Angel-chan: Hey everyone! Just like you asked an update *smiles*
Ikuto: Holy crap you updated fast this time.
Amu: that's great Angel-chan *smiles*
Angel-chan: Thank you Amu-chan. Now than before I get straight to the story. Answer to reviews:
RoundAndRoundxKuruKurux966: Thank you so much for loving this story and the plot of the story hehe. And you're right who doesn't love that. *smiles* SNOW DAY!
24kk: Hehehe well the wait is over!
Kuroyuri: yay! Lol well your going to have to wait and see if Amu does thake the risk. ;3
Thexlittlexlisa: Well Just wait and see if it's a fling or not you might never know ;3
Heh who wouldn't take the risk when it comes to Ikuto.
AmutoDevialCat: You'll get your answer if Ikuto really love's Amu smiles*
Shiks: Same thing I said :P
Yearn: Well get more excited because the next chapter is out X3
Squirtlepokemon215: No more waiting X3
Guest: Lol we're getting their just two or three more chapter till we get to the juicy part of the story. ;3
Ikuto: Alright then we're done let's get a move on. xXxStrawberryAngelxXx does not own Shugo Chara! Or Chocolate Kisses.
Angel-chan: *pouts* wish I did…Any ways enjoy *smiles*
Chapter 6
2:12 p.m.
"Financing?" she asked.
They were in the kitchen of Tsukiyomi Hall. Seated on a stool, Ikuto observed as Amu arranged her cake materials on the counter. This time everything had survived the trip across town in her van.
Following in his car, his back seat filled with heaping trays, Ikuto had felt her absence kneely. He had wanted to be with her, smelling her clean strawberry fragrance, admiring her stunning golden hazel nut eyes.
Of course, if he has been seated beside her in her van, he might have been unable to resist the temptation to reach out and grab her. Then she would have lost control of the van and it would have sided on an icy patch of road and all the food would have been ruined again.
Then they would have had to start all over. Which might have been kind of fun.
Fun for him, anyway for her it would have been a disaster. As soon as he had stopped trying to seduce her at her house, she had become compulsively business like, trooping around her kitchen like a drill sergeant, barking orders as if she viewed the cotillion as a military campaign—with Angel serving as the commanding officer of the opposing army.
Fortunately, Angel was not at Tsukiyomi Hall when they arrived. Elda was, but after huffing about Amu's invasion of her precious kitchen, she let Ikuto convince her that that florist needed her invaluable advice regarding the flower arrangements in the ballroom. Once he had dispatched Elda Amu got to work assembling her cakes.
It seemed like a good time to broach the subject. "Nothing complicated," he told her. "I'm only thinking of what you could accomplish with the proper capitalization."
She flashed him a sharp, golden hazel nut-eyed glance. "Proper capitalization, huh," she repeated dubiously. "Pretty fancy language."
"All it means is having enough money to get Rose Petals Banquets to the next level."
"The next level of what?"
He watched as she smoothed the pink frosting over the largest chocolate cake layer, which sat on a doily-lined silver tray. With a skillful flick of the pan, she dropped the second layer on top of the first, centering the smaller heart atop the larger one.
"Imagine what your life would be like if you could work in a kitchen this big all the time, in a shop in town. If you had a clerk, and an assistant, and an eye-catching sign out front."
"Yeah, right," she snorted. "That sound like a lot more fantasy than a banquet."
"Not if you company had an infusion of cash. That's where I could help you out."
She shot him another look this one decidedly suspicious. "What am I, the newest Tsukiyomi charity?"
He shook his head and chuckled. "No one's going to give you a penny. However, I can put together funding—"
"A loan? Forget it." She cut him off. "I'm already paying off my van, a mortgage and the refrigerator in my cellar. I'm not taking any more loans."
"I'm not talking about a loan either," he explained patiently, trying not to let the graceful gliding motions of her fingers distract him. "I'm talking about an investment. I could find you a silent partner, someone looking for a promising business to sink his money into, in return for a portion of your profits."
"Profits?" She laughed. "I'm just barely breaking even."
"Most new business don't start breaking even for years. If you're not in the red, you're going great."
"Who's going to invest in my company?" she asked, flipping the smallest chocolate layer onto the cake. "Who in his right mind would invest in my rickety little catering company when they could buy something safe and sound, like municipal bonds?"
"You're got a better chance of avoiding bankruptcy than some municipalities I know," he argued, smiling. She dragged over the bowl of chocolate kisses and used them to create a decorative border around each later. "If my client wanted to buy municipal bonds, they wouldn't come to me." She eyed him warily. "And by getting these clients to invest in Rose Petals Banquets you pick up a whopping commission?"
There was that, sure. But more was at stake than simply Ikuto's commission. He wanted Amu to succeed because it meant so much to her. Because she was entitled to it. Because if she did not succeed her spirit would be broken in two.
It was her spirit that excited him, more than her rosette pink hair and her pure golden hazel nut eyes, more than her prowess with shrimp and sweets. He wanted her happy.
"I can think of at least two clients who might be interested in parking some money with you. I would need to examine your profit-loss records, your debt service and son on. But—"
"I'm supposed to let you see my private financial records?"
"I'd have to see them before I recommended that my clients invest in Rose Petals Banquets."
She set down her knife and gripped the tray. "Here's what you'd learn from my records, Ikuto. I am your basic hand-to-mouth model. My bank balance resembles what you probably spend during an average night out with a woman."
If she had meant to discourage him, she had made a mistake. "Now, there's an idea. Why don't you and I spend an average night together tomorrow and see if it resembles your bank account?"
Amu bit her lip. Maybe he was pushing too hard. But after the way she'd responded to him a mere hour ago, the way her body had arched and surged against his and her hips and moved with his and her eyes had closed in surrender…
Why shouldn't he push a little? Why should he bring this relationship to the next level? No matter how anxiously she was as interested as he was in taking things further.
"I don't want you spending your money on me," she muttered, lifting the tray carefully.
"All right. We will keep it cheap. I'll rent the DVD, you make the popcorn." At her skeptical stare, he shrugged. "Hey, I can do a low-rent date just like you."
"Right. And you can also peel carrots." She handed him a bag of them, and holding her head high she carried her magnificent cake out of the kitchen.
Ikuto was lost in a daydream. A bowl of popcorn, his toasty wool afghan spread over them, a 1950's thriller about mutated insects on the TV in the background…and afterward, they could discuss making a formal announcement and setting a date.
An average night with the most extraordinary woman he had ever met, he thought with a smile. It could be the most exciting night in his life…
He heard a scream, and another, and a loud thump. This might be the most exciting night, after all, he thought as he bolted from the kitchen. But he was no longer smiling.
Bisoux De Chocolat
"WELL, IT WAS TOO PINK!" Elda ranted. "The color startled me! In all my days, I've never seen a cake that color pink!"
It was not a cake anymore. It was a mess of smeared frosting and crumbs strewn across the marble floor of the ballroom.
Amu wanted to weep. She sat on the hard, shiny floor, less than an inch from where she had been standing when Elda had noticed the cake, shrieked and dropped her dry mop at Amu's feet where she would trip over it. Two stories above her loomed the ornately corniced ceiling of the ballroom. Chairs and settees stood along the room's perimeter, along with tables festooned with flowers and the elegant dessert table where the cakes were supposed to be displayed. An arching stairway that looked as if it had been designed just for debutantes soared to a balcony along the inner wall.
It was so lavish, Amu thought, wondering what kind of picture she made seated cross-legged on the polished floor with frosting spattered on her jeans.
"It's alright," Ikuto was saying. She tilted her head only enough to see him ushering Elda away. A good idea, too Amu was ready to strangle that old hag. There had been something suspiciously deliberate in the way Elda had tossed down her dry mop in front of Amu's foot. "Everything's going to be all right."
"Everything's not going to be all right," Amu snapped. "We're down one cake."
"So you'll make another. Look, Elda will oversee the cleanup. We can get whatever you need from your house and you can bake the cake here. I will be right by your side, doing whatever has to be done. Come on, Amu—we can do it."
"You're not going to let her make another cake like that, are you?" Elda sputtered. "It looked horrible. Repulsive! Much too pink."
"Elda, please," Ikuto silenced her; evidently aware of the homicidal turn Amu's thoughts were once again talking. "Just clean the floor, all right? Come on, Amu," He said brightly, extending his hand to her and hoisting her to her feet. "If we work really fast—"
Amu yanked her hands from his. If he touched her, they would not work fast. They would be sidetracked. He would dip his fingers into the next batch of cake batter, he would slide his arms around her…, and they would be lost.
"Don't help me," she grumbled. "Just keep the official Tsukiyomi cook away from me. She tripped me on purpose, Ikuto."
"Of course she didn't." He turned to Elda, seeking corroboration.
The plump white-haired witch shrugged innocently. "I could help myself. It was a ghastly looking cake. I would never serve a cake like that."
"Well, I've got news for you," Amu declared. "I am going to serve two cakes like that. Out of my way," she said, brushing past Ikuto. If she had been disconsolate a minute ago, she was fired up now. Nobody, not Ikuto with his seductive indigo blue eyes and incandescent smile, not Elda with her territorial testiness, not Angel Moon with her haughty affectations—nobody was going to keep Amu from catering this cotillion successfully. If it meant working nonstop for the rest of the afternoon, running the kitchen in jeans and a ponytail, frosting the cake at the very moment Seiyo's first young ladies were being presented to society, she would do it. If it meant locking Ikuto out of the kitchen, out of her thoughts, out of her heart, she would do it.
The party was going to be Amu's personal triumph. She refused to consider any other outcome. She was swinging through the kitchen door when she felt Ikuto's hand on her shoulder. "I've got a lot to do," she warned him, ordering her body not to respond to his touch.
"I know," he said. She heard no suggestive undertone in his voice, only quiet concern. "Listen Amu. Bring everything you will need for tonight. Everything. You will have a room upstairs, your own private bathroom. We have got towels, bath salts, beds easy chairs…whatever you need. The house is yours."
She opened her mouth to object. She had a bed—which she hadn't had time to make that morning.
She could imagine what the upstairs of Ikuto's childhood home would be like: the sumptuous bedrooms furnished with antiques, the private baths with their brass fixtures and inlaid tiles, the hallways as wide as Amu's entire house. The elegance. The class.
Contrary to Ikuto's claim, this house was not hers. But given how hard she was going to have to slave during the next few hours to make this party come out right…
She deserved the rum of Tsukiyomi Hall. She deserved to pretend the house was hers. And all these troublemakers—Angel, Elda, and most of all Ikuto with his alluring lips and his mesmerizing touch—had better stay out of her way.
Angel-chan: Whoa was Amu mad in this chapter. Do you think Elda was acting like a kid? Should she accept Ikuto's offer? What should Amu?
Ikuto: Just sleep with me -_-
Amu: *hits Ikuto on the shoulder/glares*
Ikuto: Ow! What was that for~?
Amu: Humph.
Angel-chan: Idiot…
Ikuto: Whatever If you want again to know what happen next and for this lazy author to update soon R&R everyone!
Angel-chan: I can't argue this time I'm really lazy. Sorry everyone :P Till next time. *smiles*