Page 13 of The Billionaire's Cinderella

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Ella

“You needto get your head out of your ass,” Aunt Gilda tells me in a stage whisper.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, startled out of my daydreams about the sexy man who’s still got me feeling exquisitely tender between the thighs. Since I’m not prepared to explain why I’m so distracted today, I duck my head and put my back into giving the countertop next to the register the wipe down of its life. Whatever it takes to avoid eye contact.

The Monday morning rush at Valentina’s Bakery has been insane, which suits me fine. The busier I am at work, the less time I have to think about my unprecedented Friday night with Ryker Black.

In theory, anyway. In practice? Not so much.

As a pastry chef, I’m used to working long and hard. My day starts in the dark predawn hours when we do all the prep work and baking. Conditions in the kitchen are hot, messy and often tedious. Also fragrant, fun, rewarding and thrillingly creative. Valentina’s is a patisserie, which means that if you’ve got a taste for a glazed yeast doughnut, you’re out of luck. But if you’re in the mood for tortes (fruit and cream), éclairs, crème brûlées, macarons, croissants and the like, step right up to our little hole-in-the-wall storefront with its pink awning. We’re happy to have you.

One of the biggest rewards of my job is seeing the eager and excited faces of the customers lined up around the block every morning at seven when we open our doors.

The other big reward, other than this career that I love?

Getting to work with Gilda Arnold, the owner of Valentina’s and my lifelong mentor in the pastry arts.

Otherwise known as Aunt Gilda, my late mother’s never-married older sister.

If you’re imagining a short and squat grandmotherly type with a flowered apron and reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose and secured by a beaded chain around her neck, think again. Aunt Gilda is slim, brisk and chic behind the counter in her starched black trousers, pink apron and short and spiky white hair. Her signature clothing item? Her fitted white shirts. They all feature a little flair, whether it’s a bejeweled collar or embroidered cuffs. She’s got wicked skills with a sewing machine and makes them herself. She doesn’t suffer fools, whether they’re customers, employees or family members. I tend to think of her of the Anna Wintour of the baking world. No detail about her domain is too small to escape her notice.

That, unfortunately, includes my mood on any given day.

She purses her lips and gives me one of her patented scathing looks.

“You don’t know exactly what I’m talking about, Ella. Don’t you play dumb with— Excuse me, ma’am. You don’t need a whole handful of napkins,” Aunt Gilda tells some hapless customer who’s on her way out with her pink paper bag in hand. “You got one chocolate Napoleon. You need one napkin. One. Let’s work on saving a few trees, shall we?”

“Sorry,” the woman says, looking startled and embarrassed as she doubles back around, puts most of the napkins back and makes a beeline for the door before she gets accused of any other nefarious behavior.

“You’re always welcome here,” Aunt Gilda calls after the woman, who can’t disappear down the sidewalk fast enough. “Don’t be a stranger. Bring your friends next time. We live for word of mouth.”

This always puzzles me. “You bully the customers and then want them to come back and bring their friends,” I tell Aunt Gilda as I quickly duck into the kitchen, then bring out a tray of fresh mille-feuilles and slide it into the tall cart behind the display case. “If they all come back and bring their friends, where are we going to put them? We’ve got five tables, and you shoot me down every time I mention expanding or relocating to a bigger space or opening a second store.”

“Oh, now she talks,” Aunt Gilda says, efficiently rolling up her embroidered cuffs (butterflies today) before spritzing all the tables with cleaner and wiping them down. “I can’t get you to engage all day Saturday. All day Sunday. You can’t sit still. You daydream. You forget things. You don’t talk. And now, suddenly, you emerge from your own thoughts to criticize me. Nice.”

“We could grow. Maybe even start doing wedding cakes. That’s all I’m saying,” I tell her, trying to keep this conversation on track lest she zero in on why I’ve been out of sorts for the last couple of days.

“Growing takes money. Or credit. I have neither.” She straightens all the chairs. “I don’t have a magic wand to wave around and produce stacks of money. And growing is a young person’s game, in case you didn’t know. I’m old, tired and cranky.”

She got hit hard by complications from her appendicitis surgery last year and is still dealing with the financial fallout.

“I’m young and perky, with good credit,” I say brightly.

“No,” she says, scowling. “We’ve talked about this. I’m not going down that road with you.”

“But—”

“You’re still trying to shovel your way out of your student loan debt. My sister—rest her soul—would spin like a rotisserie chicken in her grave if I let you do anything foolish with your finances. So forget about it.”

At this mention of my mother, who got cancer and died when I was a senior in high school, we both glance above the register, where there’s a glamorous oversized black-and-white shot of her dancing with her skirt twirling. She was about my age, twenty-four, when the shot was taken. She loved to dance. Ballet. Latin. Modern. You name it. That’s why she moved to New York from Minneapolis all those years ago, the same as a million other dancers who wind up working in the service industry or other professions instead to make ends meet. She had big dreams.

Don’t we all?

Anyway, people tell me I look like her, but that’s not true. I could never be that pretty. The sight of her banked smile and sparkling eyes triggers a familiar wave of loss and longing in my chest, but now is not the time.

“Speaking of a blast from the past, I’ve been meaning to mention that I ran into Liam the other night,” I say quickly, before we make ourselves and each other sad with this mention of my mother.

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