. “Um. I’m always doing this to you, but would you mind cleaning that counter? I need to get started on batter for a thousand mini-cupcakes. I’ll have help in a bit, but the faster we can get this started the better.”
James, already in his apron, took a rag and smiled widely.
“God, you love this,” Vanessa teased, as she began setting out ingredients beside the stand mixer.
“Cleaning? Maybe I do. It’s calming, sometimes, to make a space neat and orderly.”
“No, I mean, playing at the dutiful little worker. Did you ever have a job before? I mean, before you became the prince/diplomat?”
“Not as such. Sometimes my father would have me shadow certain committees in the Senate.”
“I’ve been working since I was old enough to hold a broom,” Vanessa muttered.
“In your mother’s salon,” James supplied.
“Good memory, but she didn’t own the salon. She just worked there.”
James finished cleaning the counter and leaned back against it as Vanessa started measuring ingredients. “Are you planning on raising Jonah that way?”
“Hm?” Vanessa frowned. “Well, no. If he’s hanging around here, maybe. But when he’s old enough to sit still in the shop unattended, he’d better be doing his homework first. I don’t think I’d have him get a job until he was old enough to start asking for money to go out.”
“So, you’d be against any kind of allowance.”
“Not against. I just can’t provide it. If I could, I’d start teaching him how to save money. As is, I just do it with a little chart with gold stars for good behavior in school.”
“Good to know.”
Vanessa eyed him suspiciously. What was he edging towards? Giving Jonah an allowance himself?
“He’s too young to have a savings account himself,” Vanessa pointed out.
“Maybe so, but someone could open an account for him. It wouldn’t hurt to have a safety net.”
“God knows that’s true.”
“You’re not comfortable with giving Jonah money?” James asked. “Poverty isn’t a virtue, Van.”
“Nor is it a vice. And we’re not in poverty.”
“Not my point. I just mean that if you needed help, I could easily provide it. You can ask for more than a clean counter.”
Vanessa turned on the stand mixer and stared at him.
“Don’t be angry.”
She turned the mixer off and checked the batter. “You already paid for my tuition.”
“I paid for one semester.”
“At a New York school. That’s not a small donation, Your Highness.”
James dragged a hand over his mouth. “Don’t do that. Don’t use my family as a knock against me. Any flaws I have are my own, not because of my status.”
Vanessa crossed her arms. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t want support from me because you still don’t think I’m going to be there for you in the future.”
“Maybe.”
>
“So that bit about putting the past in the past—”
“Doesn’t mean we don’t need to rebuild trust.”
James pursed his lips. “I’ll be out front if you need me.”
“Jamie…” Vanessa twisted her fingers, torn about what to do. “Look, I’m going to be pretty busy today, and I’m probably not going to get off in time to pick up Jonah. Could you do it? I’ll call the preschool to let them know you’re coming.”
James’s eyes lit up and his grin grew wide. “I absolutely can do that.”
“Call the absolute second you have Jonah, and come right back,” Vanessa instructed.
“I’m not going to take him to a strip club or anything.”
“Don’t get flustered. I’m the same way when Anisa goes to pick him up, and she’s known him nearly all of his life.” Vanessa wiped her hands on her apron before touching James’s forearm. “It really helps me out.”
James leaned in to kiss her lips, then lifted her hand to kiss her fingers. “As you wish, my lady of the bakery.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she teased softly.
Vanessa’s head and back were aching. After hours of work, there were a thousand cupcakes in the cooler, alongside the other orders that would be delivered or picked up tomorrow. They’d found a few local restaurants willing to buy some cupcakes, and Anisa had contacted one of their previous customers who had a semi-regular order for weekly meetings at their community center. At a discount, they almost covered the expense of the surplus.
When the door opened, Vanessa was sitting, finally, sipping some water and trying to decide whether she should try to eat part of her lunch now, or wait until James got back with Jonah. It wasn’t James, though, but Davis who said there was someone here to see her. Someone not James and also not wanting to make an order. That suggested he had some kind of complaint.
Vanessa groaned, before getting up and, with a large effort, putting on her customer service face. She could tell who Davis had been referring to immediately because there was a man sporting a gray, woven three-piece suit with a red tie and too much hair gel standing awkwardly in the way of customers waiting for their orders. He had that look about him, like he didn’t want to touch anything.
