Macarons at Midnight Read online

  They sat there in the clean, modern conference room with framed prints of the department’s biggest coups, ad wise, and not much else in the way of distractions. After Tristan had looked at some Nike warm-ups, a wristwatch, and some really posh shoes for about thirty seconds each, there wasn’t any excuse not to turn his eyes back to Wendy and Jordan. Wendy smiled nervously again. Tristan started to think she might be all right. Jordan smiled his smarmy grin as well. And they sat. And sat.

  Until ten minutes later, Shatara bustled in. She was tall and elegant, with very dark skin, a very pretty face, and very, very expensively dressed. She was one of the ones to impress. Tristan knew it was not a good idea to make a cock-up of things in front of her.

  “Morning. I assume you’ve all made introductions? I’m Shatara,” she added, as though any of them needed to be reminded of that fact. “I wanted to bring each of you into this team for specific reasons. Jordan, your ad copy has been on point lately. I’ve been enjoying it, and I think it’ll work for our target. Wendy, I liked your creative vision on the Guess campaign. We’re going for a similar market here. Tristan, I want your layouts.”

  She passed out thick folders to everyone at the table. “I think, between the four of us, we can land this account.” Shatara clicked a slide to open on the slide projector. A young girl’s face filled up the screen. “Charity Parker. She’s developed a new fragrance called Shooting Star to be sold worldwide in boutiques, department stores, Sephora, Ulta, and even drug stores. Everywhere you can buy a fragrance, Charity Parker’s face will be all over the shelves. Our job is to sell it. Or at least sell her team on the fact that we can sell it.”

  Tristan was vaguely aware of Charity Parker. She was an American pop star, might have had a show on the telly before she blew up everywhere. It wasn’t really his cup of tea, the kind of music she sang, but he knew her face: blonde, sweet, generically pretty, a little bratty. Well, there’s the model done already. At least, if they got the campaign, they wouldn’t have the massive problem of finding a suitable recognizable celebrity to endorse the stuff and paying out the nose for them.

  Shatara passed out bottles of the fragrance. It was pink, which seemed par for the course as far as youth fragrances went, and the bottle was suitably blinged up and shimmery for the same teen market. He opened it up to take a whiff, and managed to spray a big squirt of it right in his mouth straight away. Blooming shocker, that was. Tristan tried to get rid of it discreetly. He noticed Wendy smiling, but her smile looked more commiserating. Like she was laughing with him, not at him. Jordan, of course, was a different story.

  “You like the pretty perfume, Jolly?” Jordan chuckled. “Seems like it would be right up your alley, you know, with your….” Jordan flapped at his wrist. Tristan was so shocked, he couldn’t even speak. In front of a boss?

  “Excuse me?” Shatara said sharply.

  Jordan looked up, eyes wide with surprise. Apparently, he’d momentarily forgotten Shatara was in the room when he’d opened his mouth and acted like a complete cock, as per usual.

  Shatara, whom Tristan had already come to like quite a bit over the course of the morning so far, gave Jordan a pensive look. “I thought you were going to work well on this team, but I believe I was wrong,” she murmured. Shatara never raised her voice; Tristan already knew that wasn’t her style. She didn’t have to. “Team members of mine don’t demean each other, in public or otherwise. For any reason.” Which, of course, was completely unrealistic for her to believe, but if she wanted to enforce that ruse in her presence, at least, Tristan was all for it.

  Jordan looked taken aback for another moment, then schooled his face into a pleasant smile. “I apologize. Maybe it was just a rough start to the first meeting.” It was the nicest Tristan had ever heard him sound.

  “No. I think I’m going to find someone else who will be a better fit with this account and this team. You can go, Jordan. Thank you. Perhaps another time.”

  Holy shit, that was fast. Tristan looked down at the table. He didn’t want to make eye contact with Jordan and sure as bleeding hell didn’t want to smile. It wouldn’t do him any good to look smug, and smug was exactly the way he felt at the moment. He trained his face to be still until the swish of the conference room’s glass door signaled Jordan’s departure. He was sure to catch hell for it later, but at the moment, the victory felt sound.

  “I’ll work on finding him a replacement, but for now, why don’t you take the dossiers home with you tonight and look through them. We’ll try this again tomorrow.”

  Tristan and Wendy stood, took their thick files from Shatara, and made hasty exits.

  JORDAN WAS sat at Tristan’s desk when he returned to his floor of the building. He had his feet propped up, crossed at the ankle, and he was munching on… wait. What the hell? He was eating Tristan’s lunch.

  “That’s mine. Are you insane? Like an actual crazy person?” Tristan swatted at Jordan’s shiny loafers. It was the first time he’d really lost his cool in front of the others. He felt their stares.

  “It looked tasty, and I was hungry. Seeing as though you got me kicked off of the Venus Glow team, I figured you owe me.”

  “I—” Tristan sputtered, unsure of how to even defend himself. He couldn’t very well say Jordan had gotten himself kicked off the team for acting like a jackass in front of Shatara. He gritted his teeth. At the rate he was going, he was going to need new ones by the time he moved back home. “Please get out of my chair. I have work to do, and you’ve no reason to stay here.”

  “Yes, Princess Jolly.”

  Tristan sighed. It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?

  “HENRY, I’M going to need that batch of black-and-white cookies. Are they done?” Millie called from the front. Henry had just finished them, the final batch of cookies for the day. He jogged out front with the tray and slid them into his display case.

  “It’s only eight in the morning. How can the cookies already be gone?” he asked breathlessly.

  Millie shrugged. “I guess word got around that they were the best in the neighborhood. It’s mostly been kids coming on their way to school.”

  Just as she spoke, another gaggle of girls spilled in through the front door of Henry’s shop. “I can’t believe school started already,” he muttered. “Here. I’ll help these guys if you want to finish arranging the tray.” They gave each other breaks from the front room on days when it was busy. Sometimes it got a little intense.

  “Okay, I will. You need to hire someone, H. We’ve talked about this.”

  “I know.” Henry sighed. He really did need to hire someone. Millie was right. He’d just gotten so lucky with her and didn’t know where else he was going to find someone that amazing again.

  The girls had all crowded around his display cases, plaid skirts, blazers and ridiculously expensive handbags all squished together in a giggly, long-haired, scented, high-end pile.

  “How can I help you ladies?” He put on his best smile, the one that got customers to buy more than they’d come in for.

  “Four black-and-white cookies,” one of them said. She was tall, with long blonde hair and a huge smile.

  “I recognize those uniforms,” Henry said. “Hunter Academy, right? You’re a long way from school.”

  “We heard your cookies are the best. How did you know that’s where we go?”

  “I went there too. My family lives… uptown.” He didn’t want to give more details than necessary. Turned out he shouldn’t have bothered.

  “You’re Henry Livingston, aren’t you?” the blonde asked. “My older sister used to date your sister Trixie’s ex-boyfriend Chet.”

  Henry decided he was never talking to anyone ever again. Chet was not his favorite person. It had been a few years since he’d seen or heard of him. Not long enough.

  “He’s a douche,” one of the other girls added.

  Henry sputtered out a laugh. “Here are your black-and-whites. How ’bout four sugar cookies on the house for havin
g great taste.”

  Blondie gave him a wink. Clearly she hadn’t heard everything about him. “Thanks. We’ll be back. And I’ll be sure to spread the word about the best cookies in Manhattan.”

  FIVE HOURS later, Henry’s shelves were nearly empty—a big change from when he’d first opened a year before and had had nearly a shop’s worth of leftovers every day for a month. He was sweaty and tired, but happy tired, the kind where he’d worked hard and everything had gone well. Millie had been bustling back and forth, filling the display for their afternoon customers. Their crowds usually came in waves, one in the morning, then lunch, and a last little surge around four before they closed at five. Millie usually handled that one on her own, and closed the shop down since Henry usually got there somewhere around four in the morning to start baking.

  “How are you doing on the dough?” Millie asked.

  “Great. I have most of it mixed up and ready to bake off in the morning. I can’t believe I’m actually ahead of things for once.” He hadn’t been ready for how much work it would be. Baking was very different in pastry class than when he was running his own shop, small as it was.

  “Sweet. Why don’t you take off a little early? It’s going to be quiet in here for the rest of the afternoon, anyway. I think the lunch crowd is pretty much over.”

  “You okay with that?”

  “It’s why you’re paying me the big bucks.” Millie smiled at him. Tease or not, they both knew she didn’t want to work anywhere else. She just wanted some help. Henry vowed to get on that as soon as possible.

  Henry trudged to the back room and grabbed his messenger bag. Leaving early. That was something completely new for him. He’d just made it out to the front of the shop and was about to say good-bye to Millie, when the door flew open and his sister blew in on her usual burst of perfume, scarves, and the clip of expensive shoes. This time, she wasn’t alone.

  “Hey, Trix.” Henry glanced warily at the heavily coiffed, expensive-looking woman behind her. She had dark hair and pale eyes, plastered-on jeans that looked like they were tailored exclusively for her, riding boots even Henry had to admit were beautiful, a flowered blouse, tweed jacket, and a handbag worth more than all his baking equipment combined. This was definitely Trixie’s kind of friend.

  “Hi, H!” Trixie said. Her smile was cheery and huge, and she was exuberant as always. Her friend was considerably less so. She surveyed his tiny shop coolly, a serene smile on her face. Henry liked to hope he wasn’t being judged. He knew he was.

  “This is my friend Poppy. Remember?”

  Poppy? Henry wracked his brain, trying to think of when Trixie had ever introduced him to someone named Poppy. She had an entire army of well-bred friends, so it could’ve happened at any time. Poppy… Poppy… Uh yeah! The macarons. “It’s really nice to meet you.” He stuck out his hand to shake hers. Poppy’s hand was cool and manicured and her ring finger had a rock the size of the Titanic on it. He hoped she didn’t try to swim with that monster. She’d sink to the bottom.

  “Aren’t you the cutest thing ever? I could just eat you up.” Henry smiled his most winning smile. Her accent was soft and lilting compared to what Henry was used to. Southern, he imagined. He wasn’t fooled by the sugar. He had a feeling she would eat him if he didn’t make her happy. Most likely while he was still alive and squirming. “So, Henry, darling, your sister told me you were the best baker in the city. I have a job for you.”

  He wanted to kill his sister for overpromising. Or promising anything at all. “Trixie’s just being a good sister. I’m far from the best. But I’d be honored to have my cookies at your party. Macarons right?”

  “Yes, macarons. I just think they’re too cute. The girls love them.”

  “When is the event?” Henry asked.

  “The party is tomorrow, and I know that’s short notice, but Ruby Grace just could not make up her silly mind about what she wanted.” Poppy rolled her eyes. “Girls these days.”

  “T-tomorrow?” Henry tried not to look panicked. “How many do you think you need?” Saturday was one of his busiest days at the bakery, and he already had a morning full of baking lined up. His ovens would be full from four until opening.

  Poppy pulled out a list. “This should do it. And make them colorful. She likes bright colors.”

  Henry looked at the list and nearly had his second heart attack in under a minute. Two hundred in four different flavors—blackberry cassis, anise, passion fruit, and pistachio. Henry breathed a sigh of relief. At least they were flavors he had the ingredients in stock to make. That wasn’t a problem. Time, on the other hand, was. Millie was so right. They really needed an assistant. Too bad he wasn’t likely to find one in the next ten hours.

  He saw Millie eying him from the corner of the shop where she’d gone to hide from Trixie’s friend. Millie had a deep and long-standing hatred of most of Trixie’s friends. Even ones she’d never met. She was busy glaring at him significantly. Henry knew. When the hell was he supposed to bake two hundred macarons and everything else? Never. Not if he was planning on sleeping. Still, he kept smiling, and wrote down Poppy’s order like it was the best thing that could happen to him.

  “We’re going to head out,” Trixie said when he’d finished. “We have lunch reservations.”

  “It was nice to meet you, Poppy,” Henry said with another hopefully charming smile and handshake.

  “You too, sweetheart. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Five o’clock sound about right?”

  “Yes, that’s perfect.”

  “And you’ll help with the setup, I assume?”

  Henry nearly groaned aloud. “Yes. Of course,” he said, smile plastered in place.

  “You want to go get us a cab, hon? I’ll say good-bye to my brother and be right behind you.”

  Poppy waved, and flowed out the door in a fragrant eddy of perfume. It was a skill all of Trixie’s friends had mastered.

  “Don’t piss her off,” Trixie muttered as soon as Poppy had gone. “She will bury you.”

  “No kidding,” Henry grumbled back. He swatted her on the shoulder. “Best baker in the city? Thanks for that.”

  “You are good. I want you to be successful.” She gave him her best winning Trixie smile. Henry had to admit it still worked on him, even though he knew all her tricks.

  “I know. And I love you for that. But please, give me a little more warning when you’re about to bring in one of your society friends. A text, a flare. Heat-seeking missile. Something.”

  “I did text you. Twice.” Trixie raised her eyebrows and smoothed the edges of her flowery scarf down over her shirt. “Might be helpful if you check your phone once in a while.”

  “Oh.” Henry felt dumb. Then again, he never had time to check his phone during the morning rush. Again… they really needed to hire someone soon.

  Trixie leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Love you, bro. Good luck with everything.”

  “Love you too. Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “At a party filled with thirteen-year-olds?” She scoffed. “Kill me now.”

  TRISTAN HAD had a long week, but one of the first good ones he’d had since he’d gotten to town. He really liked Shatara. Not in a grab-a-pint-after-work kind of way, but he respected her. They worked well together, and he felt wanted for the first time since he’d left London. It was also a relief to spend most of the day away from his floor and Jordan’s little crew. He, Wendy, and a new import called Jeremiah, who seemed like a decent guy, had holed themselves up in the conference room with Shatara, tossing around slogans and layouts and color schemes they hoped would sell some ridiculously overpriced celebrity fragrance that kind of smelled a bit like Pimm’s, if you asked him.

  It was Friday, nearly Saturday, according to his watch, and Tristan had taken himself on a much longer walk than usual. He’d honestly gotten himself a bit turned around. It couldn’t be far from his flat—he recognized some of the street names—but he felt like he’d b
een walking in circles for hours through darkened brick-lined streets, past scores of stoops and closed shops.

  THERE WAS a light coming from the corner on the opposite side of the street, bright and cheery, beckoning. Tristan found himself walking a little faster, trying to get closer. It was rarely really dark in the middle of the city, but still, he was somehow drawn to the bright windows.

  When he got there, he realized it was a bakery, obviously closed, but someone was there. The shop was empty but lit up, glowing gold in the night. The walls were bright yellow, the floors black-and-white checkerboard. There was an eclectic collection of bright barstools along the window and the bakery’s lone counter. The shelves were empty for the night, but Tristan could imagine them full of all sorts of gooey, drippy treats, biscuits and cakes, puddings, and mouthwatering buns straight from the oven. There was something magical about the tiny little room, from the checkered floor to the painting of a winged jar of honey flying across the wall with a whimsical little trail of stars behind it. “Honeyfly Cakes and Cookies,” it read under the jar. Tristan liked it. It didn’t make a great deal of sense, but it still made him smile.

  He heard the faint buzz of the radio and soft singing coming from around the corner. He walked around to investigate. When he found the source, Tristan’s mouth went dry. He blinked and looked again. You’ve got to be kidding me. Nobody bloody looks like that. He’d found the kitchen door of the bakery, propped open, probably to let out the ovens’ stifling heat. But that wasn’t what made Tristan stare. It was the baker. He was beautiful. One of the most beautiful men Tristan had ever seen. Maybe even the top of the list. He was dancing along with the music whilst he worked with one of those bag things, squeezing bright pink dough onto trays. Tristan went to move closer, and stubbed his bare toe on the corner of the building.

  “Ow! Bloody fucking wanking shit!”

  The beautiful baker looked up, obviously startled. He froze, staring at Tristan, who wordlessly stared right back. Disapparating would be a fantastic talent to have right about now. Tristan was embarrassed that he looked like a Peeping Tom. And he was also never wearing those stupid sandals ever again.