Chapter 1

"You can't have that cake," I said.

The woman in the silk trench coat turned away from the display case.

"I'm sorry?"

She pointed through the glass at the cake shaped like a narrow brick house. Three piped windows crossed the second tier, each framed in brown buttercream.

"I already paid the deposit," she said. "Lucas confirmed Saturday at three."

I had come out front looking for five missing milk-glass stands. Now I could see them beneath the morning spotlights.

Each one held a small wedding-cake model.

The brownstone stood second from the left. Someone had added two sugar initials above the front door and replaced my uneven climbing roses with neat rows of identical white flowers.

Behind it were four more cakes I recognized.

The proportions were close, but every detail had been cleaned into lifeless symmetry. The flowers were too even. The edges were too smooth. I never made two petals bend the same way.

The fifth cake stood in the center.

I stopped breathing for a second.

It had been unfinished when I locked the kitchen the night before. Its top tier had sat bare for almost a year because I could never decide how the final design should end.

Now someone had covered it in perfectly smooth white fondant.

Two sugar initials rested on top.

B. & R.

Not mine. Not Lucas's.

The woman followed my stare.

"That one is beautiful, too," she said. "But Sophia said the brownstone made more sense for us."

"Sophia?"

"Sophia Bell." She smiled as though I must be joking. "She designed the collection."

A voice floated in from the sidewalk.

"The lavender notes were inspired by summers at my grandmother's place near Traverse City."

Through the front window, I saw Sophia standing in the middle of a ring light. A phone was clipped above it, and a small black microphone rested against the collar of her cream blouse.

She smiled into the camera.

"My grandmother used to cut lavender from her garden and hang it above the kitchen sink. That smell always meant someone was home."

Heat climbed the back of my neck.

The lavender cake hadn't come from anybody's garden.

It had started as a failed batch three years earlier. I had used too much lavender, and Lucas said it tasted like soap from a hotel bathroom. I balanced it with vanilla, then lemon, then a little honey until the flavor stopped announcing itself and settled into the cake.

Sophia tilted the camera toward the bakery window.

"The Forever Collection tells the story of two people building a life together," she said. "First dates, first homes, the years that test us, and the future we choose."

The woman beside me touched the glass with one finger.

"That's why I wanted this one," she said. "Our first apartment was over somebody's garage. Then we spent eight years saving for the brownstone."

She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was telling the truth about her life to the person she believed had made something for it.

The back-office door opened.

Lucas walked into the showroom with his tablet beneath one arm. His shirt cuffs were rolled evenly below his elbows, and his hair was still damp from the shower.

The woman's face brightened.

"Lucas. Thank God. Please tell her the brownstone cake is mine."

Lucas looked at me before he looked at the display.

"Saturday at three," he told her. "We'll have it at St. Luke's before the photographer starts."

"So it is mine?"

"It's yours, Chloe."

She exhaled and pressed one hand to her chest.

"I knew you'd remember the windows," she said. "My fiancé didn't even notice them when we bought the place."

"You said they were the reason you chose it."

"It's so rare to find someone who actually listens."

Lucas smiled. "That's the job."

Chloe finally noticed that neither of us was moving.

"Oh—you're Erin, right?" she asked. "Sophia said you handle production."

Production.

I looked at Lucas.

He didn't correct her.

Chloe glanced between us, her smile beginning to tighten.

"I should probably let you get back to work," she said. "The photographer starts the detail shots at three-fifteen."

"I'll check the loading entrance myself," Lucas told her.

"Thank you."

He walked her to the door. Chloe paused beside the display for one last look at the brownstone, then stepped outside and passed behind Sophia's ring light.

Lucas waited until the door clicked shut.

The showroom went quiet except for Sophia's voice coming through the glass.

I looked at the five cakes.

"How many?"

Lucas set his tablet on the counter and aligned it with the edge.

"All five."

"You took deposits?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Three came in after Sophia posted the preview. The other two were referrals."

"You posted them before you told me?"

"I needed to know whether people would buy the collection."

"It wasn't a collection."

Lucas's eyes moved toward the window.

"It is now."

I walked to the display and pointed at the brownstone.

"That was First Home."

"It still is."

"The crooked windows were from the apartment over your uncle's garage."

"And now they mean something to Chloe."

I pointed at the lavender cake.

"That was First Date. You said it tasted like soap."

"I said the first version tasted like soap."

"The honey cake was supposed to use my mother's recipe."

"This kitchen has used Ruth's recipe for six years."

Then I looked at the unfinished white cake in the center.

"What did you sell them for the Future cake?"

"Champagne sponge. White-chocolate frosting."

"We never chose champagne."

"We never chose anything."

"That was the point. We were supposed to finish it together."

Lucas's expression didn't change.

"We had a year."

"We were busy."

"We were always busy."

Outside, Sophia laughed at something one of her viewers had typed. A car slowed in front of the shop, and the passenger lifted her phone to take a picture of the window.

I lowered my voice.

"Those five cakes were for our wedding."

"They were five ideas sitting in storage."

"They were ours."

"The shop paid for the ingredients. Mara and Tom helped test them. I found five clients willing to pay for them."

"That doesn't make them yours."

"And holding the whisk doesn't make every part of this place yours, Erin."

I stared at him.

"We have the caterer coming this afternoon."

"No, we don't."

"The venue needs the final headcount by Friday."

"There is no venue."

For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood him.

"What?"

"I canceled it last night."

The refrigerator compressor started beneath the display case. The glass vibrated softly between us.

"You canceled our wedding?"

"Yes."

"Three weeks before the date?"

"We haven't been planning a marriage, Erin. We've been postponing one for four years."

"Because we were keeping this place alive."

"Exactly." His voice remained calm. "We're good at running a bakery. We haven't been good anywhere else for a long time."

"Then why didn't you tell me before you canceled it?"

"I tried."

"No, you didn't."

"Every time I brought it up, an oven broke, an order came in, or you said we'd talk after the weekend. There was always another weekend."

"So you canceled it while I was in the kitchen."

"You were always in the kitchen."

I looked at the display again.

Five cakes under five circles of light. Five sets of initials. Five delivery dates that Lucas had arranged before saying a word to me.

"You canceled our wedding last night," I said. "And this morning you sold it five times."

"I sold cakes."

"You sold the first date. The first home. My mother's recipe. You even sold the part we never finished."

"You're the one who keeps turning them into vows."

Lucas picked up his tablet.

"The first order goes out Saturday."

"I'm not baking it."

He started toward the kitchen.

"I mean it, Lucas."

He stopped at the doorway but didn't turn around.

"You may not be my wife, Erin," he said. "But you're still my baker."