Chapter Three
“ WHAT NONSENSE IS it to say not until next week?! We are not able to use the enrober to cover our candy with dark chocolate, is that going into your thick skull?!” I hustled into my office, through a throng of workers who were not working, to find Mamie on the phone.
“What do you mean have I called the wrong number? What? This is the right number but you are a baboon!”
She then sailed into a litany of French, all cuss words, spurring me to dash into the office and wrestle the landline phone from her hand. Mamie was old but she was very strong.
“Let me handle this,” I whispered just as she released the phone. I nearly went on my ass. As I said, Mamie was strong. Must be all that power yoga for seniors she does. “Thank you. Merci. Go have some coffee and a maple cream. Crocus, get Mamie some coffee.”
“Please, Madame Mamie, let’s work on the chalkboard sign for the sidewalk.” Crocus loved Mamie. Everyone loved Mamie. Well, maybe not the poor slob on the other end of the dark green desk phone. Probs he didn’t love Mamie at all.
“Ignorant baboons,” Mamie spat as she was led gently from the office.
The three underlings raced around to fetch her coffee and some fresh maple creams while I sorted the mess with the maintenance department at Cooper & Sons Restaurant Stores.
Using my hip I nudged the office door open further so I could kiss ass while keeping an eye on the fireball in bifocals and a crisp summer dress giving Crocus an earful.
He nodded as they worked on the sandwich board, his tatted head bobbing along to everything she said. What would I do without Crocus?
It took twenty minutes of apologizing to find out that the repair department was understaffed and overworked, therefore, it would be next week. Or, and this was explained to me curtly, we could find another company to come out.
“Of course, I understand. Next week. Thank you. Yes, good— well, okay then.” I mumbled at the rude hangup on the other end.
Placing the phone back into its cradle, I then headed to the pot atop the filing cabinet, only to find it empty.
Great. So I made another pot, my attention darting out to the gift shop as the coffee dripped slowly into the pot.
“What the hell has happened to customer service anymore? I mean, sure, an irate French woman did call him a baboon and a cuck, but he didn’t understand the cuck part… ”
The bells over the door rang out as I chatted with the plastic orchid sitting on a small shelf with my framed degrees.
They needed dusting. A deep, bass voice with a yummy Austrian or German accent tickled my eardrums. I turned my head to glance into the shop.
My eyes rounded. If this were a cartoon, they would have shot out of my head then snapped back into my skull while my wolfish tongue unrolled over the filing cabinet.
Some howling accompanied by robust table-pounding and stiff-legged kicking would also be taking place.
Standing by the register, giving the freshly made caramel bonbons a long look, was the sexiest mature man I had ever seen.
Tall, lean but not skinny, in a sharp blue blazer over a soft gray polo, dark ash-gray pants, and leather shoes.
No socks. His hair was trimmed to perfection, a gorgeous mix of ebony and silver that spread to his groomed scruff.
He wore a thick gold watch on his left wrist, no wedding band.
I picked all that up as he pointed to the ganache bon bons while he spoke with Crocus.
Mamie was over in the corner trying to rearrange the boxed sets of chocolate suckers. Sulking. She was sulking.
Dibs!
You cannot call dibs on people. How many times do you have to be told.
Shut up me. I’m calling dibs.
I wiped the drool from my chin, forgot about my coffee, and strolled oh so casually into the shop.
Nothing screamed available like wild curls, bags under your eyes, and a chocolate-smeared apron you’d had on for three hours.
Stunning hazel eyes lifted from the bonbons as I entered.
He smiled. A strong, blinding smile that made me feel as if I’d downed that fresh pot of coffee in one pull.
That smile. It energized me at the same time it made me feel tingles in my shorts.
He was beautiful. Perfection. Masculine to the nth.
A powerful man in designer corporate casual.
Just the kind of man who would take me into his arms, kiss me until I was delirious, and whisk me to some castle in the Alps where he would pamper me and feed me my own bonbons.
All my worries would be gone and we would fall hopelessly in love and adopt all the homeless cats in those famed mountains.
I had no clue why I was so Alps-fixated of late but I was living it.
I smiled serenely as Crocus handed him a bonbon to sample.
“You!” Mamie snarled, busting my fantasy into tiny bits of broken candy cane dreams. “How dare you come into this store to snoop! Snoop!”
To my, and Crocus’s dismay, Mamie stormed up to the father of my future fur babies and slapped the ganache bonbon out of his hand.
The candy rolled across the light blue tile floor.
The man drew back his freshly slapped hand, turned, and began speaking to my grandmother in flawless French.
Okay, it was German-accented French which was even sexier than plain old…
Stop with the idiocy and apologize to him! Do you know how many stray Alpine cats are relying on you to adopt them?!
“Mamie!” I shouted as Crocus darted—as quickly as a man the size of a locomotive could dart—around the large glass display case.
I jumped between the man who would rub my feet for eternity and Mamie, placing my hands out to the sides as if I were breaking up a hockey fight.
“Mamie, this man is a customer. We do not smack the candy out of the hands of a customer.”
“Pah!” She said as she glowered over my shoulder. “That is no customer. That is a spy!”
Mr. Sexy European Man of my Dreams spoke up, this time in English with that delightful accent that made my balls giggle in delight.
“Madame Aubert, I can assure you that I am not here to spy. I am here to speak with you and your grandson as previous other methods of discourse have failed.”
I blinked at the man. What now? How did he know my grandmother’s name?
What kind of discourse? I would have remembered speaking to the man who was destined to rub my tired feet with scented oils as we lounged in our castle.
I mean, what living being with eyeballs in their head would forget seeing this magnificent specimen?
“Bullshit!” Mamie snarled as I wrapped my arms around her.
She was known to throw a mean left hook.
Just ask the last guy who tried to get fresh with her at the seniors dance.
Poor dude had to get new dentures made. “You are a spy! Come into our shop to taste our bonbons then scuttle back to that toad Bernhard to relay our secrets.”
I had no fucking clue. Neither did Crocus, who was dusting off the bonbon he’d picked up from the floor as he stared at the two combatants with confusion. I prayed he would not put it back in the case.
“Madame, that is my grandfather you are speaking of,” Mr. Sexy replied smoothly, his attention moving to me as if I could do anything but hug the firebrand a little closer.
“I am well aware of which toad I speak of young man. That one will piss on your hand when you try to pick him up!” Mamie raged.
“Uhm, I have no idea what that even meant but we are going to go sit in the office to cool down,” I said softly to my grandmother. “I’m sorry. She gets quite agitated when someone eyeballs the bonbons.” I cringed at the stupid flowing out of my mouth right now.
“Sit down on this!” She gave Mr. Gorgeous a robust arm of honor. The French way of flipping someone off. “I will sit no more forever as long as a Brauning is standing in our shop!”
When that name fell into the air it felt as if all the ozone in the shop was sucked out.
Even Crocus, Tim, Dupont, and Mike were stunned into a stupor.
Not a sound could be heard but the hum of the conveyer belt in the back and an old Linda Ronstadt song about someone being no good coming from the speakers in the corners of the gift shop.
“Brauning?” I asked on a shaky exhale, my dreams of that cat-filled castle going up in rancid smoke. “As in Brauning Chocolates?”
He nodded that salt-and-peeper perfectly styled thick hair.
I died a little inside. “I am Phillip Brauning, Mr. Gray, and I have not come to spy, or steal secrets, truly we do not need to take your recipes.” Mamie threw a vile French curse over my shoulder that made Phillip wince as if he had been hit by a dart.
“Madame, please, there is no need for name-calling. I have come in peace.” He held up both hands and gave us a charming smile.
“I only wish to discuss the future of Harmony Chocolates with you both.”
“I think I said all I wanted to say to you via email,” I replied tartly. Mamie nodded so hard her curly hair bounced. “Now, you may take your conglomerate backside out of my shop and go back home.”
He exhaled then, unexpectedly, gave us both a bow. “I am sorry for arriving unannounced and shocking you both. Perhaps I will revisit tomorrow after you have had time to calm down to see if we can sit as adults and reach an accord?”
I said nothing. Mamie continued to give him hell in French.
Phillip Brauning merely inclined his head then left, plucking the bonbon that had fallen to the floor from Crocus’s open palm as he went.
He popped it into his mouth, chewed, and then rubbed his tummy before leaving the store.
The tiny silver bells over the door rang out his departure.
A really nice departure if I were being honest. Aloof, professional, sexy exits demanded some recognition.