“See you tomorrow, Juliette.”
“Have a nice day.”
Wilhelm left a twenty on the table. Juliette watched him walk out the door with interest. Celibate or not, she still appreciated a fine male like him. And he was lucky he was handsome and charming because if he kept pushing this expansion idea, she was going to lose her patience fast and kick him out of her establishment.
The morning crowd came and went, and almost everything Juliette and her helpers had made that morning was gone before noon. People knew if they wanted fresh pastries, morning was the time to come, as the afternoon was mostly reserved for handmade chocolates and confections. Pastries were fine, but Juliette preferred making candies, one more reason she didn’t care about the morning pastry-eaters who might be waiting downtown.
She took a break when the mail came at one o’clock and had a light lunch while she opened it. She almost didn’t get a swallow of her sandwich down around the growl that bubbled up inside her when she read a letter from Wilhelm’s property management company informing her that her rent was going to almost double in two months.
“That son of a bitch!” Juliette fumed in her tiny office, a spot she fashioned in the storage area.
“Which one? The ex, the alpha, the nerd, or the handsome one?” Noelle yelled from the counter.
“Is the landlord the handsome one?” Juliette yelled back. There was no customer in the shop at the moment so yelling was permitted.
“Totally, but he’s not my type.”
“Yeah that one.”
Andy and Noelle crowded the cramped space curious about what was happening. Juliette showed them the letter.
“I didn’t hear anything about them raising the price. You know my roommate works at the management office. She’d have told me if something like this happened,” said Noelle.
“This is kind of fishy. Don’t they require them to inform the tenants in advance if they’re raising the rent?” asked Andy. “Should we worry about this, Juliette? Will this put us in the red?”
Juliette understood his concern. Andy was supporting his elderly mother, a widowed sister, and a nephew. They were counting on his paycheck every week. Juliette waved her hand. “We’re good, don’t you worry. Our loyal customers keep us in business. I just don’t understand why Wilhelm did this.” She pondered why he proposed a business partnership that morning. He knew she’d get the letter that day about raising her rent—did he think she would want to take him up on his offer of financing the expansion? If this was his fumbling attempt at blackmail, she wasn’t going to have it. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” She lifted her office phone to call him, but decided that what she had to say was probably best said in person. She turned to her employees. “You kids watch the shop while I’m out.”
“Yes, mom!” said Andy.
“Oui, oui,” said Noelle.
Gritting her teeth, Juliette stripped off her apron and headed out to give Mr. Wilhelm Sorenson a piece of her mind.