Sweet Dreams (A Sugar Rush Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

mother’s éclair recipe to Pierre Lacroix, or at least to his people,” she mused. “Even if I’d never be accepted into the course.”
    “Do not put that attitude out into the world,” Ramona said sternly, opening one of her plastic jewelry cases.
    An array of colorful stone pendants sat inside the case. After some examination, Ramona removed a shiny, gray-green stone that flashed with iridescent colors of peacock blue and gold.
    “Labradorite.” Ramona reached across the table and attached the chain around Polly’s neck. “It protects your aura from negative energy and enhances your intuitive powers.”
    “Thanks, Ramona.” Polly admired the shiny stone resting against her skin.
    Her intuitive powers could certainly use enhancement—especially if both Brian and her behavior with Mr. Hottie were examples of how badly those powers had failed her. And certainly her business intuition had proven to be nonexistent.
    For her, at least, the air of Wild Child still echoed with the sound of folk music, conversation, laughter, and the rhythmic cadence of beat poetry. And her mother was still in the center of it all—bringing customers fresh pastries, refilling their coffee for free, listening to their stories, asking about their families.
    Jessie Lockhart had always been so vibrant, so interested in everyone and everything. She was the reason Wild Child had thrived. Polly couldn’t be the reason it failed.
    She wouldn’t be. And her mother would love the idea of her éclair recipe winging its way to France and Pierre Lacroix. With that thought in mind, she pulled up the application and typed in her name.

    After a long day at the bakery, Polly spent the evening writing her essay for The Art of French Pastry course application. She contacted her Hartford Community College teachers to request letters of recommendation, ordered copies of her transcripts, and came up with a “personal philosophy” of how serving artfully crafted baked goods was an expression of love and friendship.
    She finally managed to get a couple hours of sleep on her lumpy old mattress before hauling herself up at seven-thirty to get ready for a visit to the corporate headquarters of The Sugar Rush Candy Company.
    The instructor of her Confectionary Technology course, which was part of the curriculum for her Culinary Arts certificate, had arranged a class tour of the company’s test kitchen and labs, and they were scheduled to meet in the lobby at nine sharp.
    Polly dressed with care in a blue embroidered tunic and skirt, packed her satchel with a new notebook and pens, and drove half an hour to Indigo Bay, a wealthy, flourishing town south of the San Francisco Bay Area that prided itself on its coastal beauty and historic culture.
    The downtown square and streets were lined with boutiques, art galleries, and cafés, with the residential neighborhoods stretching into the foothills and toward the rocky coastline. Ivy-covered cottages, cobblestones, and secret courtyards gave Indigo Bay a fairytale atmosphere, which was somewhat fitting given that the town was ruled over by the family who owned a candy company.
    But Polly wasn’t fooled by the charming quaintness of Indigo Bay—this was an expensive town where the rich, computer-tech crowd came to eat at gourmet restaurants and taste fancy wines before going to the theater and actually buying paintings at the numerous art galleries.
    The sprawling campus of The Sugar Rush Candy Company was on the outskirts of town, a collection of brick buildings perched on a grassy expanse of land overlooking the coastline. The test kitchens and laboratory were housed in a stately warehouse with towers that made it look like a fortress.
    Polly checked in at the gate and parked in the designated lot for visitors. She’d never been to the Sugar Rush campus before, but it had been featured in several architecture magazines as a stunning example of the ways in which corporate offices could blend into the