Sweet Distraction ✔︎

[1] 𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅 𝑪𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓

**Quick A/N**
If you didn't check out the characters of Sweet Pleasures, then I must inform you, Isabelle Lockhart is actually Jupiter Rhoades' sister. I changed Isabelle's surname for an idea in this book. ❤️

If you didn't read Sweet Pleasures, then no problem, I hope you enjoy this one...

❦︎

Six more months of evil whipped cream.

To Isabelle Lockhart, it might as well have been six years.

Royal icing? Bring it. Sprinkles? No problem. Powered sugar, marzipan, buttercream? She was on it. Even delicate, easily torn fondant didn't faze her. But one look at the stainless steel whipped cream charger with it's secret nitrous oxide chamber and specific rules for temperature, shaking, and dispensing, and dread pooled at the pit of her stomach.

She wiped the back of her forehead with the back of her hand. Keep it together. She had to rally. She was rallying. When you were asked-okay, told-to cater the extensive dessert table at a high-society bachelor auction called "Cream of the Crop," you had to bring your A-game. Even though the Rainbow Palace Bakery's new pastry chef was sick with the stomach flu, and the coordinator of the event was a massive pain in the ass.

Isabelle set the serving utensils on the dessert table, which was draped in silky black cloth and spanned half the length of the wall in the great room of the historic Spanish-style Villa nestled in the foothills of the same Santa Cruz Mountains. Open doors led to the back terrace and majestic courtyard surrounded by wisteria and slender palms. Laughter and conversation flooded into the house as guests floated around the marble fountain in a sea of tuxedos, glitter, silk and champagne glasses.

Isabelle hurried back to the industrial-sized kitchen and opened refrigerator. She could do this. Pastry chef Sophia who had actual professional certification in cake decorating and therefore knew what she was doing, had explained everything. All Isabelle had to do was pipe a few ribbons, stars, and swirls onto the desserts before bringing them to the display table.

She transferred the multitude of trays and platters from the refrigerator to the granite counter. She'd brought all of the bakery's specialities-cream puffs, custard-filled eclairs, layered trifles, mango napoleons laced with caramel sauce, apricot rolls, chilled pineapple mousse dotted with pistachio silvers, hazelnut praline torte, lemon charlotte encased in ladyfingers, and of course the famous Declairs, the hybrid eclair-doughtnut confection her sister Jupiter had invented before she'd gone off to study with famous pastry chefs in Paris.

"Hope none of the guests are lactose intolerant," Isabelle muttered to herself as she pulled a blackberry pavlova from the fridge and set it on the counter.

Time for a whipped cream throwdown.

She turned to the sink, where the charger parts were strewn like the detritus of a grenade with its chambers and valves.

Dispenser chilled.

Cream poured.

Sugar and vanilla added.

Isabelle dropped the piston into the charger, screwed on the head, and inserted one of the gas cartridges into the chamber. She repeated the process three times.

She felt like she was readying for battle instead of piping a rosette onto a mille-feuille. This bakery business wasn't her real job. She was just running the Rainbow Palace bakery for a few months while Jupiter completed her pastry-making course and internship. When Jupiter would come back to Rainsville and take over the bakery again, Isabelle would be free to get back to her regular life of travel and blog writing.