Chapter 4
A Recipe for Disaster
A crucial piece of Anya's baking equipment fails, jeopardizing a major order. Liam steps in, offering not just technical help but also advice on finding the perfect spot for her dream bakery.
The hum of the industrial mixer was usually Anya’s lullaby, a comforting thrum that accompanied her through the dawn hours, coaxing dough into submission and cream into ethereal peaks. Today, however, that familiar sound faltered, sputtering like a dying ember before ceasing altogether. Anya’s heart leaped into her throat, a cold dread coiling in her stomach. The large order for the wedding cake, the one that felt like her first real step towards her dream patisserie, was due in three days.
She’d been meticulously piping delicate sugar roses onto the tiers, her brow furrowed in concentration, when the mixer had let out its final, pathetic wheeze. Now, silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by the frantic thumping of her own pulse. Anya ran a trembling hand over the smooth, cool metal of the mixer, as if willing it back to life. It was old, she knew, a relic from her grandmother’s bakery, but it had always been reliable. Until now.
Panic, sharp and acrid, began to bloom. She tried flicking switches, jiggling cords, even giving it a gentle, hopeful tap. Nothing. The powerful motor, the very engine of her baking dreams, was dead. A tear escaped, tracing a hot path down her cheek. This was it. The setback she’d always feared, the one that would cement her mother’s pronouncements that she wasn’t ready, that she should stick to the safe, predictable life Elena envisioned for her.
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