The Parisian Christmas Bake Off Read Online Free PDF Page B

statue.
    The oven timer pinged but Rachel couldn’t take her eyes from her globe. Chantal wandered over, peered in through the oven door and, smelling the freshly baked bread in the air, she sighed.
    Finally tearing herself away from the plastic dome, Rachel glanced at Chantal and said, ‘Would you like some bread?’
    ‘Oh.’ Chantal rested her hands across her waist and stood as if this were what she’d been waiting for all along. ‘If it is not an intrusion.’
    Rachel shook her head. If anything it was something of a relief to have someone there with her.
    A few minutes later Chantal was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, smiling through a mouthful of warm, soft bread.
‘C’est très bon. Parfait.’
Tearing off another piece, she said, ‘You make very good bread.’
    ‘Thanks.’ Rachel didn’t really hear; she was somewhere else entirely, overwhelmed by the smell of fresh-baked bread and distracted by her snow-globe and the red cushions.
    ‘Yes. It is very good.
Très bon
. Like the
boulangerie
at the end of the road.’
    Rachel thought again about what her mum would say:
One more chance. For me
.
    ‘You compete,
oui
? For the bread? That is the competition.’
    ‘Pretty much. With Henri Salernes.’
    ‘Oh la la, Henri Salernes. Very grand. Whatever happened to him? I had his book. Very good, a very clever man. Trying to prove too much too young, I think. That is what the papers say if I remember, grew up badly—not a good home, you understand?’
    ‘I don’t really know that much about him. Just that he was an amazing baker once.’
    ‘
Oui
, once. He was the youngest and the most celebrated. He changed the way we bake. Then it all goes, pouf, like that. All the money on the drink and the drugs, I think. It is always on the drink and the drugs. Silly man. He had a lot of talent. But…’ she held her arms out wide ‘…
c’est la vie
.’ She popped the rest of her slice of bread in her mouth. ‘Well, if I was the judge, you will win already. You do very well.’
    One more chance. For me
.
    ‘Very well. Very good bread.’
    For me?
    OK, Mum
. She nearly said it out loud, nodding and holding tight to the globe.
    ‘You find it better? Yes?’ said Chantal, following her gaze from the snow-globe to the rest of the room.
    ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Rachel replied. ‘I find it much better.’

Chapter Six
    Next morning Rachel arrived at the pâtisserie with all the flowers snipped off her apron, determined to prove to Chef Henri he was wrong about her.
    Then she might leave.
    Walking up the stairs, she came across a man in a suit who flattened himself against the wall to let her pass.
    ‘
Merci beaucoup,’
she said, not really paying attention, caught up in her determined stand against Chef.
    ‘It is my pleasure,’ he replied as she passed. His perfect English made her glance back. Short, neat black hair, sharp, tailor-made slate-grey cashmere suit, thick, dark eyebrows that drew together now over big brown eyes as he watched her looking at him.
    ‘Thanks,’ she said again and then felt foolish. ‘I er…’ she started, pointing up the stairs.
    But he just held two fingers to his forehead in a salute and smiled before turning away and clipping down the stairs.
    She watched him leave, pulling on a dark grey woollen coat as he got to the bottom step before yanking open the door into the icy cold. A lingering smell ofexpensive aftershave and soap made her close her eyes and consider how well groomed the French were. She breathed in again, trying to catch the scent once more, but it was gone. Running her finger along her bottom lip, she did a flash replay of the momentary conversation in her head and found that all she could remember was his eyes.
    ‘He is nice,
non
?’ Françoise, who worked in the pâtisserie, had stuck her head out of the doorway that adjoined the corridor and was following Rachel’s gaze.
    ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know,’ she said too quickly.
    ‘He is very nice, I am