Shopaholic Ties the Knot (Shopaholic #3) 42

Gosh.

“If you like chocolate, we can construct a cake purely from different varieties of chocolate.” He turns to another page. “This was a dark chocolate sponge layered with chocolate fondant, white chocolate cream, and a Grand Marnier truffle filling.”

I had no idea wedding cakes could be anything like this. I flip through dazedly, looking at cake after spectacular cake.

“If you do not want the traditional tiers, I can make for you a cake to represent something you love. A favorite painting… or a sculpture…” He looks at me again. “A Louis Vuitton trunk, perhaps…”

A Louis Vuitton trunk wedding cake! How cool would that be?

“Antoine? If you could just come here a moment?” Robyn pokes her head out of a small meeting room to the right — and although she’s smiling, she sounds pretty harassed.

“Excuse me, Miss Bloomwood,” says Antoine apologetically. “Davina. Some cake for Miss Bloomwood to taste.”

A smiling assistant disappears through a pair of double doors — then returns with a glass of champagne and a china plate holding two slices of cake and a sugar lily. She hands me a fork and says, “This one is passion-fruit-mango, strawberry, and tangerine mousseline, and this is caramel creme with pistachio and mocha truffle. Enjoy!”

Wow. Each slice is a light sponge, with three different pastel-colored fillings. I don’t know where to start!

OK… let’s go for mocha truffle.

I put a piece in my mouth and nearly swoon. Now this is what wedding cakes should all be like. Why don’t we have these in England?

I take a few sips of champagne and nibble the sugar lily, which is all yummy and lemony — then take a second piece and munch blissfully, watching a girl nearby as she painstakingly makes a spray of lilies of the valley.

You know, maybe I should get Suze a nice cake for her baby’s christening. I mean, I’ll get a present as well — but I could always buy a cake as a little extra.

“Do you know how much these cakes are?” I ask the girl as I polish off the second slice.

“Well… it really varies,” she says, looking up. “But I guess they start at about a thousand dollars.”

I nearly choke on my champagne. A thousand dollars? They start at $1,000?

For a cake?

I mean, how much have I eaten, just now? That must have been at least $50 worth of cake on my plate!

“Would you like another slice?” says the girl, and glances at the meeting room. “It looks like Antoine is still held up.”

“Ooh, well… Why not! And could I try one of those sugar tulips? You know. Just for research purposes.”

“Sure,” says the girl pleasantly. “Whatever you like.”

She gives me a tulip and a spray of tiny white flowers, and I crunch through them happily, washing them down with champagne.

Then I look idly around and spy a huge, elaborate flower, yellow and white with tiny drops of dew. Wow. That looks yummy. I reach over a display of sugar hearts, pick it up, and it’s almost in my mouth when I hear a yell.

“Stooooop!” A guy in whites is pounding across the studio toward me. “Don’t eat the jonquil!”

“Oops!” I say, stopping just in time. “Sorry. I didn’t realize. Is it very special?”

“It took me three hours to make,” he says, taking it gently from my hand. “No harm done, though.” He smiles at me, but I notice there’s sweat on his forehead.

Hmm. Maybe I should just stick to the champagne from now on. I take another sip, and am looking around for the bottle, when raised voices start coming from the side room where Robyn and Antoine are closeted.

“I deed not do this deliberately! Mademoiselle, I do not have a vendetta.”

“You do! You bloody hate me, don’t you?” comes a muffled voice.

I can hear Robyn’s voice, saying something soothing, which I can’t make out.

“It’s just one thing after another!” The girl’s voice is raised now — and as I hear it clearly, I freeze, glass halfway to my mouth.

I don’t believe it.

It can’t be.

“This bloody wedding is jinxed!” she’s exclaiming. “Right from the word go, everything’s gone wrong.”

The door swings open and now I can hear her properly.

It is. It’s Alicia.

I feel my whole body stiffen.

“First the Plaza couldn’t fit us in! Now this fiasco with the cake! And do you know what I just heard?”

“What?” says Robyn fearfully.

“My maid of honor dyed her hair red! She won’t match the others! Of all the bloody inconsiderate, selfish…”