Read Chapter 10: The Village Gossip Machine

The first sign of trouble came at nine in the morning, when Madame Roux’s tiny dog yapped its way past the bakery window with a newspaper clamped in its mistress’s hand. Clara barely registered it. She was elbow-deep in flour, practicing the stretch-and-fold technique Julien had drilled into her the previous afternoon, her phone propped against the cash register playing a rhythm she was supposed to be counting.

The bell above the door chimed at nine-fifteen. By nine-seventeen, Madame Roux had imparted the news with the theatrical gravity of a town crier: the food critic from *Aix en Bouche*—a magazine whose readership apparently extended to every lavender field in Provence—had caught wind of the "award-winning baker" who had taken over La Mie Dorée and was planning a visit before the fête.

"Thursday," Madame Roux said, stroking her dog as if it had personally delivered the intelligence. "She arrives Thursday morning. You will be ready, yes, *cherie*?"

Clara's smile froze on her face. The same smile she'd worn when she'd told Madame Roux that yes, indeed, she had once won a bronze medal at the Lyon International Baking Competition—a lie so absurd it had taken on a life of its own, mutating through the village like a particularly aggressive strain of sourdough starter until it had become fact.

"Thursday," Clara repeated, her voice a little too high. "Of course. I'll be ready."

The moment Madame Roux's back disappeared through the door, Clara abandoned her dough and sprinted next door.

Julien was hunched over his workstation, piping delicate lavender cream onto a row of éclairs with the precision of a surgeon. He didn't look up when she burst in, only raised one eyebrow as she skidded to a stop against his counter.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said flatly. "A ghost with a press badge, perhaps."

"You know."

"Everyone knows. Pascal texted me before my coffee. The critic is a woman named Sylvie Moreau. She is—" he paused, setting down his piping bag with deliberate care, "—ruthless. She destroyed a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Lyon because the presentation was 'insufficiently avant-garde.'"

Clara pressed her palms against the cool marble counter. "Okay. Okay. This is fine. I'll just... I'll tell her the truth. That I'm not actually an award-winning baker, that I was—"

"That you lied to the entire village?" Julien finally looked at her, and there was something almost amused in his dark eyes. "That the woman who inherited Élise's bakery cannot bake so much as a biscuit? The village will have your head. And mine, for agreeing to help you."

"Then help me." Clara leaned forward, desperation sharpening her voice. "She's coming Thursday morning. The fête is Thursday evening. If I survive the morning, I survive everything. I just need to get through one hour with this critic."

Julien's hands stilled over his éclairs. A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the hum of the oven and the distant clatter of the village square.

"What exactly are you proposing?"

Clara swallowed her pride. It tasted like burnt toast. "You pretend to be my assistant. Just for the visit. You stand in the corner, look helpful, and let me take all the credit for whatever comes out of the oven."

"The credit," Julien repeated slowly, "for baking you have not done."

"I've been practicing! I made a loaf yesterday that—"

"Collapsed in the centre."

"It had character."

"It had a hole the size of your fist." Julien crossed his arms, and Clara noticed—despite everything—how the movement pulled the fabric of his shirt across his shoulders. She forced herself to focus on his face. His infuriatingly handsome face, which was currently wearing an expression of supreme satisfaction at her discomfort.

"This is a terrible idea," he said.

"I know."

"If anyone discovers I am doing your work—"

"They won't. You'll be my assistant. My *junior*. You'll stand in the back and I'll do all the talking. You just need to make sure the bread doesn't explode."

Julien's lips twitched. "Explode is a strong word."

"Julien." Clara's voice cracked. "Please. I know I got myself into this. I know I lied, and it was stupid, and I've spent the last week watching every word I say turn into a headline. But she's coming because she thinks *I'm* someone I'm not, and if she discovers the truth, she'll write about it, and the whole village will know that Élise left her bakery to a fraud."

Something flickered across his face at the mention of Élise's name. He looked away, toward the window, where the morning sun was painting the square in shades of gold and honey.

"You still haven't read her letter," he said quietly.

The words hit Clara like a slap. She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. The letter sat unopened on her nightstand, weighed down by a sprig of lavender that had long since dried. She had picked it up a dozen times. She had held it to the light, examining the thickness of the paper, the careful cursive of her aunt's hand. She had not opened it.

"What does the letter have to do with this?" she asked.

"Everything." Julien turned back to her, and his expression was unreadable. "Élise left you that bakery for a reason, Clara. A reason that has nothing to do with baking and everything to do with who you are. If you cannot face what she wrote, then perhaps this critic is exactly what you deserve."

The words stung. Clara opened her mouth to fire back a retort—something sharp, something defensive—but what came out instead was smaller, quieter.

"I'm afraid."

Julien blinked. It was the first time Clara had ever seen him look genuinely surprised.

"Of what?"

"Of what it says." Clara sank onto a stool, suddenly exhausted. "She knew me, Julien. My aunt—she saw me maybe a dozen times in my whole life. And yet she left me everything, this whole place, this whole life I never asked for. Whatever she wrote in that letter is going to explain why, and I'm terrified that when I read it, I'll realize I wasn't who she thought I was. That I'm not enough to be whatever she wanted me to be."

The confession hung between them, raw and unvarnished.

Julien was quiet for so long that Clara began to think he wouldn't respond. Then he walked around the counter, unhurried, and stopped in front of her.

"I can't pretend to be your assistant," he said.

Clara's heart plummeted. "Julien—"

"Because I refuse to stand in a corner and watch you take credit for work I have done." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notebook, worn at the edges. "Instead, I will teach you how to make the one thing Sylvie Moreau cannot resist—the same thing I won my award with. A proper Provençal loaf, no shortcuts, no lies. And you will bake it yourself, in front of her, and if she asks questions, I will be there to tell her the truth."

"Which is that I'm an award-winning baker?" Clara asked hopefully.

The corner of Julien's mouth lifted. "Which is that you are a woman who has worked harder in the past three weeks than most people do in a year, and who happens to be learning from the best baker in the region."

Clara blinked. "Did you just compliment yourself?"

"I complimented you. It was implied."

She felt something warm unfurl in her chest—something that had nothing to do with the oven. "So you'll help me?"

"I'll help you." Julien held her gaze, and for a moment, the hostility that had marked their early encounters was nowhere to be seen. "But you need to read the letter, Clara. Before Thursday. Whatever you're afraid of, I promise you—she believed in you more than you know."

"Because of what she did to your family?" Clara asked softly. "Because of your father?"

Julien's face shuttered. He stepped back, tucking the notebook into his pocket with practiced ease.

"I'll teach you to bake," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "What Élise did or didn't do for my family—that stays in the past until you're ready to hear it. And you're not ready. Not with a critic coming."

He moved to the door and held it open for her. Clara hesitated on the threshold, caught between the warmth of the bakery and the cool morning air.

"Julien."

He looked at her.

"Thank you. For not letting me lie my way out of this one."

His expression softened, just barely. "Lie your way into a mess, and I'll pull you out. But you have to learn to stand on your own eventually. The fête is in days, the critic is in hours, and the village council—" He paused. "Thursday morning. Before the critic. Pascal told me the vote is scheduled."

Clara's stomach twisted. "So everything happens Thursday."

"Everything." Julien's voice was low. "Which means you have until tonight to read that letter and decide who you want to be when it all happens."

He closed the door behind her, leaving Clara alone in the square with her terror and a sprig of dried lavender in her pocket that she couldn't remember putting there.