Vanilla Dipped In Chocolate

Prologue

Prologue

Nana always said a way to a man's heart was through his stomach, but the way to keep him in your bed was to serve him something sweet every now and then. She married my grandfather when they were both 17 and they have such a loving marriage. When I was growing up they were my Cinderella and Prince Charming. But when I hit the real world and started dating, I knew I had to look a lot further to find my prince.

  When she was 14, my grandmother took Cassandra into the kitchen, tied an apron around her waist and taught her how to make her first cake. A chocolate swirl with butter icing. I'd never felt so pleased of myself, as I decorated my cake, not letting my grandmother touch it... in case she ruined it.

  By the time she came back, "little Cassie" had transformed the ordinary looking cake into a masterpiece. Her grandmother quickly brought the whole family over to gawk and fawn over it, the little Payne girl outshined her grand-momma, at least that was what they said.

  Word of my baking skills spread through town like a common cold. By the following year,she had a steady business going and her gran enrolled her into a pasty programme at the community center in town. She was the youngest person there but every Saturday, she replaced my tam for a pastry hat.

   When she was 18, while everyone was figuring out what they were going to do with the rest of their lives, she was attention one of the top culinary schools in the country and then threw herself into the sweet world of pastry, cake after cake, competition after competition. After a while she had gotten a reputation for being the best and the clients started oozing in. 

After those long years away from home, she opened my bakery in Los Angeles intent on being where the famous people were, moving the entire family out to the Hollywood Hills with the money from her first celebrity client, Ela Donnavan, the soap actress.

  Life's been good to her in the last six years. As she looked up from the bowl in front of her peeking around the corner still whipping the mixture. 

He's here again...the white man who looks at her like  as if I am an alien.' She bit her lip, setting the bowl onto the counter.

He's kinda cute if you like the scruffy,ragged type.

  Chocolate and vanilla don't mix unless its in a chocolate swirl cake. She tapped the side of the side of the bowl pouring the contents into the nearby baking pan. Everytime she made the cake, the memories were so sweet that she just wanted to burst into tears. She slid the tray into the oven closing the door, a smile on her face.

"The hardest bit is in the baking girl. The baking and the waiting" She remembered her nana telling me what seems like 100 years ago.

With folded arms, leaned against the nearby cupboard.

Now for the waiting...