Baby on Board

Prologue

Tuesday brunch time was never a particularly busy period at La Pétite Pâtisserie. By ten-thirty, our morning rush was over and it was only our regular customers that walked through the doors, be it the laid back art posse from the gallery down the road or the wealthy trophy wives that stopped by after their weekly Harrods visit. Over time, the staff and I had come to know the frequent fliers, but recently, a mystery man had begun to make the corner table his home away from home. 

The girls had taken to calling the man Oz, for reasons I didn't know. Being the owner, I very rarely had time to work 'on the ground', and if on the off chance I was free, I much preferred to spend my time in the kitchen, perfecting the recipes alongside the pâtisserie chefs. That didn't stop me from hearing all about the gorgeous specimen of man, as Lauren had taken to calling him. I'm not sure how much of a compliment that was to Oz- currently, Lauren was in a sex drought and thought everyone was attractive, whether they were or not. That said, Joanne had also gushed about Oz and his perfect hair, perfect eyes, perfect smile... "Perfection," she commented one day. 

"Nah," our nineteen-year-old waitress, Aimee, shook her head in disagreement to Joanne's assessment of the customer. "He's more like... sex god on legs. Yep, that's what he is."

Either way, Oz was a new face around these parts, which alone, was enough to pique the women's' interest. The fact he was handsome to boot won him favours, albeit, not with our chefs. Nathaniel Hamilton and Arnaud Bertrand had long been the apple of the female staffs' eyes, but with stiff competition from Oz, the chefs were soon passing judgement on the man, too.

"His eyes are too close together," Nathaniel explained on a Friday afternoon some weeks ago. He'd come in to give me the order form for ingredients we were short of but the conversation- on his side, at least- quickly turned to Oz. "You can't trust a bloke whose eyes are too close together. Honestly, Lauren could do so much better than ogling him all the time."

I resisted the urge to make a comment about Nate's very obvious crush on Lauren and simply nodded in agreement. Arnaud, a Frenchman of few words, hardly sung Oz's praises either. Un conard, Arnaud distastefully muttered. I'm not sure what Oz had done to offend Arnaud, but considering the Frenchman rarely swore, calling a stranger a bastard was a telling sign. 

Still, I never made judgements on people without knowing them. Maybe Oz was a perfect sex god on legs, whose eyes were too close together and was a bastard, but I don't see how that would of any importance to me.

"Oh, my God, Charlotte," Aimee squealed as she mysteriously appeared in the doorway of my office. Not looking away from the spreadsheet that filled my computer screen, I paid Aimee no attention. As lovely as Aimee is, the girl was far too happy for my personal liking and her perky outlook on life was slightly naive. Thankfully, the customers didn't mind her demeanour. "He's back! Oz is back. You have to come see for yourself because Lauren and Nate are arguing about it and Arnaud is muttering gibberish and Oz is asking for you. Personally. He even called you Charlotte. Do you know him? Have you been holding out on us all this time? If you do know him, could you put in a good word for me? I'd owe you big time."

When Aimee finally stopped for breath, I looked away from my computer and stared at her. "Why is he asking for me?"

"How would I know?" Aimee shrugged, a touch of confusion in her features. Suddenly, she perked up. "Want me to go and ask him? I'll go ask him."

With that, she spun on her heels and skipped out of sight. Presumably, she was making her way back down to the shop, but I hoped she wouldn't go through with her threat to ask the guy why he was asking for me. With a soft grunt at being disturbed and having to go sort out my staffing issues, I pushed myself up out of my seat and made my way down to La Pétite Pâtisserie.