Page 14 of Royal Icing

“Good. How’s the hip?”

“It’s fine, sweetheart. The doctor checked it at my appointment today.”

The timer on the oven dinged. That was the choux.

“Good. I better go. Please be safe.”

“You too, sweetheart. Give Coop a big hug from Gigi.”

“Will do. Love you.”

Emma hung up and pulled the choux out of the oven. She breathed a sigh of relief. They seemed normal, so the Fahrenheitto Celsius conversion must have worked. It was hard enough to bake with minimal ingredients without having to convert everything.

She eyed the tarts. They were cool enough to top. She had rescued a bag of apples and a few quarts of raspberries from the refrigerator with the chef’s permission. These tarts wouldn’t be nearly as spectacular as she usually aimed for, but hopefully it would be enough to give the queen an idea. And then maybe she would provide some concrete direction.

Over the next forty-five minutes, she piped vanilla crème and intricately arranged each tart. Not her best work, but they were still beautiful in their own slapdash way. She dusted the raspberry tarts with powdered sugar and added edible gold leaf she had found in the pantry. Painstakingly assembled apple rosettes donned the other tarts.

She turned her attention to the next task, the caramel sauce for the croquembouche, but her bladder screamed at her. She definitely needed to pee before starting that task because caramel waited forno one.

After five solid minutes of doing a pee dance down the hallway, she finally found a powder room.

She barely recognized the person staring back at her in the elaborate gilded mirror. There was flour on her cheek, and her eyes were hollow from lack of sleep. She splashed some water on her face and took a deep, cleansing breath. Everything was going to be fine. She was a damn good pastry artist, and she was going to show this kingdom what a Brooklyn girl could do.

When she stepped back into the kitchen, panic flared in her chest. A man stood next to the oven. One of her raspberry tarts was in his hand, and there was a dusting of powdered sugar on his cheek.

He turned to look at her, warm brown eyes regarding her over the tart. He inhaled sharply—in surprise maybe?—and his eyes widened.

“Oh, hi,” she said.

Hang on a second. Was that the mega hot maintenance guy Cooper had peed on this morning? It couldn’t be.

His face was growing red, and his eyes were bugging out. The tart tumbled to the floor.

“Oh my god. Are you okay?” she asked.

His hand flew to his throat. His eyes were wide in alarm.

Holy shit. He was choking.

She leapt into action, crossing the kitchen in three quick strides. Her mind ran a mile a minute. She had no idea what the local emergency number was. The staff was gone for the night. She was the only thing standing between him and death.

Her training took over. She stood behind him and draped an arm over his chest. She guided him down to a bent posture, then administered five back blows between his shoulder blades. Her hand stung, and adrenaline surged through her body. The stranger nearly collapsed, but she used every ounce of her strength to keep him up.

There were no breaths. The pastry was still lodged in his throat.

She pressed herself to his back and wound her arms around him. Her heart pounded fast and hard in her chest. His life was in her hands. If this didn’t work, she needed to run screaming into the castle until someone came to help.

She found his belly button and rolled her fist up.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said to him, but her voice was shaking.

She thrusted her fist into his abdomen, inward and upward as hard as she could. She had never given the Heimlich maneuver to someone so tall.

Five thrusts as hard as she could manage. Nothing. Her hands shook as she returned to back blows. One. Two. Three—oh, thank god.

A glob of pastry shot out of the stranger’s mouth and onto the tile floor. They both collapsed to their knees in front of the oven.

She scooted in front of him, anxiously peering into his face. His color was returning to normal, but his breath was coming in ragged gasps.