stalking me one night. She knows he works for Knox.”
“What?!”
Matt lowered his voice. “It’s one of the reasons I’m bunking with you, if you want to know the truth. This is my place of business, so my being here is nothing unusual. All I have to do at the end of the night is take the back stairs up to the apartment, and I’ll have my privacy.”
“And I thought you were ducking a fat hotel bill.”
“Well, that, too, honestly.”
“So what does this photographer of Knox’s think he’s going to get by following you around?”
Matt sighed. “He snapped me just the other day, picking up a magazine from a newsstand.”
“So?”
“So, it was Maxim.”
I rolled my eyes. “Big deal.”
“I know. It’s ridiculous, right?”
“Your picking up a lads’ magazine is not scandalous behavior. Thousands of men do the same thing every day!”
“I know, but you see my problem, don’t you? I could stay in a hotel, but then some pretty young thing might ask me for directions or the time of day near my room door or the elevators that go up to my room, and bam, a photo’s snapped, a suggestive caption’s written, and my wedding’s off.”
I frowned. “Matt, if you’re really on solid ground with Breanne, one stupid photo in a tabloid shouldn’t change it.”
“Forget it, Clare. You just don’t understand.”
“Apparently not.”
I turned my attention back to pulling Matt’s shot—something I did understand, thank you very much. After dosing and tamping the fragrant black sand into the portafilter, I locked the handle, pressed the Go button, and began to monitor the extraction process. As high-pressure steam released oils from the finely ground beans, I began to feel better. The aromatics were soothing. They were also very different from the caramelized earthiness of our regular house roast. Sweet and light, these very special beans flaunted naked floral notes, and (to my olfactory nerves, anyway) traces of jasmine, honey, and bergamot.
Within twenty-five seconds, the potable perfume was nearly finished oozing out of the machine’s spout, a fine-looking crema topping it off like a perfectly pulled dark beer. I stopped the pull, placed the Village Blend demitasse on its matching saucer, and slid the single shot across the blueberry marble counter.
Matt regarded his shot. “Where’s my lemon twist?”
I smiled. “You won’t need it.”
The espresso method actually wasn’t the best way to serve these particular beans. A French pressed or brewed method would have been better at bringing out the amazing flavor characteristics in the single-origin cherries. (And since we’d finally invested in two $11,000 Clover machines for the shop, I could have perfectly brewed Matt a single cup.) But I couldn’t resist the surprise factor.
Matt gave me a skeptical look until he sniffed his drink. Then one dark eyebrow rose. “This isn’t our house espresso roast.”
“No.”
He sipped once, and his eyes smiled. “You gave me the Esmeralda?”
“Yep.” For the past week, I’d been in the Blend’s basement, test-roasting the green beans that we’d acquired for Saturday’s wedding. Tonight’s test was the champagne of the coffee world, aka Esmeralda Especial.
I was stunned when Matt was able to secure the auction-lot Esmeralda beans. Although the Peterson family was still selling the most recent crop from their world-famous heirloom geisha trees, the celebrated first-place Panamanian Cup of Excellence microlot was as scarce as a sack of Hope diamonds.
Matt and I had explained this to Breanne, and we planned on purchasing other Esmeralda beans; the ones still available on the market. But the woman pitched a fit, absolutely insisting that we secure the famous, first-prize, $130-a-pound auction-lot beans for her high-profile wedding guests.
“They’ve read about the auction lot beans; they’ve seen the cable stories about it; and that’s what I want my guests drinking. The world-record auction lot. Not sloppy seconds!”
Sloppy seconds? I’d wanted to strangle her. The Esmeralda beans still available were among the highest quality on the planet. They were from the same damn geisha trees as the world-record auction lot, for goodness’ sake; grown on the same damn farm! But Breanne refused to “settle.”
Lucky for us all, Matt had some friends who owed him favors. He made a few calls, and voilá! Two ten-pound bags of the scarce green beans appeared at my doorstep. (And since one pound of coffee yielded approximately forty cups, we now had enough for Breanne’s 350 VIP guests to sample.) Along with the Waipuna farm’s 100 percent Kona Peaberry, the small lot of Kopi Luwak, and our signature espresso drinks, the Village Blend was bound to make an impression, too.
“Nice