His eyebrows rose. “Croissants? I can barely make toast.”
“Then this should be educational.” She handed him a spare apron—one of her grandfather’s old ones, faded blue denim that had survived decades of kitchen work. “Put this on. And prepare to fail spectacularly.”
Cal took the apron with exaggerated solemnity. “I’ll try not to burn the place down.”
“That’s the spirit.”
He was terrible at it.
Absolutely, gloriously, hilariously terrible.
Within twenty minutes, there was flour in Cal’s hair, on his shirt, streaked across his left cheekbone despite the fact that his hands had never gone above his shoulders. The dough had stuck to his palms in great, glutinous clumps that required aggressive scraping to remove. And when she’d asked him to fold the butter into the laminated layers, he’d applied such enthusiastic pressure that butter had squirted out the sides like a culinary crime scene.
“How is this possible?” Dahlia gasped through her laughter, bracing herself against the counter as Cal stared mournfullyat his butter-coated hands. “You’re a CEO. You run hostile takeovers. How can you not fold dough?”
“Hostile takeovers don’t require fine motor skills.” He held up his hands, butter dripping between his fingers. “This is a disaster.”
“It’s magnificent.” She couldn’t stop laughing—the deep, helpless laughter that made her sides ache and tears blur her vision. “I’ve never seen anyone so confidently wrong about laminated dough.”
“I was following your instructions.”
“I said gentle pressure. You went at it like you were trying to subdue a hostile witness.”
Cal’s expression was pure wounded dignity, which made her laugh harder. He grabbed a towel and began wiping his hands with exaggerated care, but she caught the smile tugging at his lips. The tension that usually lived in his shoulders had eased. He looked younger. Lighter. Almost playful.
“Fine,” he declared, tossing the towel aside. “Show me the right way. I’m clearly in need of remedial education.”
Dahlia moved to stand beside him at the counter. She pulled a fresh portion of dough from the fridge—they’d need to start over with properly chilled butter—and began the demonstration.
“The key is patience.” Her hands moved with practiced confidence, pressing and folding with a rhythm that came from years of muscle memory. “You can’t force the layers. You have to coax them. Let the butter soften enough to be pliable, but not so much that it melts into the dough.”
Cal stepped closer, watching over her shoulder. His body heat pressed against her back, and she became acutely aware of how close he was. Close enough that she could feel his breath stir her hair.
“Like this?” His hand covered hers on the rolling pin, and Dahlia’s breath stuttered.
“Yes.” Her voice came out huskier than intended. “Exactly like that. Slow. Steady. Consistent pressure.”
They worked in silence for a moment, his larger hand guiding hers through the motions. The dough cooperated this time, stretching into a smooth rectangle. Dahlia folded it into thirds, rotated it, and began again.
“You make it look easy,” Cal murmured near her ear.
“It’s not. I make the hard parts look invisible.” She glanced back at him. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”
He met her gaze. “I’m starting to realize you’re better at it than most.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
DAHLIA
By 2:00 a.m., the croissants were in the oven.
They’d salvaged the butter catastrophe by starting over with fresh dough, and Cal had improved marginally on his second attempt, which mostly meant he’d gotten flour on half his face instead of all of it. The kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off, but it was the good kind of chaos. Creative chaos. The kind Dahlia associated with her best late-night experiments.
She slid down to sit, back against the cabinet, legs stretched out in front of her. Cal lowered himself beside her with a grunt that might have been lingering soreness from his injuries.
“I haven’t done a thing like this in years.” His head tipped back against the cabinet door, eyes half-closed. “Maybe ever.”
“What, make terrible croissants at two in the morning?”
