Page 104 of Frosted Fakes

"Productive." Julia hung up her jacket. "Jamie finally told my mother he's not interested."

Tom's eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? Good for him. How'd she take it?"

"Hard to say. But he seemed relieved." Julia paused. "Like a weight had been lifted."

"Funny how honesty does that." Tom straightened up, brushing crumbs from his apron. "Speaking of which, um, I hope you don’t mind, but I've been doing some digging."

"Digging?"

He sniffed. "Into Candice." Tom's expression shifted to something almost gleeful. "I couldn’t just let her slander you both, well, us all, really. So I’ve been having a bit of a look around. Keeping an eye out and an ear open, you know."

"And?" Julia said, unsure of where this was going.

"And," Tom said with a grin, "you know how she's been so smug about her 'authentic artisan baking'? Turns out she's been using frozen pre-baked goods. Just heating them up and passing them off as homemade."

Julia stared at him. "You're joking."

"I am not. Got it from Pratesh, who delivers for the catering supplier. She orders industrial quantities of frozen croissants, frozen Danish, frozen everything. Her entire bakery is basically a very expensive toaster."

Julia didn't know what to do with that information. Part of her wanted to laugh. The irony of Candice exposing their deception while hiding her own was almost too perfect. Part of her felt a strange sort of kinship. Candice, like her, had been pretending to be something she wasn't.

"Does everyone have secrets?" Julia asked, half to herself. "Is lying just… what humans do?"

Tom considered this. "Maybe. But there's a difference between hiding who you are and hiding what you do." He shrugged. "Candice chose to lie about her products. You were lying about yourself. One of those is fixable."

Julia tucked the information about Candice away in her mind. She didn't know if she'd ever use it. Didn't know if she wanted to. But it was there, waiting, just in case.

Right now, she had bigger things to figure out.

Like how to show Elliott Sinclair that she'd finally learned how to be brave.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Elliott had never been good at apologies. Or feelings. Or, frankly, anything that required her to admit she might have been wrong about something. Or admit that she actually had feelings.

Which was becoming a problem, because she was increasingly certain she'd been wrong about quite a lot. And that she had those pesky feelings.

She sat at Shay's tiny kitchen table, staring at a cup of coffee she hadn't touched, while Milly's words played on a loop in her head. All that stuff about helping, about stepping in when we love someone, and from even earlier, about how love was just what humans did.

And the thing was, Milly wasn't wrong. Elliott knew she wasn't wrong.

She'd spent the whole night replaying everything in her head. Every moment with Julia. Every conversation. Every time Julia had looked at her with those ridiculous hopeful eyes, like Elliott was someone. Really someone. Someone worth believing in. Someone worth… loving.

Julia had been trying to help. That was all. She'd seen Elliott struggling, seen her pride getting in the way, and she'd done something about it. The same way Julia always did something about everything, by caring too much and trying too hard and putting everyone else's needs before her own.

And Elliott had reacted by... what? Accusing her of betrayal? Storming out? Acting like Julia had committed some unforgivable crime by believing in her?

God, she was an idiot.

The coffee had gone cold ages ago. Elliott wrapped her hands around the mug anyway, needing something to hold onto.

"You're brooding again."

Elliott looked up to find Shay leaning against the doorframe in a dressing gown covered in cartoon cats, holding her own mug of coffee like a weapon.

"I'm thinking."

"Same thing with you." Shay dropped into the chair across from her. "You've been sitting here for hours. That's a lot of thinking, even by your broody standards."