said, checking it out. “You sure know how to pack temptation in a picture.”
“Good temptation, though,” he said. He, too, was searching his phone. “And there you are. I see you’ve already put up some pictures.”
“Of course.”
“So, what else are you on?” he asked.
“Everything. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest. That’s my favorite. I love those foodie pins, especially the ones featuring baked goodies.”
“Oh, yeah. I seem to remember you mentioning something about French silk pie,” Trevor said. “Is that your specialty?”
“No. Cupcakes are my specialty. I make a fabulous chocolate one with white chocolate frosting flavored with rose water.”
“White chocolate and rose water?”
“It’s a fabulous combination. Maybe you should think about it for one of your chocolate bars,” she said.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Intriguing. I’ll have to look into that.”
Okay, giving a chocolatier advice on chocolate treats. How was that for tacky?
“Look at me, giving advice to the expert,” she said, her face heating up.
“Hey, I’m always open to new ideas,” he said.
Silly how pleased she felt by his reaction to her suggestion. Growing up as the baby of the family, she hadn’t always been taken seriously. Maybe she wasn’t now, either, but if Trevor was faking his reaction to her suggestion, he was doing a great job of it.
They moved on to the thick wooden door leading to the residential courtyard. “Here’s an interesting legend,” Sophie read from the guidebook she’d purchased. “It’s said that the castle will be handed to anyone who can bite through the door knocker.”
“Yeah? Let’s try it,” Trevor suggested.
“Eeew,” she said in disgust. “I don’t even want to think about how many germy mouths might have touched that.”
“Hey, you have to be brave to win a castle,” he said, and sunk his teeth into the door knocker.
It was so thick even a horse couldn’t bite through it, and she found herself giggling.
“I guess nobody will be giving me the keys to the castle,” he said as he stepped away and wiped his mouth.
“If it’s any consolation, it says here that even a witch tried to bite through it and she failed.”
“Oh, well,” he said. “This place would take a lot of work to fix up and I have a business to run.”
“A very important business,” she reminded him, making him smile. It didn’t take much to make Trevor March smile. She liked that about him. She liked a lot about him.
Once they got outside the castle, Harriet the pest attached herself to them, spouting much of the same information from the same guidebook Sophie had been reading, all the while casting hungry looks at Trevor.
She was an irritant, but who was Sophie to judge after the way she’d stalked Rudy? She got that whole determination thing, the hope that someone who seemed so right would turn out to be your soul mate. But Rudy’s soul had leaned in a different direction.
And here was easygoing, easy-to-talk-to Trevor the chocolate king, making Sophie’s soul do some leaning of its own. And he’d made it pretty clear how he felt. Poor Harriet was out of luck. Still, Sophie could be magnanimous.
“Looks like great minds think alike,” she said to Harriet, holding up her guidebook. “I like learning about new places, don’t you?”
“I like learning, period,” Harriet said, and Sophie wondered if that comment was supposed to make her look superior.
They started to stroll across the flagstone courtyard to take in the view, and Harriet strolled right along with them. Next thing Sophie knew Harriet was pumping her for more information about her life, wanting to know where she lived and worked. She finally got down to the main question: Did Sophie have a boyfriend?
“She’s working on it,” Trevor answered for her, and caught Sophie’s gloved hand in his. The contact, along with his grin, made her heart start skipping.
No heart skipping for Harriet. Instead, she scowled. “How old are you, anyway?” she demanded when Trevor left to talk to his brother and it was only the two of them standing together, looking at the view below.
Maybe instead of German Harriet should have been taking a course in manners. “How old are you?” Sophie countered.
“I’m nineteen.” She may as well have added, Compete with that, old broad.
“Cheer up,” Sophie quipped. “You won’t be nineteen forever.”
“Yeah, and you won’t be...whatever you are, either,” Harriet retorted. “It sucks to get old.”
Okay, Sophie was beginning to dislike this kid.
Trevor was back. “Harriet, Herr Professor wants a word with all of you. Thank God,” he murmured as Harriet reluctantly left them to join the rest