Cooking Lesson
Valeria
The investigation into Wald is drawing to a close.
Each week brings a new wave of evidence. Financial transfers have been traced one after another. Shell companies are collapsing. Testimonies are converging. Financial authorities across several countries are now coordinating their efforts.
Meanwhile, Inspector Sanders is working relentlessly to secure the final warrants and lock the case down once and for all.
Wald must feel the noose tightening.
His mood seems to darken with each passing day. Whenever he appears in public, his smile is rarer, more strained. His statements are shorter. More aggressive, too.
Does he know that Bianca and Gaspard gave him up?
Has he realized that he walked straight into the trap we set for him?
I don’t know.
And, in the end, it no longer really matters.
For the first time in a long while, his future no longer depends on his schemes, but on justice.
Soon, he will have to answer for everything he has done.
In the meantime, Dante and I continue rebuilding our lives.
Each day feels a little more like a future and a little less like survival.
We’re preparing for our move. Making plans. Learning how to be happy again without constantly looking over our shoulders.
And soon, I hope, Hector Wald will be nothing more than a distant memory.
Today, Dante and I are attending a cooking workshop hosted by one of France’s most renowned chefs.
Our mission: to create the perfect mille-feuille. Light, crisp, delicate, and generously filled with pastry cream.
In theory, it sounded like an excellent idea.
In theory.
We join the group, greet the six other participants and the chef.
Dante impresses everyone instantly, as always—he hasn’t done anything special, he simply walked into the room.
I watch him greet everyone with that effortless ease that has always driven me crazy, and I wonder—not for the first time—how someone can be so irritating and so attractive at the same time.
Thankfully, aprons are quickly handed out, and each pair moves to their workstation.
“Step one,” the chef announces in a voice that tolerates no disagreement, “the puff pastry. The lightest, crispest pastry possible. Only two rules: patience and precision.”
I nod seriously.
So does Dante.
Far too innocently.
We naturally divide the tasks: I weigh the ingredients, he mixes. It starts well. Too well, honestly—I should’ve been suspicious.
The problem appears when it’s time for the butter.
“More,” he tells me. “Add more.”
“There’s exactly the right amount already.”
“You sure?”
“I’m reading the recipe, Dante.”
“And I have instincts.”
We stare each other down.
Neither of us gives an inch.
“You’ve never made puff pastry in your life,” I point out.
“No,” he admits shamelessly. “But I watched a lot of videos.”
A laugh escapes me despite myself.
He smiles, his gaze full of warmth.
I move the butter out of his reach.
“Don’t touch it.”
He raises both hands in surrender.
We continue. He rolls out the dough with intense concentration, as though the future of the mille-feuille—and possibly all of France—depends on it.
I can’t hold back anymore.
I laugh again.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he says without lifting his eyes.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me alive.”
“I do not want to eat you alive.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
At the next table, a couple in their sixties watches us with amused smiles. The woman whispers something to her husband. He chuckles softly.
I turn back to my dough, my cheeks slightly warm.
Eventually, after two folds, one disagreement over thickness, and intense negotiations regarding refrigeration time, our pastry goes into the oven.
We stand side by side waiting, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the glass door.
“If it fails, it’s your fault,” I say.
“Look at it. It’s rising perfectly. It’s beautiful.”
When it comes out, it’s genuinely excellent.
He looks so smug about it that I can’t help smiling.
Next comes the pastry cream.
The chef explains the technique with the passion of a man who truly loves his craft.
Thirty seconds later, I catch Dante watching one of the neighboring tables.
“Dante.”
“What?”
“You stopped whisking. The chef said never stop whisking or it’ll get lumpy.”
“No, no, woman of little faith,” he says while stirring again—
Then he looks down into the saucepan.
“Shit. Lumps.”
I snort.
“Whisk faster,” I tell him.
He attacks the cream with determination, but it’s already too late.
Surprisingly, the cream still turns out delicious.
Assembly is another story.
The chef circles the room giving advice. Dante cuts the pastry rectangles with surgical precision—I’ll give him that—while I pipe the cream.
“A little more to the right,” he says.
“I’ve got it.”
“Yes, but now you’re drifting left.”
“Dante.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know exactly what you’re saying.”
I shift slightly to the right.
He doesn’t need to know I listened.
We stack the layers with almost solemn concentration.
Pastry. Cream. Pastry. Cream. Pastry.
We both lean in at the same moment to judge whether it’s straight, our faces only inches apart.
I catch his gaze.
I’m happy.
Finally comes the powdered sugar.
The chef hands out the small sifters.
“Lightness,” he insists. “A delicate veil. Powdered sugar settles. It doesn’t get dumped.”
I take our sifter and carefully fill it. I position myself over the mille-feuille, Dante standing right beside me.
What happens next is, technically, an accident.
At least, that’s what I’ll claim.
I blow on the sifter—a little too hard, just slightly too much in his direction—and a cloud of powdered sugar lands all over Dante’s apron.
He stares at me, stunned.
“Oh, sorry,” I say.
Slowly, he turns toward me, one eyebrow raised.
“Really?”
“It was completely accidental. Totally.”
His eyes narrow.
He doesn’t believe me.
He reaches toward me. I try to dodge out of reach. He bumps my elbow, and the rest of the powdered sugar flies straight onto me.
“Oh! You did not just do that.”
“Oops.”
But judging by his expression, he isn’t sorry at all.
The corner of his mouth curls upward.
The asshole is actually laughing.
“You should see your face,” he says.
And then he fully bursts out laughing.
He’s so beautiful it’s honestly unfair.
And my ability to stay rational around him is officially dead.
A laugh escapes me too.
A real one.
No mille-feuille has ever tasted this good.
“Anyway,” I tell him, “your pastry cream is certainly… original. Definitely something worth remembering.”