I was getting ready to head here and meet you guys.”
“Wait? Jeff is here?” If Marc had had a sinking feeling in his gut a second ago, it had completely hollowed out at the mention of Jeff. He’d left over a dozen messages for the guy in the last week, with no response.
“Yup. And he and Monte were all smiles. After Monte told me about Baudouin trying to get in on the deal, he assured me that he’d pretty much already made up his mind and that it was ours to lose.”
“What are you not telling us?” Marc asked, because he knew there was more. And he wanted to finish up here so that he could go warn Lexi, at least give her a heads-up so that she wouldn’t be caught off guard. And finally man up and tell her about the deal.
“Monte is so sure he’s going with us that he already selected the first phase of pairings, expected to hit stores this fall. He wants to pair our wine with specialty, high-end desserts.”
Marc blinked. “We didn’t provide a dessert menu.”
“Apparently Jeff did.” Nate’s eyes went right to Marc. “And they’re all available at Pricilla’s Patisserie.”
And suddenly Marc knew what menu Monte wanted, and exactly how those items had gotten there.
CHAPTER 16
Lexi pulled a tray of freshly filled cream puffs out of the fridge and smiled. No matter how sore her cheeks got, she couldn’t seem to stop.
The smile had started Sunday morning, when Marc had her for breakfast in bed, and lasted straight through the week. It stuck with her through Monday’s morning rush, Tuesday and Wednesday’s three hours of predawn baking, this morning’s argument over which direction the slate tiles in the new kitchen should go—Tanner thought they should go on the diagonal and Abby thought that he was an idiot.
“Tell me again why we’re putting mango in my tart recipe?” Pricilla asked, elbow-deep in custard.
“Because the acid will play off the sweetness in the berries nicely.” ChiChi repeated Lexi’s earlier answer while brushing butter over the top of the mini shortbread crusts.
“Open your ears,” Lucinda harped, picking up a napkin and folding it in thirds.
“My ears are open,” Pricilla defended.
“Then maybe it’s your head that’s leaky.” Lucinda smashed a napkin through a ring made of dried grapevines, poking Mr. Puffins in the ear and jerking him awake with a start.
Even though Lexi knew she’d have to redo every place setting that Lucinda touched, and watch over Pricilla’s shoulder to make sure she wasn’t purposely bruising the mangoes, her smile stuck with her—right up until the bell in the front of the bakery dinged.
“I’ll get it,” Lexi said as she walked through the swinging doors. Then her smile died a fiery death and her day spiraled into the seventh circle of hell.
“Hey, Lexi,” Jeffery said. Dressed in dark slacks and a blue shirt—the one that she’d given him for his birthday last year—he displayed enough frat-boy charm to curdle the whipped cream.
Lexi closed her eyes for a moment and wished he would disappear, because Jeffery also displayed a plump plus one, whose chicken-soup smile, white tank, and beige shorts did little to conceal the baby bump—big enough to predate their divorce.
To make matters worse, when she opened her eyes, the newlyweds were holding hands and looking happy. Really happy. Like “we just had sex where the headboard slammed into the wall and shattered the Sheetrock…oh, and we’re having a baby” happy.
The baby that Lexi had begged for, the same baby that Jeffery had said he wasn’t ready to have. He had failed to mention the “with her” part. Which was fine, since she still wanted a baby but not with him—not anymore. Now, though, seeing him happily married and happily expecting while happily running a successful restaurant made her want to cry. Not that she let him know that. So Lexi went for happy too, she really did, but it came out more constipated than congratulatory.
She tried again and failed.
She’d known that she would run into the new Mr. and Mrs. Balldinger at some point. It wasn’t as though St. Helena was a sprawling metropolis or that she thought Jeffery would never come back to visit his parents. She had just hoped that their first run-in would be later—like after she had won her first Michelin star, found Mr. Perfect, and had her own litter of perfect kids running around.
Even more perfect was that just on the other side of the window, her frosted bun peeking through