Sophie Valroux's Paris Stars (Sophie Valroux, 2) - Softcover

Vérant, Samantha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593097742 ISBN 13: 9780593097748

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

In this delectable novel, a chef on the rise fuels her passion for cooking while enduring the hardest challenges she’s ever faced after a debilitating injury.


Everybody wants a piece of grand chef Sophie Valroux. With her once-destroyed reputation fully recovered and then some, Sophie is making her mark in the culinary world. She’s running the restaurants of Château de Champvert, the beautiful estate that she inherited from her grandmother. She and her fiancé, Rémi, are closer than ever, and she’s even bonding with his daughter Lola. Everything should be perfect.

Yet, Sophie still feels something in her heart is missing.

When she’s invited to cook at an exclusive event her culinary idol is attending, she thinks this could be the thing to catapult her to greater heights, maybe even bring her one step closer to her one and only dream of achieving the stars—Michelin stars.

But fate has other plans for Sophie. After she accepts to cook for the Parisian elite, her world crumbles. She suffers a fall and loses her senses of smell and taste. Certain that her career will vanish if people find out, she keeps this secret to herself, not even telling Rémi. She fakes it all: the menus for every meal, the taste of fresh figs, the juicy cherries in the orchard. All she has to do is get through life—and the event—tasteless without missing a single step. Fake it ‘til you make it…right?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Samantha Vérant is a travel addict, a self-professed oenophile, and a determined, if occasionally unconventional, at-home French chef. She lives in southwestern France, where she's married to a sexy French rocket scientist she met in 1989 (but ignored for twenty years), a stepmom to two incredible kids, and the adoptive mother to a ridiculously adorable French cat. When she's not trekking from Provence to the Pyrénées or embracing her inner Julia Child, Sam is making her best effort to relearn those dreaded conjugations.

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1

 

falling headfirst into spring

 

For the first time since Grand-m�re's funeral two short weeks ago, contentment, not grief, filled my heart. I sat in the window seat, gazing at the blue sky, reflecting on the changes in my life. My once-soiled reputation in New York had fully recovered and I was now Sophie Valroux, Grand Chef and ma”tresse de maison of Ch‰teau de Champvert in southwestern France, not the saboteur blamed for costing my former employer in New York a Michelin star. I had a new best friend in Phillipa, who kept me more or less balanced when I was feeling out of whack. And I had the love of RŽmi, my childhood sweetheart. All amazing transformations in the state of my world-save for the fact that Grand-m�re was gone.

 

To keep the occasional wave of remorse from pulling me under, I kept myself busy-planning menus and testing recipes. Rule number one: no crying in the kitchen, so that's where I placed my focus.

 

Cooking always helped me to sort out my thoughts and pull myself together. Making Grand-m�re's recipes, like spring lamb with a fresh mint chutney, the aromas of freshness permeating my nostrils, brought a sense of closure, and I felt closer to her. Food brought on nostalgia, all the happy times I'd spent with her. I needed to move on from my grief, dry up those tears, and forge on. We were going to be extraordinarily busy.

 

In two days, we'd open the gates of Ch‰teau de Champvert to the public. The guests would be arriving in swarms, just like the bees in the ruches at the far end of the property, and we were booked solid from the third of May to the end of October-almost filled to capacity until we closed for the season in mid-December. At the very least, Les Libellules (the Dragonflies)-the ch‰teau's flagship restaurant, which I ran-closed its doors on Sundays and Mondays, so I would have a bit of time off. Sort of. I knew there would always be some kind of challenge to overcome. But I'd risen up from the ashes of destruction before, and spring was a chance for a new beginning.

 

A smile curved across my lips. My gaze shot from the window to RŽmi.

 

He slept peacefully in my bed, his breath rising and falling in soft whooshes. I wore his button-down shirt and held the collar up to my nose, breathing in his clean, woodsy scent. His left hand patted down the bed as he blindly searched for me. I let out a soft laugh, and his long eyelashes fluttered. He propped himself up on his elbows, the sunlight highlighting his muscular arms.

 

"What are you doing way over there? Come back to bed," he said, squinting.

 

I swung one leg down from the ledge slowly and purposefully, swiped my long hair over my shoulder, and smiled. "But shouldn't you get back to Lola?"

 

RŽmi glanced at his watch. "She won't be up for another half hour. Which gives us twenty minutes."

 

"To do what?" I asked, my heart thankful that Laetitia-Lola's grandmother-looked after his daughter when RŽmi snuck out to spend quality time with me.

 

"Whatever we want," he said with a wicked grin. "Get over here, woman."

 

"Did you just call me 'woman'?"

 

"Alors, you are one, and very beautiful at that." He paused, eyeing me up and down. "My shirt looks good on you. Really good."

 

I jumped off the window seat, ran over to the bed, and threw my body onto his. One of RŽmi's hands cupped the back of my neck, and the other grazed my hip with a soft touch. Our mouths molded together and our breaths became one-hotter and heavier, my legs enveloping his waist. RŽmi's tongue became more courageous, and I sighed as he wrapped his hand around my hair, pulling it lightly and tilting my head back. I loved when he did that-a bit animalistic, but hot nevertheless.

 

Our feverish eyes met. His lips brushed against my collarbone. "Do you know how much I want you right now?"

 

I knew. "And I want you, too, but-"

 

"You still want to wait," he said, his eyes not leaving mine.

 

"I do."

 

Aside from passionate kisses and clinging to each other's bodies in extremely heated moments like horny teenagers, we hadn't moved our relationship to a truly physical level. Prior to RŽmi, I'd had only one boyfriend, and we didn't exactly make love. Eric was more like a pile driver and didn't care about pleasuring me. Plus, he'd cheated on me numerous times, the reason we broke up. At the time, my culinary aspirations were more important to me than the state of my heart, but, looking back, I realized he'd hurt me, made me feel useless as a woman.

 

There was no denying the deliciously satisfying chemistry between RŽmi and me, but like a chocolate soufflŽ, the timing needed to be perfect or it would collapse. Having been burnt by a previous relationship, I didn't want RŽmi and me to break apart, and I needed to be ready to fully let myself go. But I adored being wrapped in his arms, and, damn, did I love his kisses.

 

"You're killing me, Sophie," said RŽmi with an exaggerated groan.

 

I kissed him lightly on the lips and whispered, "I could think of worse ways to die."

 

He wrapped his arms around my waist and flipped me onto my back, straddling me. "Hmmm, slow, painful deaths," he said, his eyes glinting mischievously. "Burnt at the stake. Drowning. Buried alive-"

 

"See," I said, rubbing my hands across his muscled chest. "You've got it pretty good."

 

"I do." RŽmi flopped down beside me and let out a frustrated sigh. "I should get back to Lola before I lose all control. I'll see you later?"

 

"Of course," I said. "The staff meeting is this morning."

 

"I'd say you could keep my shirt," he said. "But I really shouldn't walk around the property half-naked."

 

I slipped his shirt off and he kissed my shoulder. "Je t'aime, Sophie."

 

"Je t'aime aussi."

 

Love. It felt so good to say it, to feel it. I'd never really experienced it before, not like this. With another heavy breath, RŽmi scrambled out of bed, and I watched him dress, noting his V-shaped torso and six-pack abs, wondering how in the world I stayed in control.

 

I'd already showered and dressed when Phillipa tapped on my door with her signature rat-a-tat-tat woodpecker knock. "I saw RŽmi heading over to his house. I figured the coast was clear."

 

"I was hoping for a little me time." I sighed.

 

Phillipa blurted out a laugh as she cracked the door open. "You never have you time. And I've barely seen you in two weeks. You're always with him."

 

"Are you saying you miss me?"

 

"I am."

 

"You'll be sick of me soon," I said, thinking of how busy the kitchen was going to be. "I'd run while you can."

 

"I'd never get sick of you," Phillipa said, and ambled into my room, a cheery grin lighting her face. She wheeled in a cart with a tray of buttery croissants and coffee in a French press. "It's a beautiful day. There isn't a cloud in the sky. The sun is shining. The birds are chirping-"

 

"And you brought me breakfast. Thank you."

 

Phillipa winked. "And you're about to get a real jolt. The review in World Gourmand Magazine just released. I wanted to be the one to share it with you."

 

"What? When were they even here?"

 

"Apparently at the soft opening," she said.

 

A lump formed in my throat. I couldn't take any more...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593097742
• ISBN 13: 9780593097748
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland