Welcome to Wickedly Sweet, where each bite is sinfully delicious.
Noa Baudet has always longed to open her own specialist cupcake shop. So, when an opportunity arises at her favourite bakery in her hometown, Noa ditches her tailored suits for a flo...
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Welcome to Wickedly Sweet, where each bite is sinfully delicious.
The heading on the bakery's advert jumped off the page, and my stomach filled with a mixture of giddiness and nerves. I was one step closer to owning my very own cupcake shop. Okay, this wasn't exactly my dream position as I'd be working for someone else, but the location was perfect. Back in the town I grew up, back to the place I had spent every day after school drooling over chocolate ganache and fluffy chou pastry.
"When's the interview?" My mum's voice crackled over the line. The clang of metal resonated in the background, along with a few curse words.
I wedged my phone between my ear and shoulder, and topped my cup of tea up with another splash of milk. Unfortunately, I slipped as I scrolled through the local digital papers' ad list, pouring way too much in. Fudge, now it's too milky. I hate milky tea.
"I'll leave in forty minutes or so. Can't stay on for too long. I still need a shower."
"You're cutting it close. Don't be late."
"I won't be. It's around the corner." Literally. It was the reason I had rented this apartment. I could stay at work as long as I needed without worrying about a long walk home in the dark. The fact I could stay in bed until the last minute was another appealing factor. Everyone knew how much I loved my sleep. Which was ironic when my new vocation entailed early starts and late nights.
"Come on, Noa. You'd be late to your own funeral. Don't give them the wrong impression on the first day. You know what your grandfather would say. Early–"
"Early is on time, on time is late, and late is UNACCEPTABLE!" I said in a deeper voice than normal, as I imitated my French grandfather's accent. Ah, Papi Baudet was something else; a hard, grumpy shell on the outside with a loveable, soft centre. He was why I had this dream. Every August from the time I turned ten, I spent my summers at his farm in a rural village in the south of France. My fondest memory was of us both covered in flour and butter smeared on cupboard handles. I missed him.
"I miss that fool," Mum said, reading my mind. My mum lost her parents young, and when she married, her father-in-law—my grandfather—vowed to love her like his own. A vow he'd kept until the very end.
We sighed in sync, and I smiled as I crouched down to rummage through the crisper drawer of my fridge for a fresh pack of raspberries. After sliding them onto the small kitchen trolley behind me, I stripped back the film off my day-old pancake batter and gave it a cautious sniff. It lives to see another day. Propping my phone against a jar of pasta sauce that had yet to make it onto the shelf, I clicked the speaker option and folded my raspberries into the batter.
"I have ten minutes, and then I really should get ready. Tell me about work while I make my breakfast. It will keep my mind off my interview." The emptiness in my stomach intensified as my nerves and hunger fought for top position.
