Chapter Thirty-Five
Elliott crashed through the studio doors like a woman possessed.
Well. More like she shoved them open with slightly too much force and nearly took out a startled production assistant carrying a clipboard. Close enough.
"Oi! You can't be back here!"
"Watch me."
She dodged past a rack of cooking equipment and nearly tripped over a cable the thickness of her arm. Somewhere ahead, she could hear voices, raised, sharp, unmistakably furious. One of them belonged to Gabby Richardson. The other was Julia.
Elliott followed the sound like a homing beacon.
The wings of the set were chaos. Crew members hovered uncertainly, production assistants whispered into headsets, and in the center of it all stood Gabby Richardson, magnificent in her fury, facing down her daughter like a hurricane about to make landfall.
"—humiliated me on my own show! Do you have any idea what you've done? Years of building this brand, this reputation, and you waltz in and destroy it in five minutes because you're having some kind of quarter-life crisis—"
"It wasn't a crisis." Julia's voice was shaky but determined. "It was the truth. For the first time in my life, I told you the truth."
"The truth?" Gabby's laugh was sharp enough to cut glass. "The truth is that you've embarrassed this entire family. Wolfgang is probably watching this in Seattle right now, wondering what went wrong with his baby sister. Marcella—"
"I don't care what Wolfgang and Marcella think."
Elliott felt her heart fill so much that it cracked open.
Julia Richardson, chronic people-pleaser, champion apologizer, was standing her ground. Her hands were trembling, Elliott could see that even from here, but her chin was up and her eyes were dry.
She was glorious.
And Elliott was done hiding in the wings.
"She's right."
Both women spun toward her. Julia's face transformed, hope and terror and something that looked suspiciously like joy all fighting in her expression. Gabby's face was harder to read, cycling through surprise, recognition, and then settling into something cold and assessing.
"Elliott." Julia breathed her name like a prayer.
"The baker." Gabby's voice could have frozen the Thames. "The one who did all the work while my daughter took the credit."
"That's not…" Julia started.
"Yes, actually." Elliott walked forward until she was standing beside Julia. Her heart was hammering hard and she wondered if she might be having a heart attack. "I'm the baker. I'm also the girlfriend. Or I was. Or I want to be." She took a breath. "I love your daughter."
Gabby's eyebrows rose. "Do you? How touching."
"I love her," Elliott repeated, and the words came easier the second time, "and not fake.
Not for an arrangement or a flat or because it was convenient.
I love her because she makes me want to be someone worth loving.
She makes me want to be as brave as she is.
And she…" Elliott's voice shivered. "She makes me ask for help. "
Julia made a small, choked sound beside her.
Elliott turned to face Gabby fully. The woman was watching her with those sharp eyes, the same ones that had made Elliott feel small and inadequate in the bakery all those weeks ago.
But Elliott wasn't that person anymore. She was someone who asked for help now. Apparently. Someone who let people in.
God, it was frightening.
"I have a cookbook," Elliott said. "Traditional recipes with modern twists.
I've been working on it for over a year, and it's good.
I know it's good because I'm good at what I do.
" She paused. "But I don't have a culinary degree.
I don't have connections. I don't have a name that opens doors.
What I have is talent and stubbornness and a girlfriend who believes in me. "
"You want my help." Gabby's voice was flat.
"Yes." The word felt like swallowing glass, but Elliott forced it out.
"I need your help. I'm asking for it. Publicly, in front of all these people and cameras and…
" she gestured vaguely at the chaos around them "…
whatever this is. Because Julia taught me that needing people isn't weakness.
And if asking for help is what it takes to build a life with your daughter, then fine. I'm asking."
Gabby stared at her. The silence stretched.
"She wants to be a nurse," Elliott added, because apparently she wasn't done humiliating herself. "Julia. She's wanted it her whole life, and she's going to be brilliant at it. I've seen her in emergencies. She's calm and competent and caring, and I want to help her get there. Whatever it takes."
"Elliott…" Julia might be crying, but Elliott couldn’t afford to look yet. She knew once she did, she wouldn’t be able to tear her eyes away.
"I'm not finished." Elliott kept her eyes on Gabby.
"You can hate me if you want. You can refuse to help.
But I needed to ask, because that's who I am now.
Someone who asks. Someone who admits when she needs someone.
And I need your daughter. She's the best thing that ever happened to me, and I nearly threw her away because I was too proud and too scared to admit it. "
For a long moment, Gabby Richardson said nothing. Her expression was unreadable, those famous features arranged into something that might have been surprise or might have been the beginning of respect.
"Well," Gabby's voice was strange. Softer than Elliott expected. "That was quite a speech."
"I meant every word."
"I can see that." Gabby looked at Julia, then back at Elliott, and something shifted in her expression. "You remind me of someone."
"Let me guess. Young you, before you had everything handed to you?"
Gabby's lips twitched. "Careful. I'm still deciding whether to help you or have you thrown out."
"Fair enough."
Another pause. Gabby looked at Julia with an expression that was complicated and layered and not entirely unkind. "You really want to be a nurse?"
"More than anything." Julia's voice was small but steady.
"And you…" Gabby turned back to Elliott "…you're willing to put yourself out there, ask for help, admit you need people, all for her?"
"Already did, didn't I?"
Gabby made a sound that might have been a laugh, if Gabby Richardson were the type to laugh at anything.
"I’ve seen the damn cookbook. And I’d like to tell you it’s as uninspired as most of the rubbish I get sent.
Unfortunately for us both, it is quite brilliant.
I suppose I might be able to make some introductions.
" She shot Julia a look. "And you. We're going to have a long conversation about communication and family expectations and…
" she waved a hand "…all of this. But later. I have an audience waiting."
She swept past them both, pausing just long enough to add, "For what it's worth, I respect honesty. Even when it's inconvenient." Her gaze lingered on Julia. "Maybe especially then."
Then she was gone, disappearing back toward the set.
Elliott turned to Julia.
Julia turned to Elliott.
"You came," Julia whispered.
"I came." Elliott's hands were shaking. She shoved them in her pockets, then took them out again. "I watched you on Jamie's phone. You were…that was…"
"Completely mental?"
"Yeah." Elliott sighed. "Also, it was the bravest thing I've ever seen."
Julia's eyes filled with tears. "I meant it. All of it. I love you. I should have told you ages ago instead of going behind your back and trying to fix everything and…"
Elliott kissed her.
It wasn't graceful. It wasn't planned. It was desperate and relieved and tasted like the start of something real, and when Julia melted against her, Elliott stopped thinking entirely.
When they finally broke apart, Julia was grinning through her tears. "So that's a yes? We're doing this? For real this time?"
"We're doing this for real." Elliott brushed a strand of hair from Julia's face. "Though I should warn you, I'm still terrible at feelings and I'll probably get it wrong half the time."
"Only half?"
"Fine. Seventy percent."
"I can work with seventy percent."
Julia bit her lip. "There's something I should tell you. About Candice."
"The frozen pastry fraud?"
"You know?"
"Tom told me. He's been doing reconnaissance, apparently." Elliott shrugged. "What about her?"
"She exposed us online. Not that anyone outside of the village noticed. I mean, I suppose everyone knows now. But that’s on me, not on her. Just…" Julia hesitated. "Do you think we should… I don't know, make it public? About Candice?"
"No."
"No?"
Elliott shook her head. "The truth will out.
It always does. And Candice…" She paused, thinking about the woman who'd been so determined to bring them down.
"She'll never feel good until she's real.
Until she stops hiding behind frozen croissants and actually faces who she is.
We can't force that. She has to figure it out herself. "
"When did you get so wise?"
"I've always been wise. I just hid it behind grumpiness and emotional unavailability."
Julia laughed, and the sound made Elliott's chest ache in the best possible way.
A commotion from the corridor made them both turn. Jamie was being escorted, or more accurately, dragged, toward them by a burly security guard who looked deeply unimpressed with the situation.
"I'm fine!" Jamie called out, waving one arm while the other was firmly in the guard's grip. "Everything's fine! Just dropping off a friend! Very important emotional business!"
"Sir, you need to leave the premises."
"Yes, yes, I'm leaving, but first…" Jamie spotted them and his face split into a grin. "Oh good, you're kissing. Brilliant. Tom texted, by the way. He says you're both insufferable and can he have a raise?"
"Tell him yes," Julia called back.
"Tell him he's getting double," Elliott added.
"Wonderful! I'll let him know! Being removed from the building now! Very proud of you both!"
The security guard hauled him around the corner, and Jamie's voice faded into the distance, still cheerfully protesting his innocence.
Elliott looked down at Julia. Her Julia. The woman who had crashed into her life and refused to leave. The woman that she was absolutely completely and totally in love with. The thought gave her the shivers in the most delicious of ways.
"So," Elliott's hands found Julia's waist. "What now?"
Julia grinned up at her, bright and hopeful and so impossibly lovely that Elliott's breath caught.
"Now we start living our real lives. Right?"
"Does that mean nothing else was real?" Elliott's hands slid more firmly around Julia's waist, pulling her closer. "This whole time?"
Julia pretended to consider. "Hmm. Well. Maybe some things were real."
"Such as?"
"The baking."
"Naturally."
"Tom's constant disgust with us."
"A given."
"And maybe…" Julia's voice softened, her eyes searching Elliott's face, "…maybe the way I felt when you looked at me. Maybe that was real too."
"Maybe?"
"Definitely." Julia's smile widened. "Definitely real."
Elliott kissed her again, softer this time.
Somewhere behind them, the show was still going on. Gabby was probably dazzling her audience with some recovery speech. Candice was probably stewing in her frozen-pastry guilt. Tom was probably composing a very smug text to Shay about how he'd called it from the beginning.
None of it mattered.
What mattered was Julia in her arms, Julia's laugh against her lips, Julia's heart beating steady and sure against her own.
Real.
Finally, wonderfully, terrifyingly real.