How Sweet It Is (2 page)

“Huh?”

She continued. “Then I’d grate six
tablespoons of the chocolate per cup, melted with milk, half and
half, vanilla, a little cocoa powder and salt. Heat it, add cold
butter and mix until it has a glossy sheen. After it’s rested,
reheat, strain, and serve.” She smiled at Brad’s fixated expression
and could almost imagine him drooling.

“All that for one cup?”

“Trust me, it’s worth the effort for the
quality.”

Brad leaned forward. “Are you a gourmet or
something?”

She gave a thin smile. “No,
I’m a—” Then her smile faded.
I’m a what?
An foolish girl with dreams too big for her bank account?
She swallowed a lump in her throat and
straightened her shoulders. “I’ve been in Belgium to take a course
on candy making. So, now you could say, chocolate has become
something of a science to me.”

“And also a pleasure, I hope,” Brad said,
his eyes shining.

A melancholy pang made her
sigh.
I think I’ve forgotten what pleasure
is
.

Brad idly stirred his cocoa with a spoon.
“That Aztec stuff sounds good. Maybe you could make me a cup of it
one of these days.”

Flirt!
“I don’t think so.”

He seemed unaffected by her prim tone. If
anything, the twinkle in his eyes deepened. She forced her
expression into a polite mask. “What about you, Mr. Larsen? What
brings you to Brussels?”

“Besides the chocolate, I’m here with my
parents. My dad’s here on business. It’s his first trip to Europe,
so my mom and I decided to tag along.”

“And you’re helping your father with the
business?”

Brad stretched his arms above his head.
“Nope. I’m on summer vacation. It’s playtime for me. I just
finished at Cal State.”

Delphine regarded him steadily, wondering why
she felt a pang of disappointment.

“I know what you’re
thinking,
mam’selle
,” Brad drawled, revealing a dimple in his cheek. “That
someone my age—twenty-six to be exact—is too old to be finishing
school. Well, for your information, I didn’t flunk my way through
several years. I actually started late. Rushing off to college
right after the behemoth task of finishing high school just wasn’t
my cup of tea.” He raised his cup. “Or chocolate.”

While he took a drink, Delphine experienced a
spasm of sheer envy. She’d never had such a choice. “So what did
you do? How did you support yourself?”

“Professional surfing. I
moved to Hawaii and recruited some sponsors and rode the pipelines
for four years.” He made exaggerated surfing motions with his arms.
“I earned enough to survive, but not enough to retire.” Brad gave
her a self-deprecating smile. “I was good, but not
that
good.”

“Sounds...interesting.”

“So, Miss Delphine. What about you? What’s
your story?”

She gave a choked laugh. “Nothing as
adventurous as yours, I’m afraid. After high school, I started
college, but had to drop out—to care for my family.” She shrugged
and picked up her cup. “Now I have plans to open a chocolate shop,
but it might not be realistic.”

He leaned forward. “If it’s your dream, you
can make it happen.”

“Trite words,” she said tartly over the edge
of her cup. “If I can get the funds I need to start, then we’ll
see.”

Brad wondered why he felt chastened by this
pretty lady’s words. She hinted at hardship, but surely things
weren’t as bad as she made them out to be. What could be negative
on so beautiful a day—in Europe, no less? The female sitting across
from him, delicately sipping her chocolate, seemed tense and wary,
and yet she reminded him of the prim librarian type with a secret,
wild and passionate side. What could he say to make her relax, to
make her forget about any troubles, real or imagined? Opening a
chocolate shop sounded like a shoo-in for success. What could be
more romantic than that?

Yes, this Delphine only needed the right guy
to help her shed her worries and embark on a Belgian adventure. And
Brad knew he was just the guy to come to her rescue—especially as
it coincided with his favorite flavor.

“Are you opening a shop here?” he asked,
somewhat distracted by the intriguing picture she made. He had a
sudden mental image of her—exotic yet domesticated—in a ruffled
apron, her faced flushed as she labored over her confections…a
delicious smudge of chocolate on her mouth just waiting to be
kissed away.

“No, not here in Belgium, if that’s what you
mean.”

Brad’s eyes widened when he realized he
wasn’t totally imaging things. The chocolate at the corner of her
mouth was real. His knees banged against the table, causing the
liquid in his cup to slosh over the rim.

“Oh! Is everything all right, Mr.
Larsen?”

Brad regarded that smudge of
chocolate. He felt his heart pound—the way it did when he was about
to do something outrageous. And now that the thought had entered
his mind, he couldn’t shake it. After all, by train, they were only
half an hour away from Paris, the romance capital of the world.
Close enough to justify his impudence.
So,
when in Rome…or whatever
.

The breeze lifted a strand of Delphine’s hair
aloft. Her dark eyes regarded him with solemn curiosity. Brad stood
up and stepped over to where she sat. Before she could speak, he
bent down, and pressed his lips softly against the corner of her
mouth.

When he raised his head, Delphine sat frozen,
her cheeks burning with two spots of color.

Uh oh
.

Before he could explain his behavior, she
slapped him across the face.

Hard
.

Brad stumbled backward a step when the
redoubtable Frenchwoman jumped up, grabbed her bags, and stormed
off. As he watched her leave the square, he bemusedly rubbed his
hot cheek. Despite the sting, he didn’t regret kissing her. Not one
little bit.

He took a deep
breath.
Still, I need to
explain
. Brad dug into his pocket, and
tossed some Euros down onto the table. Once clear of the café, he
trotted along the square, looking for Delphine’s retreating figure
among the flower vendors and meandering tourists.

After several minutes of fruitless searching,
Brad decided she must’ve taken a cab or train from the square. He
sighed. Despite Delphine’s obvious assumption, he didn’t go around
kissing strangers. He wanted to find her. But how?

I don’t know her last name and I’m in a
country where people aren’t impressed with my attempts to speak the
language.

This problem requires going
to the top
.

Brad’s gaze arched upward past the dark
medieval lancet windows of the guild houses. He looked past the
black, yellow, and red Belgium flags snapping in the rising wind,
beyond the towering spire of the Town Hall, to the eggshell blue
sky above.

He closed his eyes and said a prayer, hoping
that somehow Delphine would reappear once more in his life.

Feeling a strange sense of peace, he plunged
his hands in his pockets and went back to the chocolate shop to buy
that candy.

Two

Delphine arrived at the Charles De Gaulle
airport as the last vestiges of pink and orange sunlight shimmered
below the hazy Parisian skyline. She stepped from the TGV train and
walked to the Delta desk, one stop on her way to Aérogare/Terminal
2C.

She sighed, wishing she’d
had more of a chance to sightsee. I
missed
so much, but then my budget was so tight
.
Delphine wondered if she’d ever make it back to Europe to explore
at her leisure.

Not likely.

But the courses she’d attended, hosted by a
world-renowned candy makers, would give her much needed cachet,
especially after she’d exhausted all the classes at home. She hoped
to incorporate the Old World skills she’d learned here into her
future business back in Glendale.

She thought back to her decision to come to
Europe. Deep price cuts in airfares had made the opportunity
irresistible, and in an uncharacteristically impulsive move, she’d
drained her meager savings to make the trip. It was a once in a
lifetime opportunity she couldn’t pass up.

Now, with her head full of new skills and
recipes, along with distressingly empty pockets, she wondered if
she’d been insane to embark on such an endeavor. For a moment, she
wished she possessed the optimism of someone like Brad Larsen.

Delphine’s lips thinned as she remembered his
audacious kiss. That man was best forgotten.

Unfortunately, the recent memory of his
behavior had plagued her for the rest of the day. When he’d kissed
her, her world had tilted out of focus. Treacherous feelings had
surged through her body at his touch—feelings that left her
alarmed, bewildered, and angry—angry that a flippant philanderer
could provoke such a melting reaction in her.

Stop thinking about him!

She took a deep breath and joined the crowded
queue to check in for the Delta flight, wondering if the two
hundred thousand travelers who passed daily through CDG airport
were all trying to get on the same plane as she was.

“Identification, please?”

Delphine looked up to see she was next. She
handed her driver’s license to the clerk. The harried employee
scanned it, then shook his head.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have any record for
you. If you want to purchase a ticket, you’ll have to go to the
other desk.”

Smiling a thin smile, Delphine cleared her
throat. “I bought a round trip ticket, which I used to fly to
France. Now I would like my boarding pass so I can fly home.”

The man scanned the license again. “No, you
must be mistaken. There’s no record of your reservation.”

Delphine groped through her purse until she
came upon a wrinkled itinerary, printed off when she’d reserved her
flight online. She handed it to the clerk.

“This is proof,
non?
”

He glanced at it. “Not really. Even though
the flight number and time is correct, my computer still shows
nothing about your having a reservation. You’ll either have to
purchase another ticket or talk to an airline representative.”

“Then can you scan the bar code on my
luggage tag? Surely, that should tell you something.”

The clerk passed a device over the barcode
attached to her bag. “This shows that you arrived from LAX but
gives no other information.”

“This is ridiculous!” Delphine cried,
beginning to feel ill. “I would like to speak to your
supervisor.”

The man nodded distractedly, made a quick
phone call, and moved on to the next passenger.

Delphine glanced at her watch. Two hours. Her
flight left in two hours. Surely this would be straightened out
quickly and she could slump into her airline seat and close her
weary eyes.

“Excuse me?” asked a voice in French. “You
are in need of assistance?”

Delphine looked up at a male airline
representative in a dark blazer with the name of the airline
embroidered into the pocket. She handed him her license and
itinerary as she quickly sketched out the problem. The man led her
to another desk where he accessed a computer. As his fingers tapped
on the keyboard and his frown deepened, her stomach twisted into a
Gordian knot.

Finally, he shook his head. “We’ve been
having occasional glitches with our new software and this morning
the computers were down for a while, but everything’s up and
running again. However, we have no record of your reservation and I
cannot issue you a boarding pass.”

“Glitches? Well, tell me how I can get home.
My flight leaves in two hours.”

Still shaking his head, he looked up from the
screen. “You will not be able to get on that flight unless you
purchase another ticket. When the problem is taken care of, you may
be assured will refund your original ticket price once we confirm
your information.”

Delphine stared at him in disbelief. A thin
line of sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. “I bought a
round trip ticket and flew into France without any problem. This is
not my fault, this is the airline’s.”

The clerk tapped on the keyboard again as if
he hadn’t heard her. “You’re in luck. On the flight you want, there
are two seats left in first class. But as I said, you will have to
purchase a ticket to be on it.”

When he named the amount, she nearly fainted.
It was triple what she’d paid originally. “What if I don’t have the
money?”

The clerk’s impassive face regarded her.
“Then you will not be on that flight. I’m truly sorry, but with
security precautions, and no record of your reservation in our
computers, there’s nothing else I can do at the moment.”

Delphine pushed her hair
back from her damp forehead, her mind racing.
Dear Lord, I need Your help
. Suddenly,
she remembered that she should have just the amount in her checking
account, since she’d used only her savings to finance the trip. The
only problem was it could take months to get a refund from the
airline when they found the problem. And the money in her checking
had been carefully budgeted and set aside for household
expenses—
not
this
trip. How could she make it until her next paycheck? Then again she
wouldn’t have a job if she failed to show up to work.

But what choice do I have? I can’t just hang
around hoping they’ll fix the problem. What if they never find my
reservation?

Delphine grabbed her wallet and pulled out
her debit card. “I’ll be filing my complaint with the airline,” she
said, her voice shaking. “And I expect full reparations to be
made.”