Chapter Two
I WOULD NEVER understand the pigheadedness of some people.
Sitting at the airport waiting for the Brauning jet to be fueled, I took a steadying breath and then let it out through pursed lips. The executive lounge was busy but still sedate.
“Opa, I understand that you wish to speak to the owner but this unexpected flight to America is unwarranted. He does not wish to sell. You saw the emails.” Which were quite explicit, if not wordy.
I glanced up from my shoes, nicely shined by Edgar before I left my condo, to find the lovely young lady smiling down at me.
Bright eyes and red lips. Quite attractive.
“Guten Tag,” I said to her in German. “Kaffee und kuchen bitte.” Coffee and cake was a daily delight.
It was mid-afternoon. Some things needed to be adhered to even if one was being bossed into flying to the states to woo an emoji-loving chocolatier. She nodded. “Danke.”
Off she went, her hips swaying strongly.
I watched for a moment. I was not averse to rounded hips and breasts on occasion, I just preferred wide shoulders and cock.
I came back to my grandfather barking into my ear.
His cough was bad. Covid had done horrid damage to his lungs a few years back.
We’d been close to losing him but, as he liked to crow, he was too mean for Satan and Heaven did not want him.
We’d hired a live-in personal nurse, a sweet soul named Boris who tended to Opa diligently.
Not an easy task. I made sure Boris was paid and paid well for even though Opa was greatly limited in his physical activity his mental acuity was laser sharp.
Even using a wheelchair, Bernhard Eric Brauning had lost none of his fire.
The man was a certifiable bastard twice over.
“I saw shit…that is what I saw,” he replied. Yes, I had seen that too. And while one part of me had been offended another part of me was impressed with the spunk of the young American candymaker. “Which is why we… are sending you to speak to him in person. Use your charm. I want…that store.”
I also knew that. Oh, how well I knew it.
And while the idea of gobbling up small shops in America to open a line of Brauning Boutique stores was a good one, I wasn’t sure swooping in on this particular shop was the way to go.
First off, the shop had been opened by Capucine Aubert, a famed chocolatier who had fled France in the late sixties during a large wave of strikes that permanently changed French life and society.
She had moved to America with a young poet whom she later married and had a child with.
Capucine was a graduate of the Institut Culinaire de France with degrees in chocolate/confectionery and was considered a chocolate artisan.
Her grandson, Haider, he of the poop emojis, had inherited her love of confectionery and had worked himself through four years at the Culinary Institute of America, graduating with honors.
His professors praised his ganache-making flair, as well as his airbrushing and hand-painting skills—something he inherited from his grandmother, for Capucine was a master at artisan milk chocolate eggs.
Something that, I was sure, was not appreciated by most Americans.
Yes, I knew a great deal about Haider and Capucine. One did not go into any deal with the hopes of acquiring a business and not know all the details. That would be foolish. And I was anything but foolish.
“Yes, I am aware that you want the store to pin down the four shops per state goal, but this is not a typical shop owned by typical candymakers. This shop was opened by—”
“I am aware of who… opened it. And who now runs it. You’re not… to leave America until that…foppish fool signs over that store to us.”
I cringed at the insult. There was no need for name-calling, especially since Opa knew I was bisexual with a strong leaning towards members of my own sex.
A leaning my grandfather was not fully accepting of as many of the elderly still held onto their homophobic ways.
I coughed. He mumbled something that may have been an apology.
I took that as a win. It was the most I would get from the stubborn arsch.
Sturen alten Esel. A stubborn old mule to be sure.
“Opa, honestly, that is a ridiculous demand to place on a grown man. Perhaps the boutique shops should be given more study. America is not Europe. They don’t appreciate the finesse that is required to create chocolate masterpieces that are to be viewed for hours before being eaten.
They just cram food into their mouths. I’ve walked past some of the fast food restaurants in Manhattan and the things that I have seen… ”
Opa then went on about troughs, greasy burgers, and my lack of commitment to an idea that would finally get our foot in the door.
The American market had been a thorn in my family’s side for years.
European candy and American candy were very different.
And we had come up against a few large chocolate companies that we could not out-muscle.
It was hard to compete with streetlights shaped like one of your best-selling candies.
But small shops, catering to the Millennial and Gen Z customers, seemed the way to go.
And while it was proving to be a successful plan—four shops in each state was slowly filling out—now we were battling with one stubborn man in a tiny New Hampshire village.
“Perhaps we can have three in New Hampshire?” I asked, hoping to get out of this damn flight.
I had things planned for the next week or two.
Berlin was coming alive with the warmth of early summer and I had wished to enjoy some of the attractions, as well as some of the men.
It had been several months since I had taken a man to my bed. It was past time to rectify that.
“No, the plan is four. No more and no less. Bring back that contract.” His frenzy of speech had left him gasping for breath. His health was dreadfully poor and getting worse by the month.
Opa then hung up. I sighed. My coffee and cake, a generous slab of Bienenstitch or Bee Sting cake as the American I was not getting out of using my charms on, would call it.
“Danke,” I whispered to the young lady, paid my tab, and then passed the pretty thing a few Euros as a tip.
She blushed prettily before informing me that her shift ended in two hours.
I would be in the air in under forty minutes but thanked her for the kind invitation.
She left looking quite sad. I forked into my cake, using the sweet yeasty dough, vanilla custard filling, and crunchy caramelized almonds to distract me from this upcoming flight.
Edgar, my factotum, arrived and sat beside me, his quirky silver brow rising as cake crumbs fell down the front of my suit.
Edgar Hoffmann was not just a personal assistant, he was a valet, a butler, a secretary, and a dear friend.
A gentleman’s gentleman plus, if one wished.
He’d been with me since I was ten. In lieu of my mother who was…
well, who knew where she and her dogs were at the moment.
“The jet is now fully fueled, sir,” he said as he stared at the crumbs on my lap.
I brushed them off to ease his discomfort.
His worried eyebrows softened. “Good. Would you like some cake and coffee before we take off? The Bienenstitch is quite good.”
“No, thank you. I am trying to watch my weight.” Given that the lanky man seated with me in a demure black suit with white shirt and crisp blue tie was lean as a pencil I doubted he was really concerned about his waistline.
“All of our bags are loaded. They are going over the seats with a vacuum to remove any of the dog hair left behind from when your mother and her pack used it last.”
“Good, good. I’ve never seen beasts shed like those dogs of hers. At least have some coffee. What kind of German are you to not enjoy one of our most delightful traditions?” I teased and got a flat look. I was quite used to those. I rather enjoyed them. It was fun to poke at people.
“The kind who does not wish to have to have his trousers let out. I will have coffee though.”
I suspected he would. We all loved our coffee. Hopefully Mr. Haider Gray did as well. Sometimes all it took was one shared pleasure to open up a dialogue.
WE LANDED AT a small airport about an hour away from Caldwell Crossing.
Both of us were feeling washed-out and jetlagged as Edgar fiddled with the lone car rental kiosk at the tiny landing strip.
I’d dozed fitfully on the plane. For some reason I never slept well on flights.
I did envy those who could. My cheeks were raspy, my eyes dry, and my lower back tight.
Nothing that a good hot shower and about fourteen hours of sleep wouldn’t cure.
I sent out some texts as Edgar signed papers.
One to my grandfather to let him know we had landed, a few to the people under me in acquisitions just to check how things stood in our various propositions.
Nothing new to report on any front so I pocketed my cell, rubbed at my face so hard it was a wonder the stiff whiskers didn’t set off sparks, and then smiled weakly at Edgar when he approached, carrying keys.
I’d been silently hoping to see that Haider Gray had agreed to sell while we’d been in the air.
This way I could leap back on the Lear jet and return to Germany for beer and men. Alas, such was not my luck.
“We have a Subaru,” he informed me while I stared out of the windows at the verdant green mountains. “I asked for an Audi.”
“Obviously,” I commented as I scooped up my bags—two massive things that made my shoulders ache as I toted them outside.
The air here was clean with a hint of a chill.
Night had fallen and while it was technically early summer here in New Hampshire it seemed the nights still had a tiny bite to them. Refreshing, to be honest.