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.”
