Daisy James - Lucie’s Vintage Cupcake Company

‘You okay over there, Lucie?’ enquired Gino, his eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Don’t take any notice of Francesca. She has the heart of an ice queen. Ever since Antonio mentioned the dreaded blogger her preoccupation with perfection has spiralled out of control. We don’t even know for sure that he’ll be here tonight.’

‘I’m okay, thanks, Gino.’ And Lucie returned to her internal meanderings.

As always, it was her friends’ overt expressions of sympathy and kindness that tended to set her off. A week ago, Steph and Hollie had welcomed her and her suitcases into their home with love, understanding and the administration of that trio of female solace – wine, chocolate and a good gossip. Yet her brain was still as befuddled with circulating confusion as it had been that dreadful night, and her aching heart was a ghost town without even the tumbleweed to break the monotony of loneliness. Alex’s casual rejection in the space of a moment had been so unexpected she couldn’t quite believe it had happened. She still expected him to call her to arrange a Saturday brunch date, or walk through the restaurant door to declare that it had all been a ruse – that he’d planned to propose to her himself and of course he wanted to marry her.

Before her life had exploded in her face, she hadn’t ever thought things couldn’t get any better. As well as what she’d thought of as her steady love life with the man of her dreams, her ambitions in the career arena were progressing in accordance with the carefully crafted plan she’d made after graduating in the top five of her class at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris. She allowed her thoughts to swing briefly to those heady days in the City of Light when her brain had been crammed to bursting with all-things-patisserie and she had slaved over a hot stove from the moment she arrived in that celebrated kitchen until she couldn’t hold her eyes open a second longer. She had loved carrying out culinary autopsies on recipes then twisting the results to improve on taste, texture and presentation.

However, she knew she still had a lot to learn in the arena of gastronomic archaeology, and one of her particular interests was Mediterranean desserts. She loved working with Gino on his signature biscotti and experimenting with a wide variety of fillings for their cannoli . She also enjoyed being part of the renaissance of the trattoria in Hammersmith. Gino continually assured her she was an integral cog in their food-creating machine. Her colleagues – Gino, Antonio and Sofia – were like an extended family and Francesca’s was rapidly becoming one of the best Italian eateries in the area as evidenced by the long waiting list for weekend reservations.

With supreme difficulty, she dragged her concentration back to the green figs she was struggling to peel and reluctantly admitted that maybe Francesca had a point. Perhaps she should take a break from work until she could banish the raw edges of her heartache.

What if Antonio’s sources were right and the food critic had chosen to dine incognito at Francesca’s that night? What if she made a mistake? Tears breached her lashes again. Who knew that one person could cry so many tears and still have some left in reserve?

She checked her watch. It was too late to scarper for home now anyway, as the Friday night diners had already started to arrive. But then the tiny part of her reasonable brain still functioning reminded her that Gino was an amazing chef, Antonio was a talented sous chef and Francesca’s Trattoria was the best Italian restaurant in the whole of Hammersmith. A bad review, even from such an alleged gastronomic genius as the guy behind the famous Anon. Appetit , was impossible.

Chapter Four

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ asked Antonio.

‘I’m fine!’ She forced a false smile to her lips.

‘Well, in that case, perhaps you could try using those delicious toasted pecans instead of ciabatta croutons on your ricotta torte ?’ giggled Sofia, as she returned the offending dessert plate that had been rejected by a disgruntled diner, a wide smile displaying her perfect teeth. ‘Ditzy is adorable, just not tonight, eh? What if this delectable dessert had been destined for our famous anonymous blogger Fran is so obsessed with at the moment?’

‘Oh, God, Sofia, I’m so sorry.’

Lucie’s sense of humour temporarily deserted her as she slammed the discarded dessert, along with the plate, into the waste bin and shot off to refrost Francesca’s most popular sweet. She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead and swallowed as panic soared through her veins, sparkling out to her fingertips like ribbons of electricity.

‘Don’t tell Fran, please. I’ve already had to bake a new batch of zeppola after my first attempt turned out more like overblown popcorn.’

‘My lips are sealed, mia pulce ,’ Sofia assured her, as she wafted out of the kitchen before reappearing immediately.

‘One tiramisu and a slice of your spectacular mango cheesecake, please,’ called Sofia, her voice bursting through Lucie’s reverie as she jammed the dessert order onto the nail in front of her and disappeared again.

‘Okay,’ she mumbled, barely registering the request.

She reached for the dessert glasses and assembled the ingredients on autopilot as her thoughts continued to spiral down into a helix of despair. Had her late nights at the restaurant and her desire to squeeze every ounce of knowledge she could from Gino before moving on to start her own business driven Alex into the arms of another woman?

Oh, God! It was all her fault!

She grabbed the canister of cocoa powder from a shelf of spices that she’d set out with military precision, and sprinkled a generous dusting over the tiramisu she had prepared earlier. She was so tired, physically and emotionally, that she looked at the soft, smooth surface of cream cheesecake and wondered what sort of pillow it would make. She had been unable to sleep for any more than a couple of hours a night. Her days felt like she’d been cast adrift from her moorings as her emotions swayed from sadness, confusion and misery through to pain and anguish, and finally landed on indignation and anger and a desperate need for answers, before the pendulum swung back again to humiliation, shame and an urge to crawl into a hole and stay there until her heart stopped aching. It was all so exhausting.

‘This the tiramisu?’ enquired a harassed Sofia. Lucie hadn’t even noticed she’d returned and was loitering impatiently at her side.

‘Yes,’ she muttered absently as she set about decanting a vanilla-bean-infused pannacotta and adding swirls of home-made raspberry coulis and mint jam in a lacklustre pattern on a white china plate.

‘Great.’ Sofia sneaked a glance at her. ‘You sure you’re okay, Lucie? You don’t look… well, as though you are totally with us this evening.’

‘I’m fine.’ She flicked her blonde curls from her cheeks behind her ears and once again forced a wide smile onto her lips.

Sofia rolled her eyes, took the proffered plate of tiramisu and a glass schooner of zabaglione and strode off back to the dining room.

Lucie continued on autopilot as she created her usual array of desserts, but minus their usual flourish, until she was jolted from navigating the labyrinth of her misery by Francesca bursting into the kitchen holding a china dessert plate aloft with a half-eaten slice of tiramisu in its centre. Her face was unusually pale, but her lips were stretched into her customary restrained annoyance.

‘Lucie?’

‘Hm hm?’

‘Is this the dessert you prepared for table ten?’

‘Oh, erm…’ She squinted at the plate before meeting Sofia’s frantic eyes. ‘Yes, yes it is – cappuccino tiramisu.’