Decadent Dreams
Author
A.C. Arthur
Reads
16.3K
Chapters
19
Chapter 1
Prologue
Five hundred cupcakes in fifty minutes.
“No problem,” had been Belinda Drayson-Jones’s immediate response. What else was she going to say? This was her job and she was expected to be perfect at her job as well as everywhere else.
And just to make it interesting, the request was for five different flavors: chocolate-vanilla, classic vanilla, red velvet, triple chocolate and her absolute favorite, dark chocolate vanilla. One hundred of each. Again, no problem.
She’d premixed all her batter so that now it was just a matter of the baking and icing and finishing with crystalized sugar that sparkled with cheerfulness and always went on each cupcake she prepared. It was her signature, one she was more than proud of.
Her kitchen was meticulous, she thought, looking around at the work space on the twelve-foot stainless steel counter. There were three counters lining the baking room of the renowned Lillian’s Bakery. Twelve-foot-long shelves—fully stocked with every ingredient they needed for all the recipes prepared at Lillian’s—obediently against one wall. Professional ovens on another.
The aroma sifted through the room and her stomach growled but there was no time for food. She only had time to work. “Twenty more minutes,” she whispered to herself. The cupcakes were ready to come out. Ten minutes to cool and another ten minutes for icing—and that all boiled down to five hundred cupcakes in fifty minutes.
“No problem,” she repeated, slipping on her oven mitts and heading to the ovens.
She took out the first tray so fast she didn’t even look at the cupcakes. It was when she pulled out the second tray and turned to place it on the table that she saw the jiggle. One triple chocolate wasn’t completely done. Not a problem, she could put back in this tray. She still had time. Except when she reached for the next tray, the vanilla batter wasn’t all the way cooked either, because there were big bubbles erupting from each cupcake.
A frown, then a silent curse, and Belinda pulled out another tray to have a closer look. The oven was blazing hot so she knew that wasn’t the problem. And before she could give the problem closer scrutiny, there was a popping sound like an explosion, and red velvet batter splattered all over Belinda’s face, running down her cheeks and dripping on the black-and-white Betty Boop apron.
A scream bubbled in her throat and died there because Belinda would not succumb to useless reaction. It wasn’t her style.
There was a sound behind her and for a quick second Belinda was afraid to turn around. When she did, disregarding that particular emotion she despised almost as much as creamed spinach, it was to see cake batter dripping from every surface in the kitchen. The once pristine countertop she’d been working at was now full of gushing vanilla cake batter. From the supply shelves dark chocolate batter dripped slowly, hitting the floor with a sickening splat.
On instinct Belinda looked at her watch to see the time. Four minutes left.
No prob— She paused before finishing that statement because now the dripping batter was like a hailstorm, the sound loud and resounding, matching the quick pitter-patter of her heart. Her fingers shook; sweat beaded her brow. And then it began, the panic attack that had her bending over quickly trying to catch her breath.
“No. No. No,” she repeated over and over, while the scent of cake batter permeated her nose and the sound of loud ticking echoed in her ears. It was a clock and it was ticking down the time. Time, Belinda thought dismally. She was running out of time.
