Chapter Four
Elliott had experienced rage before. She was intimately acquainted with it, in fact.
But there was something uniquely infuriating about standing in your own kitchen with strawberry tart dripping down your face while a blonde stranger stared at you like you'd just materialized from another dimension.
"Oh my God." The woman's voice was high and horrified. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't know anyone was here, I just… the estate agent said… I mean, I assumed…"
"You assumed what?" Elliott wiped pastry cream from her eyebrow. Another strawberry slid down her cheek and plopped onto the floor. "That you could just barge into people's homes and assault them with their own baking?"
She was particularly annoyed because this was now her fourth strawberry tart of the day and this one had the perfect consistency to be cut and photographed. Just the right amount of ooze. Which was now oozing all over her face.
"I didn't assault you. It was an accident.
" The woman was still clutching her suitcase.
She was pretty, Elliott noticed with irritation.
Blonde, freckled, with big brown eyes currently wide with panic.
The kind of pretty that made you want to forgive people for things.
Elliott was absolutely not going to forgive her for anything.
"An accident." Elliott gestured at her ruined tart on the kitchen floor.
"That was four hours of work. Four hours of perfecting the glaze.
Four hours of…" She stopped. She was not going to explain herself to some random intruder.
The woman might be a burglar. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my flat? "
"Your flat?" The woman's expression shifted from horrified to confused. "Um, I'm the new owner. Of the bakery, I mean. Not of you, obviously. But of the flat too." She let out a nervous laugh that died quickly in the face of Elliott's glare.
The new owner. Of the bakery. Which, now that Elliott actually thought about it, included the flat. Obviously. Shit.
"This is my home," Elliott said flatly. "I live here. I've lived here for years."
"But…" The woman's brow furrowed. "My mother bought the bakery. The whole building. She didn't mention anyone living upstairs."
"Well, someone does." Elliott crossed her arms, remembered they were covered in frosting, and uncrossed them again. "Me. And I have rights. Tenant's rights. You can't just evict someone without proper notice."
This was, technically, a stretch. Elliott didn't actually have a lease. Milly had let her live here in exchange for help around the bakery, and their arrangement had always been more familial than formal. But this woman didn't need to know that.
The woman, the new owner, looked stricken. "I'm not trying to evict anyone. I didn't even know you existed until about thirty seconds ago, when you were…" She gestured at Elliott's tart-covered state. "Less covered in dessert."
"I was photographing that dessert. For my cookbook.
" Elliott heard the defensiveness in her own voice and hated it.
"It was perfect. It was exactly right. And now it's…
" She looked down at the floor, at the scattered strawberries and smeared cream.
Something in her chest hurt that had nothing to do with the tart.
"I can pay for it." The words came out in a rush. "Whatever it cost, the ingredients, your time, I'll pay for all of it. And I can find you a hotel for tonight, somewhere nice, while we figure out the living situation…"
"I don't want your money." The offer stung more than Elliott expected. Of course this woman thought she could just throw money at the problem. Even her hair looked rich. Shiny. Of course she’d assume everyone could be bought off. "And I don't need a hotel. This is my home."
"Right." The woman set down her suitcase at last, looking around the small flat like she was seeing it for the first time. "Right, of course. I just meant… temporarily. While we sort things out."
Elliott watched her take in the space. Her space.
"Look," Elliott said, forcing her voice into something approaching reasonable. "I don't know what you were told, but I've been living here for years. Milly, the previous owner, she knew. She was fine with it."
"I don’t think Milly mentioned…" The woman trailed off, then seemed to gather herself. "I'm Julia, by the way. Julia..." She paused, almost imperceptibly. "Just Julia. And I really am sorry about the tart."
Just Julia. Not that Elliott cared.
"Elliott," she said shortly. "And sorry doesn't un-smash four hours of work."
"No," Julia agreed, her voice small. "It doesn't."
They stood in awkward silence. A glob of pastry cream chose that moment to slide from Elliott's hair onto her shoulder with a soft plop.
"I should…" Elliott gestured toward the bathroom. "Clean up."
"Yes. Right. Of course." Julia picked up her suitcase again, then put it down, then picked it up once more. "Should I… wait? Or go? I don't actually know what to do here."
Neither did Elliott, which was infuriating. She wanted to tell Julia to leave, to go back to wherever she came from and take her pretty face and her easy money and her complete destruction of Elliott's perfect tart with her. But this wasn’t her flat anymore.
She gritted her teeth. No, this was her home. She wasn’t going to give it up just like that. She sighed. "Don't touch anything. I'll be out in a minute."
???
Julia stood frozen in the middle of the flat, surrounded by someone else's life, and wondered how she had managed to make such a spectacular mess of things in under five minutes.
The woman, Elliott, had disappeared into what Julia assumed was the bathroom. The shower started running. Julia was alone with a suitcase full of clothes and a floor full of strawberry tart and absolutely no idea what to do next.
She should call her mother. That was the sensible thing to do. Gabby would know how to handle this. Gabby would probably have a lawyer on the phone within seconds, drafting eviction notices and demanding immediate possession of the property she'd paid for.
Julia's stomach turned at the thought.
She looked around the flat instead, at the evidence of a life being lived.
Elliott lived here. Really lived here, not just existed. And Julia was about to upend all of it because her mother had decided Julia needed to "prove herself" by running a bakery she had no idea how to operate.
The shower stopped. Julia heard movement, then silence. She was still standing in exactly the same spot when Elliott emerged, damp-haired and wearing clean clothes, looking marginally less murderous.
"Right," Elliott said. "Let's talk."
"Okay." Julia sat down on the edge of the sofa, then stood up again, not sure if she was allowed to sit on someone else's furniture. "I really am sorry. About the tart, and about… all of this. I had no idea anyone was living here."
"Your mother bought this place." Elliott's voice was flat. "She didn't bother to check if it was occupied?"
"My mother doesn't really…" Julia searched for the right words. "Consider other people's circumstances. Very often. Or at all."
Elliott snorted. It wasn't quite a laugh, but it was something. "Rich people."
"She's…" Julia started to defend Gabby automatically, then stopped. Why was she defending her mother to a stranger? Her mother who had fired her, uprooted her entire life, and apparently bought her a building with a sitting tenant. "Yeah," she said instead. "Rich people."
Another silence stretched between them. Julia's brain was racing, trying to figure out a solution that didn't involve either throwing Elliott out on the street or calling her mother to handle it. Neither option sat well with her.
"Where would you go?" she asked finally. "If you had to leave. Do you have somewhere?"
Elliott's jaw tightened. "That's not your concern."
"It kind of is, actually." Julia's voice came out gentler than she intended. "I mean, if I'm the reason you'd be homeless, that seems like something I should worry about."
"I wouldn't be homeless." But Elliott didn't sound entirely convinced. "I have friends. I could stay with someone. I'd figure it out."
"What about deposits? First month's rent?" Julia knew she was pushing, but she couldn't seem to stop. "Is that something you could manage right now?"
Elliott's expression went cold. "Are you asking if I'm poor?"
"No! I'm asking if you need time. To find somewhere.
" Julia ran a hand through her hair. "Look, I don't want to kick anyone out.
I didn't even want to be here in the first place.
This whole bakery thing was my mother's idea, and I'm terrible at baking, and honestly I'll probably destroy the business within a month and then none of this will matter anyway. "
She hadn't meant to say all of that. It had just come tumbling out, the way things always did when she was nervous.
Elliott stared at her. "You're terrible at baking?"
"Catastrophically. I once set fire to an ice sculpture." Julia wasn't sure why she was admitting this. "At a charity gala. There was an insurance investigation."
"How do you set fire to ice?"
"I don’t know." Julia shrugged. "There was flambé involved. And possibly some brandy. It's all a bit of a blur."
Elliott's mouth twitched. Just slightly. Julia chose to interpret that as progress.
"So," Julia said, "here's what I'm thinking. You stay. At least for now, while we figure things out. I'll take the couch."
"You'll take the couch?" Elliott repeated. "In your own flat?"
"In your flat, apparently." Julia shrugged. "You've been living here. You have a routine. I'm the intruder. It only seems fair." It did seem fair. Unfortunately fair, but fair nevertheless.
"That's…" Elliott seemed to be struggling with something. "Ridiculous."
"Maybe. But I'm not going to kick you out of your bed." Julia sat down on the sofa, properly this time, claiming it as her territory. "We'll avoid each other. You do your thing, I'll do mine. How hard can it be? I’ll probably have burned the place down by the end of the month."
Elliott looked at her for a long moment, something unreadable in her dark eyes. "You're very strange," she said finally. "And that’s not exactly comforting to hear."
"Sorry." Julia pulled out her phone, desperate for something to do with her hands. "So we have a deal? Temporary roommates?"
"I suppose," Elliott said. She was still watching Julia with that sharp, assessing gaze. "And I have rules. No touching my equipment. No talking to me before I've had coffee. And absolutely no destroying any more of my baking."
"That last one was an accident."
"So you say."
Julia smiled despite herself. Elliott didn't smile back, but she didn't glare either, which felt like a win.
"I should…" Julia gestured toward her suitcase. "Unpack. A little. If that's okay."
"Fine." Elliott turned toward the kitchen, then paused. "There's a spare blanket in the cupboard by the bathroom. It gets cold at night."
It wasn't exactly warmth. But it wasn't hostility either.
Julia watched her go, then looked around the flat that was somehow both hers and not hers at all. Tomorrow she'd have to figure out the bakery. Tonight, she just had to survive sharing a space with a woman who clearly wished she wasn’t here.
She opened her suitcase, trying not to think about how Elliott's damp hair had curled slightly at the ends, or how her voice had softened just a fraction when she mentioned the blanket.
Definitely not thinking about any of that.
???
Lying in bed in the darkness, Elliott stared at the ceiling and listened to Julia settle onto the couch in the next room.
This was a disaster. An absolute, complete disaster.
There was a stranger in her flat. A stranger who was also, technically, her landlord. A stranger who couldn't bake, had somehow set fire to ice, and had offered to sleep on her own couch so Elliott could keep her bed.
Who did that? What kind of person just… gave up their bed to someone they'd met an hour ago?
A pushover, Elliott decided. A people-pleaser with more money than sense and absolutely no backbone.
It was irritating. Deeply, profoundly irritating.
Also irritating: the way Julia had looked when she admitted she was terrible at baking.
Not cute, Elliott told herself firmly. Annoying. Childish. Completely ridiculous.
She turned over, punching her pillow into a more comfortable shape. In the other room, she heard Julia shift on the couch. Then the soft blue glow of a phone screen appeared under the door, Julia was probably watching something on her phone.
Tomorrow, she needed to come up with a plan. A way to make this situation work in her favor, or she'd have to find somewhere else to stay. She'd have to avoid Julia, focus on her cookbook, and pretend none of this had ever happened.
She was very good at pretending things hadn't happened. Years of practice.
Ridiculous.
It was all absolutely, completely ridiculous.
A baker who couldn’t bake. The woman was insane. Elliott wondered if she should lock her door.