Chapter 1
Frosted Fakes
Chapter One
Most people love their mothers, some hate them. Julia Richardson worked for hers. Or at least she did until three o'clock one Wednesday afternoon.
"Julia! Where is my Himalayan pink salt? This is a disaster!"
Julia winced and checked the time on her phone. Two fifty-eight. So close. She'd almost made it through another day without a full-scale meltdown.
"It's in the pantry, Mum. Third shelf, behind the—"
"I needed it five minutes ago! Do you have any idea what happens to a reduction when it sits too long?"
Julia did, actually. She'd heard this particular lecture approximately four hundred times. She could probably recite it in her sleep, along with the one about proper knife technique and the one about how the French would never let their sauces suffer like this.
She found the salt exactly where it always was and delivered it to her mother's outstretched hand with the speed of a surgical nurse passing a scalpel.
Which, in Julia's fantasy life, was exactly what she'd be doing instead of tracking down artisanal seasonings.
She'd be wearing scrubs, not an apron. She'd be saving lives, not salvaging sauces.
But that was a dream she kept folded up small and hidden away, like a love letter she was too embarrassed to throw out.
Gabby Richardson stood at the center of her gleaming test kitchen, a diva getting ready to sing her final aria.
She was fifty-six, and still striking, with dark hair swept back dramatically, cheekbones that could injure anyone that got too close, and an expression that suggested she found the entire world mildly disappointing.
Her cookbooks had sold millions. Her television show had run for twelve seasons.
Her three children had been raised to continue her culinary dynasty.
Or at least, some of them had.
Two out of three wasn't bad, Julia supposed.
She hadn’t even inherited the cheekbones.
"Your brother rang," Gabby announced, whisking something that smelled incredible. "He's been nominated for another James Beard Award."
"That's wonderful." Julia meant it. Wolfgang was genuinely talented, even if his molecular gastronomy creations looked like science experiments gone wrong.
Last Christmas, he'd served them a "deconstructed roast dinner" that had involved foam, gel, and something that smoked ominously when you poked it with a fork.
"And Marcella's new restaurant got its second Michelin star."
"I saw on Insta. I sent her flowers."
"Did you?" Gabby's tone suggested that sending flowers was what people did when they couldn’t think of anything more creative. "How nice."
Julia's phone buzzed in her pocket. A notification from the nursing education channel she followed on YouTube.
She'd been halfway through a video about emergency triage procedures when the salt crisis had erupted.
Under the counter, she sneaked a glance at the screen.
The algorithm had recommended a new video: "Trauma Assessment: The First Five Minutes.
" Her heart gave a little flutter of longing.
"What are you looking at?"
Julia's hand jerked, nearly fumbling the phone into the soup pot. "Nothing. Just checking your schedule."
Gabby's eyes narrowed. She had a sixth sense for lies, especially her youngest daughter’s lies, which admittedly weren't very good. "You're watching those medical programs again, aren't you?"
"It's educational."
"It's morbid." Gabby turned back to her reduction with a dismissive wave. "And a complete waste of your potential. You were born to work with food, Julia. It's in your blood. Three generations of Richardsons have—"
"—built a culinary empire, I know." Julia had heard this one even more times than the sauce lecture.
"Don't interrupt." Gabby tasted her reduction and made a face that signaled satisfaction. "Speaking of your potential, I've made a decision."
Something cold settled in Julia's stomach.
Her mother's "decisions" were rarely good news.
The last one had resulted in Julia being volunteered to run a charity gala for three hundred people, during which she'd managed to set fire to an ice sculpture. She still wasn’t entirely sure how that had happened.
Something about flambé gone wrong. The insurance company had used words like "unprecedented" and "impressively catastrophic. "
"Oh?" She kept her voice carefully neutral.
"You're fired."
Julia’s heart stopped. She blinked. "Sorry, what?"
"Fired. From your position as my assistant. Effective immediately." Gabby didn't look up from her whisking. "Don't be dramatic, darling. It's tough love."
"I… what?" Julia's brain was struggling to catch up. "Mum, you can't just… I've worked for you for six years!"
"Exactly." Now Gabby did turn, fixing Julia with a stare that made her shiver. "Six years of fetching salt and managing my calendar when you should have been developing your craft. I've enabled your mediocrity long enough."
"My mediocrity?" Julia's voice came out slightly strangled.
"You're a Richardson. You were meant to be extraordinary." Gabby set down her whisk. "Instead, you've been hiding behind your little assistant job, pretending you don't have greatness inside you waiting to emerge."
"I don't have… Mum, I failed out of culinary school!"
"You gave up." Gabby's voice sharpened. "There's a difference. You got discouraged after a few setbacks and ran away. And I'm not allowing it anymore."
Julia opened her mouth to protest that burning down a teaching kitchen wasn't really a "setback" so much as a "major insurance claim and possible arson investigation," but her mother was already sweeping toward the door.
"Come with me."
"Where are we…?"
"Don't dawdle."
Julia followed, because what else could she do?
She'd been following her mother's orders for twenty-nine years.
It was basically muscle memory at this point.
Her legs moved of their own accord, carrying her through the house like she was on rails, while her brain screamed that this couldn't possibly be happening.
They ended up in Gabby's home office, a space decorated with cookbook covers and photos of Gabby with various world leaders who'd sampled her cooking.
There was one of her laughing with a former Prime Minister over beef Wellington.
Another showed her accepting an OBE from the King.
Julia tried not to look at the family portrait on the desk, the one where Wolfgang and Marcella stood in their chef's whites, already accomplished, while Julia hovered at the edge looking like she'd wandered in from a different photograph entirely.
She'd been wearing a sundress. She looked like a random tourist who'd accidentally photobombed.
Gabby pulled out a folder thick with documents and dropped it onto the desk between them. "I've bought you a bakery."
Julia stared at the folder like it might bite her. Her heart finally started beating again. Far too fast. "You've what?"
"A gourmet bakery. In a charming little town called Oakhaven.
" Gabby's smile was the one she used when presenting a dish she was particularly proud of.
"It's perfect for you. Small enough to manage, prestigious enough to matter.
You'll focus on pastry and desserts. You always did have a delicate touch, when you bothered to try. "
"I don't… Mum, I can't bake!" Julia's voice pitched higher than she would have liked. "You know I can't bake. Everything I make comes out wrong. Remember the birthday cake? The one that collapsed and caught fire at the same time?"
"Because you didn't try hard enough." Gabby's jaw set in that familiar stubborn line. "No daughter of mine can't cook. It's in the genes. Your grandmother was a pastry chef, for heaven's sake. She made croissants that would make angels weep. You just need the right motivation."
"Motivation isn't going to change the fact that flour hates me!"
Gabby waved this away as an irrelevant detail.
"You have twelve months. Make the bakery a success, and you'll have proven yourself.
You'll finally have something of your own, something to be proud of.
" She paused, and her voice softened slightly, as close to tender as Gabby Richardson ever got.
"I want you to succeed, darling. I want you to be happy. "
"Then let me choose my own career!"
"This is your career." The softness vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "This is your heritage. This is what Richardsons do."
Julia looked at the folder, at the glossy photographs of a quaint bakery storefront with "Sweet Oakhaven" written in elegant script across the window.
It was pretty. It was charming. It looked like something from a postcard, all honey-colored stone and flower boxes and a cheerful striped awning.
It was absolutely, definitely going to be the death of her.
"And if I fail?" she asked quietly. "If I can't make it work?"
Gabby's expression didn't waver. "Then I'll know I did everything I could.
And you'll know what you've thrown away.
" She straightened the folder's edges with precise movements.
"The family money, Julia. The support. The connections.
None of it comes free. If you can't be a Richardson in practice, perhaps it's better if you're not one at all. "
The words landed like stones in Julia's chest.
"You'd cut me off?"
"I'd free you." Gabby's smile was sad now, almost pitying. "To pursue your little nursing fantasy or whatever it is you watch on that phone when you think I'm not looking. But you won't have the Richardson name opening doors for you. You'll be entirely on your own."
Julia thought about her trust fund. She thought about her flat, which belonged to her mother. Her car, a gift for her twenty-fifth birthday. Her entire life, built on the foundation of being Gabby Richardson's daughter.
She thought about twelve months in a bakery in a town she'd never heard of, trying to produce food that didn't give the local populace salmonella.
She thought about the alternative. About starting from nothing. About being nobody.
"Fine," she said, and her voice only shook a little. "I'll do it."
Gabby's smile widened, genuine warmth breaking through for just a moment.
"That's my girl. You're going to prove everyone wrong, including yourself.
" She pulled Julia into a brief, perfumed hug.
"Now, I've arranged for the keys to be ready on Friday.
The flat above the bakery is included, so you won't need to find housing. I've thought of everything."
Of course she had. Gabby Richardson always thought of everything.
Julia walked back to her desk in a daze, her final day as her mother's assistant ticking away around her.
Her phone buzzed again, another notification from the nursing channel.
She stared at it for a long moment, then opened the folder her mother had given her instead, flipping through pages of lease agreements and inventory lists and photographs of professional baking equipment she had absolutely no idea how to use.
Twelve months to succeed. Or lose everything.
Her mother was right about one thing, Julia thought as she stared at a photo of an industrial mixer that looked capable of causing serious bodily harm. This was tough love.
Heavy on the tough. Light on the love.