Jessica's Fate

Chapter 122

April...

I frowned, staring at my phone for a moment when Cam's number rang in. I quickly dusted the flour off my hands and wiped them. He rarely called when I was at the patisserie so this was obviously something important. "What's up?"

"Jess..." His relief was almost palpable.

"What's wrong?" I was on edge immediately.

"Nothing. I mean, nothing urgently wrong." He said. "I need a favor though."

"Ah, interesting." I teased. "Lemon tarts?"

"No, I mean, sure if you've got some though." He laughed. "I have a friend who just got into town with a client and my pastry chef at the hotel just walked out. Can you please bring me a selection of croissants and other nice pastries for a really high profile customer?"

"I'm off in an hour, is that too long of a wait?" I asked, already moving to grab a box and starting to fill it with fresh croissants that I'd just pulled from the oven. I added all three types that we had on hand, plain, chocolate and almond before grabbing a different box to put a selection of tarts, lemon, fruit and chocolate as well as a variety of our current macaron flavors. "How high profile?"

"Uh... he provides personal security to people. She's a fairly recognizable American actress filming here in France." He said, after a long pause that made me think he was talking to his friend. "And an hour's fine."

"Okay, I've grabbed a variety of items and I'll swing by the hotel on my way home, okay?"

"Sounds good. I owe you." His voice dropped slightly.

"It's seriously not a big deal. I have pastry, you need pastry... win win." I reassured him. "Let me know if we need to discuss a partnership between the hotel and my chef. I'm sure he would entertain the idea of assigning a student to your hotel kitchen in exchange for the publicity and advertising." My own voice dropped as I made the suggestion.

"I'll look into it." He said. "And pay you back with a foot rub later."

"Done." I laughed. "See you soon." I clicked out of the call and tucked my phone away. I headed into the back with my boxes before settling with the cashier on what I'd taken for the order. I took a quick moment to propose the potential opportunity to Chef about a working partnership with the hotel.

Chef promised to consider it, dependent on what sort of an answer or solution Cam needed after talking with his general manager.

I wrapped up the end of my shift and took a moment to quickly redo my hair and touch up what little make up I'd put on when I left the house this morning. It wasn't that I needed to make myself look better for Cam, it was more the prospect of meeting an actor.

And fine.

Cam's Friend.

We didn't talk much about friends and family outside of what we had already discussed when we first met but this was even bigger than the actor. This was someone from Cam's life in the states that I was possibly going to meet.

I looked down at myself, mentally cataloging if I had enough time to stop at home and make any changes but I decided that would take too long, since our place was on the opposite side of the hotel from where I was coming from.

I instead, beseeched my work bestie to loan me the sweater and scarf she'd worn to work today, promising that I'd make her a dozen cupcakes of her choice within twenty four hours. So I set off, wearing a lovely pink sweater and with a floral scarf holding my hair back away from my face. I made decent time, carrying the boxes.