Page 21 of Winning Her

“Sorry!” I called out an apology, taking the next slip of paper.

Normally, the menu would be planned, and I had about thirty percent option in the planning. My menu changed every few days to add or remove certain pastries or desserts, though there were some that always remained because they were old favorites and always sold out. I knew there could be lots of orders and it would be too ridiculous to try and bake a cake when they were asked for, so I had several different types of cakes baked from earlier in the morning once I started my shift.

The day passed by slowly for me after the lunch service, which always happened when the only thing that I wanted it to do was to go by quickly, so I didn’t get distracted again. By the time I’d finished making all the dessert orders for the evening, I was worn out. Everyone else cleared out of the kitchens, leaving me alone.

Laura found me lying down on a couch in the staff room twenty minutes later.

“Tired?” she guessed, then let out a loud sigh. “Me too. No, I’m exhausted. Tired is just a small way to describe how I feel at the moment and I felt even worse when I heard the good news.”

I arched an eyebrow at her.

“What good news?” I asked.

She smiled brightly, her voice sounding fake when she brightly exclaimed. “Mason’s plane landed today! He’s also at the hotel, right at this very moment!”

“I didn’t hear that,” I said, frowning.

She sighed, plopping down across from me again, fake bright expression dropping. “That’s because he hasn’t started making demands or making a mess yet. I heard he came to the hotel and went right up to the office.”

She stopped and looked at me with a deep frown, but I didn’t need her to finish her sentence. He must have gone to where Trent was.

“Well,” I said, jumping off the couch, suddenly energetic. “Do you want to start cooking here or in the kitchens? I even bought extra ingredients, so we won’t have to use anything of the hotel’s.”

I headed over to the small staff room kitchen, and Laura followed behind me.

“I thought we’d be doing this at your place,” she admitted.

I sighed. “Yeah, but my quarters are a bit too small to cook in. I usually just eat all my meals here or go to my mom’s.”

“Over at the mansion?”

I nodded. “And I won’t be going back there for a while.”

Hopefully, there would be no more accidental run-ins with Trent in the hotel, and I could survive his trip without seeing his face one more time.

“So how are we doing this?” Laura asked as I set up the ingredients on the counter. “I cook some, but I don’t bake, so you’re going to have to teach me.”

“That’s fine. We’ll go together. I have this recipe that I love off the top of my head, so I’ll just give you directions, and you can help me. Is that okay?”

She grinned at me with growing excitement. “Definitely!”

We started, me calling out for Laura to measure ingredients and hand them over to me as I mixed the batter, then left it to her as I went around setting the oven to preheat, and preparing the tray that would go in. I went back to layer the cake, and between the two of us, the preparation was done in no time, and I was sliding it into the oven.

“That was surprisingly easy,” Laura said, watching the oven’s glass window.

“Baking is pretty easy when you get used to it, actually, so it’s no surprise. I’ve been doing it with my mom since I was a kid.”

She hummed. “I never really did much with my mom growing up. Except maybe argue.”

I frowned at her. “Do you guys not get along? Is that why you don’t tell me about your family?”

“No, I don’t talk about them because there’s nothing to talk about. I’m not as close to them as you are with yours, but we’re okay.”

I looked after the baking cake as she went around the kitchen, looking for a couple of long glasses, then finding where the wine bottles were stashed.

“What do you think would go best with this?” she asked.

It made sense she would ask me, as the chef and all, and I went over to see the selection. I picked a light red, a sweet wine that would just be perfectly coupled with the dessert. No one would mind seeing it missing as long as I replaced it, as was the silent rule with all the staff.