Chapter 4
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The games rich men play confuse me.
Clara
I squeak as Lukas puts five bags of flour in the shopping cart.
After barely surviving the furniture store, where he ordered me an entire room set for several thousand dollars; and the homegoods store, where he kept grabbing random things I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with, I am uncertain whether or not I will survive the final stop for today.
The grocery store.
SunMart—with its earthy shades, warm decor, and elite curation of products—is a dream come true.
It’s got everything I have ever wanted to try to cook or bake.
Rye flour. Semolina. Almond. I’m obsessed with the diversity of selection.
Though we’ve started in dry goods, the mere glimpse of the cheese and dairy section has me fantasizing recipes I never have been able to entertain.
At home, Brent cooks. I clean up after him. Whenever I want to try anything, the ingredients are too expensive, or “that’s really more Brent’s thing, isn’t it?” There’s a reason I never went to culinary school, and that reason is because it was too expensive to send us…both.
So…they sent Brent.
And I settled in decorating cakes and cookies at the bakery—a job that required no previous education.
They sent Brent, but now he just experiments in the kitchen at home.
Because, turns out, culinary is hard. And being a chef or a baker is harder.
It’s long hours in stressful environments lugging heavy equipment from one classroom to the next.
After two weeks of whining about how very hard it all was, he dropped out. Gave up. Let an opportunity I’d kill for slip through his fingers.
And I was selfish for asking if that meant I could have a chance. I was selfish, and ignorant, and completely cruel to ignore the student loans my parents would still have to pay back for him.
But the worst part is I knew how horrible it was for me to ask. I knew, but I still did. On the slim chance something might come of it.
I would do anything for the opportunity he had. I would do anything to experiment in the kitchen, spending all my time making pastries and baked goods, like he does.
I would do anything.
Or…maybe I wouldn’t, actually, because I am staring at five bags of unbleached flour, dying to get the rye and almond and bread and pastry instead, while saying absolutely nothing.
I could plan to make fresh pasta if I just find the gall to ask for the semolina.
Unfortunately, gall is something I do not possess.
In go several bags of white sugar…not a single bag of brown…
I want yeast. I need yeast. Lukas gives me many containers of baking powder.
I need baking soda, too… I…
He has already moved on.
So I swallow my wants, my wishes, my needs, and move on, too.
“Cupcake,” he says, stopping the cart to fix his gaze on me, “you cannot possibly need seven things of baking powder.”
That is such an apt assessment, Lukas, sir. Gold star for you.
He sighs. “I let it slide at the other stores because your silence meant I could spoil you rotten, but I’m out of my depth here. I’m quite certain I’m plain just not being helpful at this point. Correct me. Now.”
My stomach flops. “Correct…you?”
He waves a hand at the menagerie in the cart. “Call me an idiot. Fix the mess I’m making. What even is all this? I don’t know what you need. Put stuff back. Grab other stuff. Whack me in the head. Tell me how wrong I am. You know what you’re doing. I don’t.”
I actually don’t know what I’m doing, since I haven’t yet looked up a single recipe.
But…I suppose I do know that I don’t need seven baking powders.
Believing it shouldn’t be this hard to speak up, and blaming my chest for making my heart rate as high as it is, I say, “Well, maybe we can get a baking soda and put all but one of the baking powders back?” Also, brown sugar.
I’d love to experiment with mixing white and brown sugar in recipes for optimal moisture and flavor profile depth.
Plus the flour… I don’t need this many white flours, but the kinds I want are more expensive, which does not at all seem to be a concern, but—
Lukas wheels the cart around, puts six of the baking powders back, grabs a soda, and then promptly begins taking one of everything else off the shelves.
Agape, I stare
“Cupcake,” he warns, “don’t just watch me. Stop me, or I’m buying you one of everything in this entire store.”
That would be so impossibly wasteful. I wouldn’t be able to use everything before it goes bad.
But stop him? Stop him? How does one stop a man like him? I’m sure I don’t know.
He pauses, fixing his black and white eyes on me. “Please, Clara. You don’t need three different brands of baking soda. I cannot keep threatening to buy you entire stores. Viktor would be so mad at me if you let that happen. Don’t be difficult.”
I wince in response to those words. I’ve heard them loads of times. For a while, they felt like the only ones my parents would say to me. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be difficult.”
“Stop apologizing.”
I bite my tongue before another apology slips free. Nausea plagues me.
He motions to the cart, then—patiently—says, “Fix it.”
Carefully, I reach for the flours first, putting all but one back.
The other kinds call to me, but he never said to make him rye bread or macaroons.
He said chocolate muffins. So…I need cocoa.
Eggs. Milk. Vanilla. The flour, of course.
And sugar. Both kinds. Just in case the recipe I find calls for it.
I switch some of the white out for a bag of brown.
“Cupcake.”
I tense amid deciding on the brand of baking soda to get. Slowly, I glance at Lukas and try not to feel like crying.
“I want all kinds of treats, not just chocolate muffins.”
“What sorts of things would you like?” I whisper.
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Surprise me. Every day. Maybe even more than once a day.” Bracing his forearms on the cart, he smiles. “I love the idea of you making things for me.”
I love the idea of not upsetting a powerful man who holds my fate in his palm.
Macaroons are a treat. I get the almond flour. With the array of cheese available here, I could make some amazing cheese bread, too… Does that count as a treat? Sweet and savory? “King?”
His smile spreads, sultry. “Yes, cutie pie?”
Heat floods my flesh, and I avert my eyes. “Do you only want sweets or savory things, too?”
“Both, yes.”
Rye flour and semolina, then… I hesitate once I’ve touched the pasta flour.
“What’s wrong?” he murmurs, so gently.
“Do you only want snacks and sides and desserts, or also meals?”
He looks at the bag in my hand. “Are you going to make fresh pasta?”
I do not say, Well, you did get me a pasta machine at the homegoods store, so I don’t know what else you’d expect me to do with it. I say, “Maybe? If you’d like me to.”
“Do you want to?”
Whether I want to or not seems irrelevant. He’s the one who’s dragged me hours away from home for vague reasons. I want to be home, snuggled up in my bed, reading on my phone far away from this insanity.
And, okay fine, I also want to make pasta from scratch, so I nod.
“Excellent.” Pride brightens his face so completely I lose myself in the beauty of it for a long moment. Lifting his chin toward the shelves, he says, “Make my absolute day, E-clair-a. Go wild.”
With his permission, I go absolutely, unequivocally nuts.
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Laptop, notebook, guest bedroom.
I’ve never had a laptop or been in a room so big before…
Fresh and clean in brand new clothes after a shower, I search through recipes online, jotting down some of my favorites using sparkly gel pens.
Chocolate muffins tomorrow, fresh pasta for lunch, cheese bread with dinner.
I’ll need to wake up early enough to have the muffins ready for breakfast. I’m not sure how long it will take to make the pasta, but I’ll need to know when the other meals usually are, so I can time the rest periods, and the rise period for the bread, of course.
Looks like the pasta dough needs to rest for thirty minutes…
I switch out the color of my pen to add the times, then once I’ve finished the recipe, I add a few little rabbit stickers to the page. Because Lukas got me little rabbit stickers. For reasons I cannot begin to know.
They do look cute, though.
Pushing back my damp hair, I manage a labored breath, tuck my nightgown beneath my breasts to make sure the moisture gathering there from my shower doesn’t destroy my life later, and glance toward the piles…and piles…and piles of…stuff.
It’s a stuff ocean on the other side of the vast expanse of this room. Somewhere in the chaos is a Dyson hair dryer, palettes upon palettes of makeup when I barely remember to do a basic skin care routine, and nail polish—even though I trim my nails constantly to keep up to health code.
Finding another labored breath, I turn back to my plans. I’ve always wanted to try crème br?lée. And, whaddya know? Lukas got me a tiny flamethrower.
This simply cannot be mentally stable behavior.
My muscles tense when my phone—set on the nightstand attached to a long sparkly pink charge cord—begins to ring.
Mom.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
So much has happened today I forgot to try and get an update to Mom. She didn’t believe me last night. As far as she knows, I’ve disappeared off the face of the planet.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I reach for my phone, bring it to my ear, and whisper, “Hello?”
“Clara,” she snaps.
My throat closes.
“Where in the world are you? If that insanity you were rambling off last night is true, you couldn’t take five seconds to let your poor mother know you were okay?” She sucks her teeth. “This is what I get for raising you. Absolutely nothing.”
It hurts to swallow. “I’m so sorry, Mom. It’s been…a really long day.”
Ire fills her chuckle. Suggestion and saccharine drip into her voice. “Oh, I’m sure it has been. How are you holding up, sweetie?”