Chapter Twenty-Three
Emery sat alone in the bookshop after closing time, fingers drumming restlessly on the counter.
Eveline had left twenty minutes ago for her dinner with Charles, wearing a sleek black dress that had momentarily made Emery forget how to breathe.
Now the silence of the empty shop pressed in around her, heavy with all the words she'd failed to say.
Ten more minutes and she could close the shop.
The bell above the door jangled, making her jump.
“We're closing,” she called out automatically.
“Only to paying customers,” Maya said cheerfully, pushing through the door with a pink bakery box balanced in one hand. “For friends bearing cake, the doors are always open.”
Emery smiled. “I was just about to lock up.”
“Perfect timing then.” Maya set the box on the counter and glanced around. “Where's our elegant French proprietress this evening?”
“Dinner,” Emery said, trying to keep her tone neutral. “With her ex-husband.”
Maya's eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “Charles? The story-stealer? That ex-husband?”
Emery nodded, not surprised that Maya knew the details.
“Well,” Maya said, opening the box to reveal an array of delicate pastries, “I'd say that calls for tea and emergency sugar. Sit down, dear. I'll put the kettle on.”
Before Emery could protest, Maya had bustled into the back room. She returned minutes later with two steaming mugs and settled into the chair opposite Emery, pushing a plate with a cream-filled pastry toward her.
“Eat,” she said. “Sugar helps with emotional crises.”
Emery took a reluctant bite, the sweet raspberry cream melting on her tongue. “I'm not having a crisis,” she said.
“Right,” Maya said. “You're just sitting alone in a dark bookshop looking like someone stole your favorite pen.”
Emery laughed despite herself. “Is it that obvious?”
“My dear, everything about you is obvious… Emerald.”
The pastry lodged in Emery's throat. She coughed, eyes watering, as Maya calmly pushed her tea closer.
“Drink,” she said. “Choking won't solve anything.”
Emery gulped the hot tea, mind racing. When she could finally speak, her voice came out as a terrified whisper. “How did you—”
“Please.” Maya waved dismissively. “I've been baking for the Romance Book Club for seven years. I've been to every one of your London signings. Did you think I wouldn't recognize the author of books I've read a dozen times?”
“But… but you never said anything…” Emery stammered.
“I thought you might know what you were doing,” Maya said. “That you were incognito or something. You’re lucky you’re not one of those authors with their faces plastered all over the back of their book jackets, or the game really would be up by now.”
Emery felt the blood drain from her face. “Does Eveline know?”
“Not yet,” Maya said, studying Emery's panicked expression. “Though I'm rather curious why you haven't told her yourself. Especially now that you two are…” She raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“It's complicated,” Emery said, slumping in her chair.
“Isn't it always?” Maya took a sip of her tea. “You know, you're not the first person to dig yourself into a hole with secrets.”
“I never meant for it to go this far,” Emery said, stomach feeling heavy. “At first, it was just a misunderstanding, and then it became too awkward to correct, and now…”
“And now you're in love with her,” Maya said simply.
Emery didn't deny it. “How do I tell her without losing her?”
Maya was quiet for a moment, considering. “Let me tell you a story,” she said finally. “About me and Billy.”
“Who’s Billy?” Emery asked.
“My wife,” Maya said. Then she noticed Emery’s expression.
“Oh, don’t worry, she’s not the most sociable of people, she prefers her bees and her garden and sometimes I don’t blame her.
We’re our own people, and that’s why we work as a couple.
Been together twenty-two years now. But we almost didn't make it past the first six months.”
“What happened?” Emery asked.
“I lied to her,” Maya said bluntly. “Not a small lie, either. When we met, I told her I was a pastry chef at a five-star hotel in the city. Very impressive, very romantic.”
“I’m guessing you weren't?”
Maya laughed. “Not even close. I was working at a chain bakery in Croydon, decorating birthday cakes with cartoon characters. But I had dreams, you see. And I wanted to impress this beautiful woman who’d somehow agreed to have coffee with me.”
Emery leaned forward, intrigued. “What happened when she found out?”
“Oh, it was a disaster,” Maya said, wincing at the memory. “I kept up the charade for weeks. Made up elaborate stories about celebrity clients, invented French colleagues. I even started taking French lessons so I could throw in convincing phrases.”
“And?”
“And one day she showed up at my flat unexpectedly when I was practicing piping techniques on cheap supermarket cakes.” Maya shook her head. “There I was, surrounded by failed attempts at writing 'Happy Birthday' in wobbly icing, wearing a uniform with the chain's logo plastered across it.”
Emery grimaced. “That sounds mortifying.”
“It was the most humiliating moment of my life,” Maya said. “But do you know what was worse? The look on Billy's face. Not anger, disappointment. She didn't care about my job. She cared that I hadn't trusted her enough to tell her the truth.”
“Did she break up with you?” Emery asked quietly.
“She walked out,” Maya said. “Didn't speak to me for two weeks. I thought it was over.” She paused, taking another sip of tea. “Then one day, she showed up at the bakery with her guitar. Set up right outside and started playing.”
“Playing?”
Maya smiled at the memory. “She’d always dreamed of being a musician.
But she can’t carry a tune in a bucket. She sang an awful song she’d written herself about a baker with big dreams and a bigger heart who needed to learn that love doesn't require embellishments.” She laughed softly.
“It was terrible, but it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.”
“She forgave you,” Emery said, feeling a faint flicker of hope.
“She gave me a second chance,” Maya said. “But she made me promise, no more lies, no matter how small. And I've kept that promise for twenty-two years.”
Emery sighed. “But your lie was different. You weren't famous under another name, writing about her without her knowledge.”
“You’re writing about her?” Maya said. She shook her head. “The principle is the same. Lies grow. They metastasize. The longer you wait, the more painful the surgery to remove them.”
“What if she can't forgive me?” Emery asked.
“That's the risk you take,” Maya said.
Emery bit her lip. “I'm scared, Maya.”
“Of course you are,” Maya said. “Love is terrifying. It makes us vulnerable in ways nothing else can. But that vulnerability, that's where the real connection happens.”
“I'll tell her,” Emery said. “I just need to find the right way.”
“Don't wait too long,” said Maya.
After Maya left, Emery went through the motions of locking up.
As she wiped down the counter, her cloth caught on something underneath. Reaching beneath, her fingers closed around a book. She pulled it out, then froze when she saw the cover. Les Ombres de Provence by Charles Moreau.
It had to be Charles's book, the one with Eveline's stories.
Emery turned it over in her hands, studying the author photo. Charles had Eveline's same dark coloring, but where her features were warm and expressive, his looked cold and made Emery instantly dislike him.
She opened the book hesitantly, flipping through pages. But she understood nothing. She stuck the book back where she found it.
Was she any better than him?
“It's different,” she told to herself as she locked up the shop. “I'm not stealing her stories. I'm not publishing her private memories.”
Yet the justifications rang hollow, even to her own ears. She'd hidden her identity. She'd gotten close to Eveline under false pretenses. Whatever her intentions, the deception remained. When had she become such a horrible person?
She'd walked halfway home when her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from Eveline.
Dinner over. Home safe. Everything fine.
Emery typed back quickly: Glad to hear it. How did it go?
The response came a moment later: Exactly as expected. Charles hasn't changed, still thinks charm can fix everything. Still utterly self-absorbed.
Then, before Emery could reply: But seeing him made me realize something. Something important.
Emery's breath caught. What's that?
The typing indicator appeared, disappeared, appeared again. Finally: I know it's probably too soon to say this. But I don't care. Seeing Charles tonight just confirmed what I already knew. What I feel for you is real, Emery. Deeper than I expected. Deeper than I thought I could feel again.
Emery stopped walking, her heart pounding painfully against her ribs. She read the message again, then a third time.
I feel the same, she typed back, meaning it with every fiber of her being.
Good. I won’t say the words yet. But know I feel them.
Emery leaned against a lamppost, suddenly dizzy with guilt. Maya's story echoed in her mind, the disappointment on Billy's face, worse than anger. Would Eveline look at her that way, too?
Tomorrow? Eveline texted.
Of course, Emery replied automatically.
Perfect. Goodnight, ma chérie.
Goodnight, Emery sent back, then slipped her phone into her pocket with trembling fingers.
Back in her flat, she couldn't settle. She paced, made tea she didn't drink, opened her laptop to write but stared at a blank screen. The memory of Charles's book haunted her.
“I'm not like him,” Emery said aloud to her empty flat. “What I feel for Eveline is real.”
But then, hadn't Charles probably convinced himself of the same thing? That his actions were justified, that his art was more important than the trust he'd broken?
Finally, exhausted, she collapsed into bed, but she couldn’t sleep. She stared at the ceiling, watching shadows from passing cars slide across it.
“I have to tell her,” she whispered to the empty room. But what if Eveline couldn't forgive her? What if this beautiful, unexpected thing between them shattered the moment the truth came out?
Emery rolled onto her side, curling around her pillow. The alternative, continuing to live the lie, had become unthinkable. She loved Eveline too much to keep deceiving her.
She had to do the right thing. And she had to do it soon.