Page 8 of Frosted Fakes

"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.