Bake Off at the Bennet Bakery by Murray V N

Author:Murray, V N
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: jane austen retelling, modern pride and prejudice, modern jane austen, clean contemporary romance, jane austen spinoff, sweet romance, sweet contemporary romance
Publisher: C P Verity
Published: 2022-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

For all that she had been nervous about it, Zoey aced the chocolate, just as Liam knew she would. It was so much easier to have faith in someone else’s skills, rather than his own. The problem was that when it came to himself, he didn’t feel that he could trust his own judgement. It was a surprise that he felt he could trust Zoey, but he chose not to dwell on that either.

At their drinks the other night, he’d felt the most comfortable with her that he ever had. There was nothing like a stressful experience to bring people together, after all. But he could feel himself softening towards her, and that was a problem. Or was it? He still couldn’t decide. The idea of casually dating her was attractive, but the more time he spent in her company, the more mixed up he became. And then there was the question of if she’d even be into it, which wasn’t certain. Oh, she liked him, and he’d caught her looking at him more than once in a way that suggested she found him attractive.

But boy, did he find her attractive. Once she’d taken that chef’s jacket off on croquembouche day, it had been hard to concentrate. Who knew he was a shoulder guy?

More than that, though, he cared about her. He found that he, too, was nervous that day, but rather than nerves on his own account, he felt nervous for her. He understood, perhaps more than she realised, just how important it felt for her to succeed. He didn’t want her to be stuck doing a job she wasn’t passionate about for the rest of her life. He cared that her gift was given a chance to shine.

And boy, did she have a gift.

After the judges had done the rounds, but before they had made their deliberations, he had made his way straight over to Zoey’s bench to try her chocolates. He wasn’t the only one. Charlie was there ahead of him, already waxing lyrical about her truffle interpretation of a Cuba Libre.

Liam’s own chocolates, a cranberry and spiced orange ganache-filled open chocolate, had done passably well. But Beth had been the one to go home. And it had been a shock, because her skills were, and always had been incredible.

He had seen her droop, slightly, under that sadness of it, when her name had been read out. But she’d only done a basic chocolate truffle. It was perfect, of course, and immaculately presented, but a basic chocolate truffle apparently didn’t cut it in a competition like this, no matter how well it was done.

It made him feel like a fraud, like an imposter. Liam could never be said to have the skills Beth had, nor the depth of knowledge. His position in the competition was fragile, and he knew it.

That left Charlie as the only home baker in the competition. Tall and debonair, he’d taken up baking in early retirement, and immediately become hooked. For a man who claimed to bake something at least once a day, he was surprisingly svelte.

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