Lucie turned up the corners of her lips, but her smile didn’t register as far as her eyes as she continued absently with the preparation of a Sicilian cassata. As she chopped, whisked and sifted, her mind drifted, inevitably, back to Alex. She fervently wished she could join in with the burbling roulade of kitchen gossip that always preceded a busy evening, but all she felt was numbness creeping from her stomach to her chest and clouding her mind of any pleasure.
Was Francesca right? Should she take the night off after she’d finished preparing her desserts?
But the subject uppermost in her mind was where Alex was at that precise moment. It was just after five o’clock. She knew he would be making his way to the local bar with Greg to perform verbal surgery on the tactical brilliance of his beloved Chelsea. But where would he be spending the rest of the evening when his friends left to take their partners out to dinner? And more to the point, who with? The thought of him dating so soon after their break-up hit her in the chest like a whip of fire. Had he even been seeing someone else when she’d proposed? Was that the reason behind his refusal?
Yes, that had to be the answer – someone else was involved! Why hadn’t she thought of that? Who was it? Probably someone he worked with in that soaring glass shard of a law firm; some corporate lawyer, perhaps, with whom he could discuss the finer details of the government’s current taxation policy over a late-night infusion of caffeine at his desk? Yes, she could picture it now; they hadn’t realised the time, they were exhausted from the mentally challenging work, so they retired to a local wine bar for a nightcap before they…
A blade of renewed pain scythed through Lucie’s brain and her temples throbbed as though they were being squeezed of their last drop of energy in a wine press. A headache threatened – yet another consequence of the agony caused by Alex’s shock refusal of her proposal. The whisk she was using to whip up one of her signature zabagliones clattered from her hand to the floor as she struggled to rein in her emotions.
‘You okay over there, Lucie?’ enquired Gino, his eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Don’t take any notice of Francesca. She has the heart of an ice queen. Ever since Antonio mentioned the dreaded blogger her preoccupation with perfection has spiralled out of control. We don’t even know for sure that he’ll be here tonight.’
‘I’m okay, thanks, Gino.’ And Lucie returned to her internal meanderings.
As always, it was her friends’ overt expressions of sympathy and kindness that tended to set her off. A week ago, Steph and Hollie had welcomed her and her suitcases into their home with love, understanding and the administration of that trio of female solace – wine, chocolate and a good gossip. Yet her brain was still as befuddled with circulating confusion as it had been that dreadful night, and her aching heart was a ghost town without even the tumbleweed to break the monotony of loneliness. Alex’s casual rejection in the space of a moment had been so unexpected she couldn’t quite believe it had happened. She still expected him to call her to arrange a Saturday brunch date, or walk through the restaurant door to declare that it had all been a ruse – that he’d planned to propose to her himself and of course he wanted to marry her.
Before her life had exploded in her face, she hadn’t ever thought things couldn’t get any better. As well as what she’d thought of as her steady love life with the man of her dreams, her ambitions in the career arena were progressing in accordance with the carefully crafted plan she’d made after graduating in the top five of her class at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris. She allowed her thoughts to swing briefly to those heady days in the City of Light when her brain had been crammed to bursting with all-things-patisserie and she had slaved over a hot stove from the moment she arrived in that celebrated kitchen until she couldn’t hold her eyes open a second longer. She had loved carrying out culinary autopsies on recipes then twisting the results to improve on taste, texture and presentation.
However, she knew she still had a lot to learn in the arena of gastronomic archaeology, and one of her particular interests was Mediterranean desserts. She loved working with Gino on his signature biscotti and experimenting with a wide variety of fillings for their cannoli. She also enjoyed being part of the renaissance of the trattoria in Hammersmith. Gino continually assured her she was an integral cog in their food-creating machine. Her colleagues – Gino, Antonio and Sofia – were like an extended family and Francesca’s was rapidly becoming one of the best Italian eateries in the area as evidenced by the long waiting list for weekend reservations.
With supreme difficulty, she dragged her concentration back to the green figs she was struggling to peel and reluctantly admitted that maybe Francesca had a point. Perhaps she should take a break from work until she could banish the raw edges of her heartache.
What if Antonio’s sources were right and the food critic had chosen to dine incognito at Francesca’s that night? What if she made a mistake? Tears breached her lashes again. Who knew that one person could cry so many tears and still have some left in reserve?
She checked her watch. It was too late to scarper for home now anyway, as the Friday night diners had already started to arrive. But then the tiny part of her reasonable brain still functioning reminded her that Gino was an amazing chef, Antonio was a talented sous chef and Francesca’s Trattoria was the best Italian restaurant in the whole of Hammersmith. A bad review, even from such an alleged gastronomic genius as the guy behind the famous Anon. Appetit, was impossible.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ asked Antonio.
‘I’m fine!’ She forced a false smile to her lips.
‘Well, in that case, perhaps you could try using those delicious toasted pecans instead of ciabatta croutons on your ricotta torte?’ giggled Sofia, as she returned the offending dessert plate that had been rejected by a disgruntled diner, a wide smile displaying her perfect teeth. ‘Ditzy is adorable, just not tonight, eh? What if this delectable dessert had been destined for our famous anonymous blogger Fran is so obsessed with at the moment?’
‘Oh, God, Sofia, I’m so sorry.’
Lucie’s sense of humour temporarily deserted her as she slammed the discarded dessert, along with the plate, into the waste bin and shot off to refrost Francesca’s most popular sweet. She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead and swallowed as panic soared through her veins, sparkling out to her fingertips like ribbons of electricity.
‘Don’t tell Fran, please. I’ve already had to bake a new batch of zeppola after my first attempt turned out more like overblown popcorn.’
‘My lips are sealed, mia pulce,’ Sofia assured her, as she wafted out of the kitchen before reappearing immediately.
‘One tiramisu and a slice of your spectacular mango cheesecake, please,’ called Sofia, her voice bursting through Lucie’s reverie as she jammed the dessert order onto the nail in front of her and disappeared again.
‘Okay,’ she mumbled, barely registering the request.
She reached for the dessert glasses and assembled the ingredients on autopilot as her thoughts continued to spiral down into a helix of despair. Had her late nights at the restaurant and her desire to squeeze every ounce of knowledge she could from Gino before moving on to start her own business driven Alex into the arms of another woman?
Oh, God! It was all her fault!
She grabbed the canister of cocoa powder from a shelf of spices that she’d set out with military precision, and sprinkled a generous dusting over the tiramisu she had prepared earlier. She was so tired, physically and emotionally, that she looked at the soft, smooth surface of cream cheesecake