“You tell me.”
He shouldered out of his sweat shirt like a boxer shrugging out of his robe before a fight.
Britt laughed. “It’s so nice to feed someone who has a sophisticated palate for chocolate. Finally!”
“No one around here cultivated a sophisticated palate while I was away?”
“No. They’re all still novices. You’re the only one who’s ever taken advantage of my excellent coaching.”
He picked up a hand-dipped dark chocolate. He’d taken advantage of her coaching, but not only that. He’d also read numerous books on the subject of chocolate.
“I knew you’d choose that one first,” she said smugly.
Dark chocolate with nuts had long been his favorite combination. He let the chocolate soften in his mouth, then chewed slowly. He’d thought he’d stored the taste of her chocolate successfully in his brain. Now that he was tasting it again, he realized that ... no. His memory hadn’t done it justice.
Crossing her arms, she leaned her hip against the island and waited for him to make a guess.
For her dark chocolates, he knew that she used either seventy-two percent extra-bittersweet, sixty-four percent bittersweet, or fifty-five percent semisweet. For her lighter, sweeter chocolates she used thirty-eight percent milk chocolate or twenty-nine percent white chocolate. “Sixty-four percent bittersweet chocolate with macadamia nuts and Grand Marnier,” he said.
“It’s rum, not Grand Marnier.”
“You’re not going to give me credit?”
Britt shook her head. “I would have given you credit if you’d stopped after macadamia nuts. You were trying to show off when you said Grand Marnier. Pride was your downfall.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
“I can do better.”
“Prove it.” She handed him a napkin and a glass of ice water.
He sipped the water, as she’d taught him to do between chocolates, then ate a truffle. “Seventy-two percent extra-bittersweet chocolate dipped in white chocolate and rolled in pumpkin pie spice.”
“Yes!”
He lifted his eyebrows to gloat. “I nailed that one.”
“You did,” she agreed. “Even though you couldn’t resist showing off again by noting the pumpkin pie spice.”
“Yeah, but this time I was certain. I’ve been gone a long time, but I’m still a chocolate savant.”
“You may still be a chocolatesoussavant—”
“Not all of us can be master chocolatiers.”
“—ifyou can nail at least two of the remaining three chocolates.”
“I thrive under pressure.”
“And I thrive at humbling those whose taste buds have deteriorated during their international travels.”
“You’re about to eat those words.” He’d sought out chocolate in every country he’d visited. He’d sampled it, sent Britt pictures of it, and mailed the best of it back to Washington for her to try. If he screwed this up, it wouldn’t be because he didn’t know chocolate. It would be because he was too distracted by Britt, who was wearing purple tennis shoes, who’d painted her short fingernails gray, whose name was stitched onto her chef’s coat in cursive.
He ate a dome-shaped molded chocolate.
For years, he’d been praying that Britt would fall in love with him or that he’d fall out of love with her. God hadn’t answered either prayer. So when he’d left on his trip, he’d hoped the passage of time might change his heart. However, Zander’s love for her had proven stronger than his own willpower.
Than distance.
Than time.
