Beautifully Decadent (Beautifully Damaged Book 3) (2 page)

“Where are your wives?”

It was Trace who answered. “Girls night at my house.”

Looking across the table at Trace, he was grinning into his beer. Probably thinking about his three-year-old, Faith, and her obsession with painting nails. She tried to paint mine during one of her visits. She has these doe-eyes that could tempt a person to do just about anything. I’d been spared, Ember took pity on me, but I suspected Trace didn’t dodge that bullet as often as he’d like.

“Emily had a suitcase of nail polish, brushes and makeup. She’s three. I don’t understand why Darcy encourages that.” Lucien sounded disgusted, but he was grinning like an idiot. The man was completely besotted with both his wife and daughter. Enough that Emily often brushed and braided her dad’s hair. I don’t know that he knows I know this, but Darcy was very forthcoming one night after one too many glasses of wine.

Taking a pull from my beer, my thoughts turned back to my dad. I never really talked about him. My friends knew; Trace and Lucien had both been around when I was in my teens and had started getting into fights, doing petty crimes. I was acting out. At thirty-four, I got it. At fourteen, I was just angry, really fucking angry.

“My dad’s getting out soon.”

All eyes turned to me. “I saw him today. It’s kind of a mind fuck that the next time I see him we’ll be standing outside Sing Sing and not in it. I asked him, for the first time ever, why he did it. The bills were piling up, he couldn’t see a way around it, he’d lost his job and the temporary one he had wasn’t paying enough. I can’t imagine I’d walk into a bank with a gun, but then I don’t have a kid to feed. I guess it’s different when you have others depending on you.”

“You think you’ll reconnect with him now that he’s getting out?” Trace asked the question I’d been rolling around my head since seeing Dad earlier. There was a part of me that was okay with leaving our relationship as is, but I had missed him. Besides, he was likely going to feel off-balance and would need familiar faces to help him acclimate. And I had Sister Margaret, the nun who had helped raise me at St. Agnes, to thank for that annoying—always do the right thing—conscience.

“I think so, if for no other reason than to help him adjust to life outside.”

“And it will be an adjustment, shit, just technology alone has changed so drastically.”

Lucien wasn’t wrong.

“We talked about the case, how the two who did the job with him ended up dead. I wonder if the cops ever figured out what happened to them.”

“You could always ask Josh to look into it, even Shawn since he’s a licensed PI now.” Trace suggested.

“Oh yeah? Good for him.” Josh was Ember’s uncle and Shawn was her dad who had moved from Philly to the Bronx to be closer to his daughter and granddaughter. “Maybe I’ll give them a call. It might be nice to give Dad closure on what happened to those two. I’m not sure how much he was entitled to hear while in jail.”

“Josh is working on a few things for me already. Do you want me to ask him the next time I talk to him?” Lucien asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Trace signaled to the waitress before changing the subject, “I’m interviewing for a new pastry chef at Clover.”

That’s not something you hear every day. “How the hell do you interview for a chef?”

“They have to feed me.”

I had never seen one so big and so perfectly formed. I was ruined for all others, nothing could compare to the perfection before me. My fingers itched to touch it, feel it. I wanted it in my mouth, wanted to feel the texture on my tongue, the burst of flavor sliding down my throat would surely have my eyes rolling into the back of my head.

“Oh, Avery, your soufflé turned out perfectly.”

Hunching down, getting eye level with the masterpiece, I couldn’t help the grin because Mom was right; I totally rocked this.

“Is that what you’re preparing for the interview?”

Interview, just thinking about it had my stomach quivering. Pastry chef, I was doing it, reaching for my dream, and even being deliriously excited, there was a healthy dose of fear too. After graduating high school, I’d worked at the local bakery and I enjoyed it. In the beginning, I liked the routine and the familiarity of what the customers wanted—vanilla and chocolate, cupcakes and birthday cakes, éclairs and donuts. After a while it got old. I wanted to do more, wanted to express myself through my desserts, so I made the move I’d wanted to but feared I wasn’t good enough for. At twenty-four, I enrolled in classes, four years studying baking and pastry arts at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. I did well in school, really well, picking up on the techniques with ease. I graduated with honors and still I was floored when I had a few interviews lined up before the ink had dried on my diploma. The interview I was preparing for now was pastry chef for Clover—a posh restaurant in Manhattan. The executive chef went by the name of Chef but his real name was Francois Moree. He was a legend, anyone who was anyone in the culinary world knew of him. He studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, most notable for his mastery in spice infusions. The fact that someone of his reputation would be sampling my desserts was surreal. In preparation for my interview, I did a bit of research on the owner of Clover, Trace Montgomery, since he too would be sitting in on the interview. I didn’t know anything about him—thank God for the Internet—and discovered he was a self-taught chef who owned a cooking school called Everything. And with the possibility that he was a hands-on boss, a fair assumption since he planned to be present at the interview, my sister and I were enrolled in one of his classes so I could see firsthand how the man worked. In the meantime, I practiced for the upcoming interview in my mom’s kitchen, reworking my recipes. I had to prepare three different desserts to wow their palettes.

“I’m practicing technique, but the soufflé is a bit cliché.”

“With the chilies and cardamom, it’s hardly cliché.”

I could bake butter cookies and Mom would think they were the tastiest cookies ever made. The thought brought a smile. Looks were deceiving when it came to Anna Collins now Green. Petite and unassuming, she really was a force to be reckoned with. She was like the flour in a recipe, a staple. Mom and Dad divorced almost fifteen years ago and both had remarried. Dad to Dolly, her name now was Dolly Collins, no lie. Half my dad’s age, Dolly had the IQ of a twig and the personality of an enraged badger. Now she was like the powdered sugar on top, without it the dessert may not look as pretty, but you’d likely not miss it. For whatever reason, she didn’t like my sister or me. My fifty-year-old father married a twenty-four year old—one year older than my sister—who had more hair than sense, but
she
didn’t like us. And it wasn’t insecurity or low self-esteem that fed her nastiness. She was just a bitch. Twelve years later, they now lived in Manhattan. That was the one downside if I got the job at Clover, I’d likely see Dolly more often. She’d insist on it so she could look down her nose at me. She didn’t work, and though Dad wasn’t crazy loaded, he was very well off, enough that Dolly could dress in designer clothes and get her hair and nails done every week…huge life ambitions that one.

Mom married Harold Green, owner of one of the bigger car dealerships in our town. His job was his first marriage, had dedicated his life to it, and now he dedicated his retirement to my mom. They were getting ready for their big adventure: RVing across the country. Harold purchased the largest RV known to man, a small house on wheels. Mom decorated it and had spent the past few weeks stocking it with food.

“You have your hotel room booked?” Mom asked as she dipped her finger in the bowl of chocolate I had melted.

“Yes. You didn’t have to pay for it.”

“We did. It’s just terrible that we aren’t going to be around for moral support, the least we can do is make sure you’ve got a roof over your head.”

“You’ve had this trip planned for almost a year, I only learned of the interview a few weeks ago.”

Mom waved off my comment, “Doesn’t matter. At least Nat will be around to be your cheering section.”

Natalie was my sister; she was five years older than me but sometimes she acted about five years younger. She was scattered, flighty and to those who didn’t know her, an airhead but in truth she was a genius. Literally. A brain surgeon. Nat was like the baking powder in a recipe, lots of air bubbles.

“What will you do about your living arrangements if you do get the job? I know staying with Nat is out. Has your Realtor found anything?”

It was true; Nat had offered me her sofa, but her apartment was the size of a closet and the kitchen was nonexistent. These are things I could have learned to adapt to, however her place was a pigsty. I guess working in the field she did, when she got home she let it all hang out. I wasn’t going to change her, but I also knew I couldn’t live with her.

While attending culinary school, I had lived in a small apartment near the school, but the landlords were catering to the students of the school. I had to move out when I graduated. Natalie had offered to subsidize my living, but no longer being a student it was a point of pride that I earn my own way and since I didn’t have a job yet, my current residence was Mom’s. I had someone looking for apartments, but so far no luck. “Not ones that are affordable. I didn’t realize how much it cost to live in Manhattan when it wasn’t being subsidized by the coolest landlords ever.”

Something twisted Mom’s expression, probably thinking about Dad living in Soho. Dolly insisted, even though they could have gotten a bigger place for the same money just across the river in New Jersey. She wanted the zip code.

“You could always commute from here, there are several lovely homes for sale that are very affordable.”

Clearly Mom wanted me here, but our town in Pennsylvania was about two and a half hours from Manhattan by train. Commuting that long held no interest for me. “It’s too far, Mom. I’ll be spending almost five hours every day on the train.” If I didn’t land a pastry chef position, I’d be checking out those homes since I doubted I’d find a job at a bakery in New York where I made enough to live there too. “I’ll cross the housing hurdle when I get to it.”

She touched my hair, tucking it behind my ear—something she’d been doing since I was little. “You’re going to get the job. I’ve no doubt and not just because I’m your biggest fan. You’ve a gift, Avery. I’ve known that since your first time in the kitchen when you added the dried blueberries to the chocolate chip cookies, but only after you reconstituted them. You were six.”

“You’re also my mom, so you’re a bit biased.”

“Yes, but I also love sweets and yours are my favorite.”

“Mine too.” Harold stepped into the kitchen wearing pink, plaid shorts and a yellow polo shirt. His gray hair was thick and long, falling to his shoulders. For a man in his sixties, he kept himself in really good shape. Fun, charming and slightly odd, he complemented Mom’s more serious nature perfectly. He was the butter in a recipe, adding not just flavor but a welcomed lightness. His focus was on the soufflé on the counter. “Tell me we’re eating that for dessert.”

Squeezing Mom’s hand, happy that she found her soul mate the second time around, I turned my attention to Harold. “I’ve got to fill you up now, since you won’t be getting desserts like this on the road.”

Harold flashed me a smile, “That is definitely a strike in the con column.”

Standing outside Everything, Natalie was practically jumping up and down. Unlike my petite five foot two frame, Natalie was five foot ten, long and lean, with blond hair that hung past her shoulders and blue eyes that tended to change color depending on what she was wearing. Me, my hair was auburn and my eyes green; my coloring so different from the rest of my family that Nat often teased that I was the mailman’s. My mom—knowing I used to have an issue with my figure when looking at my svelte sister—called my build hourglass, which was code for boobs one size bigger than I wanted and a perpetually fat ass. I was okay with that though because I enjoyed every calorie I ate to create the curves I had.

“Nat, if you don’t stop acting like you’ve got fireworks going off in your pants, you aren’t going in there with me.”