Devil's Food Cake [✓]

6 | bakewell tart

After Christmas was done and dusted, we took three days off before opening shop again. I expected to see Zachary Malone again, but a small part of me was disappointed I didn't see his handsome face.

Now I was working the late afternoon shifts at the bakery. As school had restarted, it was a bit of a handful keeping up with dual problems: coursework deadlines and snappish teachers breathing down my neck.

The bakery was my solace — my time to forget about the stresses of the day before my dad and I went back home in his car together.

'Oi, Candy, get your arse down here and help me with icing these cakes!' Dorothy was a twenty-something woman who may have looked pretty and petite, but she had a huge temper.

Despite a negative attitude, she managed to be my dad's favourite apprentice due to her inventiveness with her cake-making.

It helped that she was also the daughter of my dad's mate Oliver Kane, who was head chef of Clarrington's hotel, so she'd inherited his skills in the kitchen.

Wrapped my apron around my waist and rushing to her side, she gave me a nozzle and I noted she'd been icing the cakes in red cream cheese frosting.

'You're late.' She grinned to herself, as she watched as I continued where she left off.

With a sinking heart, I knew what was going to come next. She was building up to take her daily rant out on me.

'Sorry, but I had to come from H—, so there's not much I could do with traffic and all.' I focused on the cupcakes in front of me, satisfied my attempts at icing were neater than Dorothy's.

She sighed, tapping her fingers against the counter. 'You're lucky your dad's the boss.'

Dorothy shot me a discontented look. I think she would have preferred if I didn't even work in my father's bakery.

My dad was delighted I was eager to follow in his footsteps when it came to being a chef, so he'd done everything in his power to help me out.

In turn, I knew that he was very close to winning a Michelin star any day now, so I worked my socks off. For his bakery to be awarded such an honour would have been the crowning achievement in his career so far.

I laughed in disbelief at her snide remark. 'Speak for yourself, Dorothy.'

She grunted something which didn't sound too flattering and soon got distracted by her phone. I'd caught her sexting her boyfriend a couple of times, much to her annoyance, but nowadays she didn't even care that she wasn't supposed to be on technology during her shift. As long as she managed to do the work quickly and to a high standard, Dad was none the wiser. To her defence, she was going to be a skilled pastry chef if any of her tantalising, unique creations were anything to go by.

'There was that hot dude asking for you, by the way. His dad's a regular at Clarrington's. Did not expect to see the son in person. Quite a wild child,' Dorothy said, eyes still glued to her phone.

'Huh?' I mumbled, drizzling some chocolate sauce on top of the cake. 'What hot dude?'

Dorothy looked up from her phone and snorted at my ignorance. 'No one, love! Don't worry your cute little head about it,' she said in a sing-song voice and laughed.

I shrugged and focused my attention on making some chocolate shapes on the grease proof paper. It was fairly obvious that Dorothy was having one of her weird moments, so it was better for us both if I didn't even attempt to wrangle an answer out of her.

Although, I could help wondering that perhaps the 'hot dude' in question was a certain moody, sweet bastard called Zachary.

As I stepped back into the shop floor with my cakes sitting pretty on the tray like blossoming roses, I began to arrange the cakes on the display window, humming the title song to Cats under my breath, helping a few customers with their enquiries.