Page 6 of Tempting Mr. Knightly

Lucy didn’t look up. “This is regular brioche.”

“Regular brioche doesn’t require that level of violence.” He leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee. Marco was tall and broad-shouldered, with a patient, open face that made people tell him things they shouldn’t. He’d been a line cook, a prep chef, and briefly a sous chef at a place in Williamsburg that charged forty dollars for pasta. He’d left because the head chef threw plates. Marco didn’t tolerate chaos unless it was Lucy’s, because Lucy’s chaos came with excellent pastry.

“The butter was cold,” she said.

“The butter is always cold at five in the morning. That’s never made you attack it.”

She looked up. His expression was neutral, which was his version of concern. Marco didn’t press. He observed, he waited, and eventually the person across from him talked because the silence became more uncomfortable than the confession.

Lucy wasn’t going to confess.

“We have the Jensen order at eight,” she said. “A dozen assorted Danish, two dozen scones, and those cinnamon rolls they special-ordered for the staff meeting.”

“I remember. I prepped the cinnamon filling last night.” He paused. “Who is he?”

“Nobody. There’s no he.”

“You burned the croissants on Tuesday.”

“The oven was running hot.”

“You burned the croissants. You reorganized the entire walk-in cooler at midnight on Thursday. And you’ve been playing Adele on the kitchen speaker for two weeks straight.” He paused for effect. “That’s not an oven problem. That’s a man problem.”

Lucy covered the brioche with a towel and set it aside to proof. She washed her hands in the big steel sink, the water running hot over her knuckles, and didn’t answer Marco’s question because answering it would make it real, and real was unacceptable.

“Start the scones,” she said. “I’ll handle the Danish.”

Marco held her gaze for a few more seconds, then nodded and moved to his station. He was good at reading when to drop it. He was also good at picking it back up later, when her defenses were lower and the coffee had worn off. She’d deal with that when it came.

The morning rush started at seven. First through the door was Mr. Petrov, who came every weekday for a black coffee and an almond croissant and left exact change on the counter because he considered tipping “an American extravagance.” After him came Dana with her twin toddlers, who ordered four muffins and consumed approximately one, while the two distributed the rest across the floor, their stroller, and Dana’s left shoe. Then the commuters, a blur of to-go cups and brown bags, the register beeping steadily while Lucy moved between the counter and the kitchen without breaking rhythm, a smoothness that came from the experience of building something with your own hands and refusing to let it fail.

By seven fifteen, Mrs. Hadley was out sweeping the sidewalk next door. Lucy could see her through the window, her dry cleaner apron tied tight over a floral blouse.

Mrs. Hadley had managed the building for thirty years. When Lucy came to her with a business plan written on the back of old Golden Lotus menus, Mrs. Hadley had made a call to the absentee owner and talked him into renting to a twenty-four-year-old with no credit and a dream. The space had been a failed sandwich shop before that, and a failed juice bar before that. Mrs. Hadley had looked at Lucy, looked at the business plan, and said, “The rent is twelve hundred. Don’t be late. Don’t burn the building down.” She’d kept the rent below market ever since, and the owner never questioned it because Mrs. Hadley had been keeping his building profitable for decades. Lucy suspected Mrs. Hadley’s loyalty had something to do with the fact that her daughter lived in Seattle and never visited.

The back room of the bakery had a narrow staircase that led to Lucy’s apartment, one flight up, behind a door she could lock, the only space in the building that was hers alone. She’d painted the kitchen yellow herself the year she opened, hung her mother’s old wok on the wall, and learned to sleep through the sound of the walk-in cooler cycling on and off below her. It wasn’t much. But it was hers.

Mrs. Hadley caught Lucy watching through the window and gave a single nod. It was the warmest greeting she offered anyone. Lucy nodded back.

This was her world. Flour & Honey, the morning regulars, the hiss and clatter of a kitchen doing what it was supposed to do. She’d built it with her own hands after watching her parents lose everything. The restaurant had closed, her mother spent months afterward unable to leave the apartment, and her father, who’d owned his own kitchen for thirty years, started working as a line cook at a chain restaurant in Flushing because he needed the paycheck more than the pride.

Lucy had decided two things at twenty-two. She’d never depend on anyone with money and a signature to decide whether her livelihood survived. And she’d build something that belonged to her so completely that nobody could take it away.

Flour & Honey was that thing. Every recipe on the board was hers. Every regular knew her name. The lemon bars were famous in Park Slope, the brioche sold out by nine, and when The New York Times food section wrote a small piece about “Brooklyn bakeries worth the trip,” Flour & Honey was third on the list.

She’d framed the article. It hung beside the family photo behind the register, the one of her parents, her sister Jane, and Lucy at twelve years old, standing outside Golden Lotus on the day of its twentieth anniversary. Everyone grinning. None of them aware it had ten years left.

Lucy’s gaze caught on the photo, her father’s wide grin, her mother’s hand on Jane’s shoulder, and she looked away.

Her phone rang at eight forty-five. Tessa’s name on the screen.

Lucy wiped her hands on her apron and picked up. “If you’re calling to order, Marco already set aside your cinnamon roll.”

“You’re a saint. But that’s not why I’m calling.” Tessa’s voice had that polished brightness she used when she was about to deliver news she expected Lucy to resist. “We’ve moved the wedding up to September.”

“September. As in five months from now.”

“I found a venue I love. It’s only available in the fall.”