Love At Last

Chapter One

LILY

My alarm goes off, informing me that the time was 4:30am and that it was time for me to get up and prepare as usual, I turn it off then rolled out of bed. My mornings would always start like this, I would get up, stretch a little, then head into the bathroom to get dressed. Today I picked a yellow floral sun dress and brown boots for my outfit of the day. I got dressed and did some light make up to brighten my face, by now it was 5:20am.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

I run a bakery that serves different pastries and bread, also some tea and coffee to go with it. I also deliver to companies all around the country. Today was no exception, I rushed down the stairs which led to the bakery, and immediately headed to the back room, which was for baking. Most of my staff were present, so I picked up my apron and joined the set who were kneading bread dough.

“Good morning Lily,” Jarod, my head chef said as soon as I walked towards him supervising.

“Good morning Jarod, how is everything going?” I replied while smiling at him and washing my hands.

“Everything is going good; 50 pans of apple pie are in the oven baking. That’s the order we got from Sharon’s Salon, then there’s some tea bread and chocolate cake baking also, for our in-house customers.” Jared always gave me a run through of the orders he got in the mornings, to keep me up to date. He was my manager, best friend and chef all in one person. “David’s order isn’t till evening, so we would start making his when we are done with most work here.”

“So what’s today’s special?”

“There’s no really any special today. Though we’re trying all of America’s favourite flavours of donuts, cake, cupcakes, pies and cookies.”

“All?”

“Yes, they’re working on it over there, the cookies section are making oatmeal flavour already. Now personal talk, how was your night?”

“My night was short as usual, with little to no dream. I barely got any beauty sleep,” I told him while kneading dough.

“You still look beautiful no doubt,” Jarod was always good with words, which was why his compliment didn’t surprise me any bit. “I’m off to start work on the donuts.” It was 5:42 by now and the shop was set to open 6:30 every morning. I had 25 staff working with me, because of the amount of orders I got every morning.

After my parents sent me packing, I took little of what they sent me out with, and went over to my grandmother’s place, in a town called Nedford. Nedford was a small town located at the northern part of USA, my grandmother had moved to this town when my grandfather died years back. She decided on moving to a small town were nothing would remind her of my grandfather.

You would be wondering why my parents would’ve thrown me out right? Well, here goes your answer, I was thrown out because I got pregnant. I had my first boyfriend, Jeremy Andrews, when I was 17, he was everything I wanted in a guy, he seemed like someone I would want to start a family with. He seemed to love me so much, as much as I loved him, which was why when he asked to take my virginity, I didn’t think twice before letting him. That first sex led to me being pregnant. I was scared when I found out, but was happy since it was with Jeremy, the one I wanted to have a family with. I was so excited and naïve, so I rushed over to his house, knowing his parents were not home, and ran straight to his room. I was shocked at what I saw when I yanked open his room door, Jeremy was laying on the bed butt naked, with a redhaired girl on him, also naked. I was too shocked at what I had seen to say a word, I went back out of the house and ran to tell my parents all that had happened.

My father, Steve Greyson, was the CEO of Grey’s empire, one of the largest companies in the USA. His reputation to him was everything, he had the money, the fame and everything, what he wanted the world to see was the perfect family which he had built alongside the perfect company. Which was why when his last child, and only daughter came home crying about being pregnant he was furious. She was still a teenager and just got into college, how could she get pregnant? He stormed off out of the living room that day and left me with my mother, who was always at his beck and call. She hurried towards me and scolded me without considering the heartbreak I just went through.

My father came back that night and sent me packing, threw all my things out and denounced me as his child. With tears in my eyes, I picked up one suitcase out of the five he threw me out with and dragged myself to the nearest hotel. That night I called my grandmother, Annie Greyson, then explained all that happened to her, she gave me the warm replies I craved from my parents, and told me to take the next bus to her place first thing in the morning.

I was delivered a very handsome boy, I named him Jacek, it has a polish name which meant Hyacinth flower. Luckily he looked more like me than Jeremy, so I wasn’t reminded of my horrible past. My grandmother helped me with my son while I went to college for baking and pastry arts, it was for two years. I had started the course when I was still with my parents, but I had to transfer to one around Nedford. As soon as I graduated from college, I decided to start my own bakery with the experience I had. I went in search of buildings around Nedford which would be perfect for a bakery. I found a two story building that was perfect for I and my family. The second floor of the house was a three room apartment, with a kitchen and a living room. While the ground floor had a main room and a back room. I met Jarod in college, we became best friends a month after we met, he was my first employee. We remodelled the bakery together and decided on a name together, ‘That Bakery Shop’, we decided on it because it sounded funny and catchy at the same time. Surprisingly we got busy faster than we expected, I was really popular both in high school and college, most people from high school ordered from me, while my college friends visited the shop frequently. Different shops came to my bakery to get bread for retail, companies ordered for different artist designed pastries for their company meetings and events. Jacek was now two years old, and was my number one advertisement. Jarod made a video of him snacking peacefully on one of my designed doughnuts, he had some of it all over his face, but the satisfaction was evident in his eyes. He said to me, “This is really yummy.”

At exactly 6:30am, we were open for the day, we had sent the order to the salon right after the apple pies had been prepared. 7am was the usual time for breakfast rush, we began setting up the bakery, I turned on the coffee machine and placed all ingredients for our bestseller tea, and chocolate drink. Display pastries were arranged in the transparent display case, the sitting area was well arranged and we were ready for our first order. The bakery door bell jingled, signalling that someone walked in. Frank, a customer from the house next door walked in with a smile on his face.

“Good morning Frank,” I said as soon as he got to the counter.

“Good morning Lily, it’s always so good to be graced by your smile every morning,” Frank replied, as cheeky as ever. “Am I the first one to come in as usual?”

“Yes, you are as usual. Today we would be giving you a little bit of something extra.”

“That is lovely, I would like to have three…”

“Glazed doughnuts and one chocolate filled doughnut right?” he chuckled then nodded. I picked out our custom doughnut box, and placed his order in it. “For our extra gift today, I’ll be giving you our new recipes. So you have to pick between our Lemon Meringue pie or German chocolate flavoured cupcake.”

“Hmm, it’s a tough one seeing as I’ve never tried any of the two,” now he was stroking his chin. “I guess I will go with the cupcake, you can never go wrong with chocolate, thank you.”

“No problem, here is your order,” I gave him the already packed box and got his credit card in exchange.

“Thank you, how’s Annie this morning?” Frank had a thing for my grandmother, ever since we moved to the bakery.

“She’s doing very good. She’s probably still resting,” I passed his card back to him and a receipt on his order.

“Send my greetings to her,” with that he walked towards the entrance and left the building. Just as he left, people began trooping in, and so the breakfast rush began.

It was now 8:30 am, this was when the rush hour most times are reduced,

“Phew, I can never get used to that,” I said to Jarod as I slumped on the chair closest to me.

“I don’t think anyone can get used to it, they just live with it,” Jarod replied. He looked just as tired as he sounded.

“Please cover for me, let me go get Jacek ready, and make breakfast.” With that I got up and headed for the staircase which led to the second floor of the building.

Once I got into the house, I headed towards my grandmother’s room, because I was sure that was were Jacek would be by this time of the morning. I slowly pushed the door open, and saw both Jacek and Annie sprawled on her bed in each other’s arm.

“Mama!” Jacek squealed, then ran over to hug me. I went down on my knees to receive him and smother his whole face with kisses.

“How was your night candy?” I asked him while pulling him back to look into his golden eyes.

“It was fun!” he replied then chuckled.

“Fun?”

“Yes mama, we went to Disneyland and had lots of candy,” he told me while still smiling.

“We did?” I asked tentatively.

“Yes mama, in my sweet dream. Mama can you take me there someday?” he asked in his slurred baby voice, and gave me the puppy dog eyes.

“Soon candy, now we just have to get you dressed for the day okay?” I replied. He had been asking to go to California for the longest, and I didn’t really have time for vacations. I knew someday I would have to give in to his request. I went over to my grandmother who had been watching the whole scenario. “Good morning nana.”

“Good morning love, how was the rush?”

“Draining as usual. Frank sends his greetings.” She scoffs.

“It’s high time you tell him, I’m actually not interested in him or anybody. I’m not getting any younger,” Nana shrugs and squeezes Jacek tightly in her arms. He had crawled his way back to her while we were talking.

“Anyways, it is not my story to tell, you have to tell him yourself. Let me get this baby boy ready and make breakfast.” I picked Jacek up, tickled his sides a little, and took him to his room to get him prepared for the day.

At 9:45am, I went down the stairs leading to the bakery, leaving a now well fed Jacek with my Nana. I could hear a lot of noise from the backroom where I was. I ignored it because it kind of sounded like the normal rush, though it should have ended by now. I went into the pantry to check how much ingredient we had left, this was my daily routine.

“There’s this customer talking trash about our food!” Dean, one of my workers said as he rushed into the pantry.

“Talking trash?” what could possibly go wrong with my art? I rushed over to the counter at the front room.

“I can’t believe you would sell this for people to eat. It’s utter rubbish, and not fit for consumption, this bakery should be shut down!!” A browned haired man shouted, he had drawn up a crowd right at the counter. He was all suited up with a suitcase in hand, and looked like he could buy the whole of my bakery and make it a corporate firm.

“Sir, we served you the flavour you requested for, you asked for honey lemon cruller, which was our special today, that’s how it tastes…” he cut Jarod off

“When I asked for your special, I didn’t ask for trash like this!!”

“You would not talk to my employee like that!” I don’t know what came over me, but I was angry, and I just shouted at a customer….