That's The Way The Christmas Cookie Crumbles

Chapter One

Ella Templeton ran her fingers across the stainless steel bench top. The kitchen was spotless, but then she wouldn’t have it any other way. Ella was a stickler for the rules and she ruled her kitchen with an iron first…although, it wasn’t her kitchen anymore.

She knew she should feel something; sad, angry, relieved, but she just felt numb. Seven years of her life and all of her blood, sweat, and tears had gone into making Bastian’s one of the hottest restaurants in Brisbane…in Australia, really. Now it was all over and she was walking away with nothing to show for the past seven years.

Not even a wedding ring.

The divorce had been final the day before and the house was sold. Her car was packed and she was leaving the city behind, at least for a little while until she figured out what she was going to do next. There was no shortage of offers. Once the restaurant world found out about her split from Bastian (her husband) and Bastian’s (the restaurant), she had been inundated with job offers.

And yes, her husband—ex-husband—had named their restaurant after himself. It seemed like a good idea at the time. They’d wanted a certain reputation for the restaurant, and that meant staying as far away from Ella’s mother’s reputation as possible. It’s what she’d wanted too. Ella wanted to make a name for herself and she wanted to come by it honestly, not on the coattails of her mother. Yes, Kathy Templeton was a household name, but she did not have a reputation conducive to the one Ella and Bas had intended to build. So Ella became the silent half of the business, which suited her just fine. She much preferred to let her food speak for her. Bas was a natural charmer, and he became the face of the restaurant, and together they’d built one of the highest rated restaurants in the city. Ella’s desserts even got a mention on several high-brow food blogs. But while Ella had been honing her craft, Bas had been, well, honing his dick didn’t really fit…maybe honing his sexual prowess? Whatever. Ella had reaped none of the benefits, but plenty of their servers and several customers had. And now he’d taken up with another chef and Ella was out while the new chef came in and benefited from all Ella’s hard work.

Ella was definitely not heartbroken over her divorce. Their marriage had been over years ago, but they’d stayed together for the restaurant. Now Bas had found someone to replace her and it was time to move on.

Looking back, Ella would have done so many things differently, but no one could go back and change the past. She just had to move on and look to the future, and her immediate future included a nice, long vacation in Noosa, or Noosa adjacent. The fact that she would be staying at her mother’s house was the only fly in the ointment. The fact that it was a massive, multimillion dollar mansion on the beach made the irritation of moving back in with her mother somewhat bearable.

I thought you were leaving today?

Ella turned to look at Maree, the new chef and the new darling of Bastian’s life. Maree was everything Ella wasn’t; tall, thin, blonde, and put together like she just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine, even when she was wearing chef whites. Ella felt like a frump in comparison. Just a little too short and a little too curvy. Her chef jacket always hung weird on her because of the size of her boobs and she could never keep her dark hair tidy, especially after a long night in the kitchen. That’s what chef hats were for, right? Except on Maree, the chef hat was more of a stylish accessory rather than a piece of protective clothing to stop hair falling into the food. And they didn’t even wear the tall le toque hats, they just wore the short beanies, but Ella knew Maree would rock a le toque, whereas it would look like a Halloween costume on her. Bas had definitely upgraded when he picked Maree.

I was just picking up the last of my things, Ella replied.

You don’t mind if I check your bag before you go, do you? Maree said, crossing her arms over her pristine white chef jacket.

Actually, I do mind, Ella said. "Do you think I would stoop so low as to steal something from the restaurant? The restaurant I built?"

We all know just how low you would stoop, Maree replied with a snarl.

What is that supposed to mean?

Maree rolled her eyes. You know exactly what it means. You tried to sabotage us with that last food critic.

You have got to be shitting me, Ella snapped. I would never do that.

Really? So you just happened to fuck up your signature dessert on the one night the food critic was in the house?

I didn’t fuck anything up, Ella growled. That stupid critic wouldn’t know his arse from his elbow. My dessert was perfect, he just has the taste buds of a hyena. Besides, even if I did it on purpose, I still wouldn’t be stooping as low as you. I didn’t sleep with another woman’s husband.

Maree opened her mouth to reply, but Bastian’s smooth voice broke into their slinging match.

Now, now, ladies. There’s no need to fight over me.

Ella snorted, gathering her bag and swinging it over her shoulder. The familiar weight of her knife roll grounding her.

I was just explaining to Maree that I was simply picking up the last of my stuff. Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair before the rest of the staff come in for pre-service prep.

If you want to say goodbye to everyone, you can stay, Bas said, even though Maree was glaring daggers at him.

I said everything I needed to, Ella replied.

It had been a tearful goodbye. Her sous chef threatened to quit rather than work under Maree, and several of the servers vowed to follow her to wherever she ended up working next. It had been sweet but unnecessary. Ella might not have any plans for the future, but she wasn’t worried…yet. Right now, all she needed was to be away. Away from the city, and the restaurant, and the house. They all held too many memories, and she needed a fresh start and a fresh perspective.

Ella headed for the door.

Ella, wait, Bas called.

She stopped but didn’t turn around.

No hard feelings?

Ella snorted. Sure, Bas, she replied, still facing the door. No hard feelings.

It was bullshit, of course. She might not love Bastian anymore, but she had plenty of hard feelings about the way it all went down. But what was done was done. He got the restaurant and she’d gotten the house—which she promptly sold. There was no way she could continue living there, and the money gave her a little breathing room until she decided what came next.

Ella pushed through the back door and into the alley behind the restaurant, not waiting for Bas to say anything else. She breathed in the rancid air perfumed by the nearby dumpster and tried to think of this as a brand new beginning. They were eight weeks out from the end of the year and that gave her a couple of good months to recover and grieve and make a solid plan for the future. Next year was a brand new year, and Ella determined it was going to be her year.

Ella cursed her GPS as it told her to turn into a street that didn’t exist. For a luxury area, the streets were horrendous; narrow and windy, cars parked on both sides making the road even more cramped. Sunshine Beach was nothing like Ella had thought it would be. Sure, she’d checked it out on Google Maps, but it didn’t prepare her for just how much of a rabbit warren it was.

Ella had never been to her mother’s house. Kathy had bought it about six months ago, and from the description she’d given, Ella expected a palatial estate in a gated community with acres of land. That was nowhere near what she was seeing as she tried to do a three-point turn to shut the GPS up. Going slower, Ella followed the GPS directions and turned into a street that the GPS identified as Duke Street but was actually signed as Crank Street, and then made an immediate left turn into Webb Road. This was an even narrower road, only made worse by the on-street parking. She followed the curve of the road until she came to a dead end and saw the gate to her mother’s house.

Ella took a deep breath. There was a reason she hadn’t visited her mother in so long. Their relationship was on the tumultuous side, to say the least. Visiting at Christmas was even worse. Ella had some terrible memories from Christmas past that she would rather not relive. Unfortunately, this year she had nowhere else to go. As awkward as it was going to be, Ella had no choice but to grit her teeth and bear it. It was only eight weeks. She could survive eight weeks and with as large as the house was reported to be, maybe she wouldn’t even see her mother all that often. Besides, Kathy would no doubt be busy filming her Christmas special and Ella had plans to lie by the pool or on the beach and not think about cooking for the next two months.

Bracing herself, she lowered her window and pressed the buzzer on the gate.

Ella? Ella? Is that you?

Hi Dad, Ella replied, a little bit of the tension loosening in her shoulders.

Hang on a minute, honey, and I’ll open the gate.

Ella raised her window, the heat outside already making her sweat even though she’d had the car air conditioning on full blast. The gate slowly opened in front of her and Ella eased the car forward and down the driveway, passing a full size tennis court on her right before the house came into view. The house and the sparkling blue ocean beyond. When her mother had said the property was ocean front, she wasn’t kidding.

Ella parked by the front stair and took another fortifying breath before opening her door and stepping out into the summer heat. Technically, it wasn’t summer yet, but it may as well be with the humidity and the heat.

She rounded the car and opened the boot to get her bags when the front door opened. Ella expected her father to step out, or her step-father, or even her mother, but it was a stranger. A golden stranger with dark sunglasses, a sun-streaked beard, and a messy man bun. He was dressed in cut-off jean shorts and a tank top that showed off his tan. Ella was momentarily dumbstruck as he walked toward her.

Um, hi?

Hello, he replied with a flashing grin.

Are you here to take my bags?

Ella couldn’t imagine who else he would be apart from house staff. But then why would he be dressed like he was going to the beach? He even had thongs on his feet. Not exactly who she would have expected her mother to employ as part of the house staff, but then again, her mother wasn’t known as Kooky Kathy for nothing.

He laughed. It was uninhibited and deep and rolled over her like a warm ocean wave, swamping her completely.

Sure, I can help you with your bags, he said, reaching into her open boot to grab her two suitcases.

Ella unashamedly ogled the way his biceps flexed as he lifted the bags out of the car. She may have even drooled a bit.

Do you mind grabbing the other bag? he asked, snapping her out of her lust-fuelled fugue.

Oh, right, of course, she stammered, reaching in to get her smaller makeup case and her garment bag.

The rest of her stuff was languishing in a storage shed, not that she had much. Living and breathing the restaurant 24/7 was not a conducive lifestyle for collecting stuff.

Ella followed the unknown man up the stairs and into the foyer of the house. She had been so distracted by him, she hadn’t taken in the size and scope of the house—mansion. It was huge and white and expensive. Her mother had paid eighteen million dollars for it. Personally, Ella couldn’t imagine paying that much for a house, especially when she could still see the neighbours’ houses on either side. Sure, it was right on the beach and it had a long driveway to set it back from the road, but still…the neighbours were right there.

The guy—whoever he was—closed the door, and for the first time Ella realised the doors were huge. They towered above her into the highest ceiling of the foyer. It had to be at least three storeys and the doors went all the way up.

Oh, Jake, you didn’t need to do that, Ella’s dad said, coming into the foyer.

It was no trouble, Harry, Jake said, flashing another easy grin.

Well, thank you, anyway.

No problem, Jakes said with a wave as he headed back out the front door.

Ella watched him go, appreciating the view but confused about who he was and what he was doing in her mother’s house.

Who was that? Ella asked, turning to her father.

That’s Jake. Jake Collins. He’s your mother’s sous chef.

Shit. Could Ella have embarrassed herself more than by thinking he was part of the house staff?

"Wait. Jake Collins? The Jake Collins? The chef who has worked in Michelin starred restaurants all over the world? He’s Mum’s sous chef?"

Shit, shit, shit. Way to go, Ella. If your life wasn’t bad enough, you just had to make a fool of yourself in front of one of the hottest chefs to come out of the country.

Yep, Harry said. That’s him. Nice bloke.

Chapter Two

Harry helped get Ella settled in her room—more of a suite, really, and Ella was beyond grateful to have such a private slice of seclusion away from the rest of the house.

Mum wants to see you, Harry said as Ella began unpacking.

Ella held back a sigh. Yeah, I figured she would. I thought she might have come to the front door to great me.

She would have except she was in a meeting when you arrived.

Of course she was, Ella mumbled under her breath, but obviously not low enough because her father heard.

Come now, you know she loves you. This was important and she couldn’t reschedule it.

Ella sighed. I know, she said, even though she really didn’t.

Kathy was a weird mix of craziness and focussed attention. She’d made her name in the nineties, appearing on breakfast television programs across the country as an in-studio chef. Her claim to fame was her quick, easy, and no-fail recipes to feed a family on a budget. But what made her famous was her kooky personality. Kooky. God, Ella hated that word. It sounded fun and exciting, but to Ella it meant boundary-less and disappointment. Her mother was always disappointing her in one way or another. Sure, she’d built an empire—she even had an entire range of cookware and kitchen gadgets that sold in Big W and Target. It wasn’t just Kathy’s ‘kookiness’ that got her an eighteen million dollar mansion. Kathy was also a shrewd businesswoman. She went from cooking segments on breakfast television to headlining a cooking show, and she even appeared as a guest judge on MasterChef. The network even approached her to be part of The Great Australia Bake-Off when it first aired, but she’d turned them down. Kathy had her eyes on something bigger and better, something that she had more creative control over. Kooking with Kathy. Yes, ‘kooking’ not ‘cooking’ because Kathy was all about alliteration and she knew her ‘kookiness’ was her bread-winner. It’s why people loved her. Kooking with Kathy was a YouTube channel where Kathy showcased her signature cooking prowess with a healthy dose of humour and the inevitable kitchen disaster. It was probably the disasters that made the channel so damned popular.

It didn’t take a genius to understand why Ella and Bastian had kept their restaurant as far away from Kathy’s reputation as possible. It hadn’t taken long for the media to learn who was behind the desserts at Bastian’s but by then they’d built up enough of a reputation of their own that Kathy’s press hadn’t affected them too much. Ella should probably thank Bas for that. He was the one who’d steered the situation away from too many comparisons with Kooky Kathy.

He probably slept with a reporter or two in order to help the story die.

Ella shook the thought off. He was a cheating bastard and she had been far too blind to see it, but it was all behind her now. He was no longer her problem.

Ella put the last of her clothes away and then turned to face her father.

Okay, she said. Let’s get this over with. I have a date with a book, a glass of wine, and the pool deck.

Ella followed Harry out of the room and down the two flights of stairs. The house was a maze—a lovely appointed maze for sure, but still a maze Ella would no doubt get lost in. They wound through the bottom floor, giving Ella a glimpse at the infinity pool and the unending ocean view beyond. The sooner she got this meeting over with her mother, the better. They could say their hellos and then go their separate ways.

Harry opened a door and led Ella into a spacious office. Her mother sat behind a wide desk, the queen of her empire. Time seemed to bypass Kathy Templeton. She had flawless, lightly tanned skin (probably a fake tan, or a tinted moisturiser), and fine blonde hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. She was taut and trim, and sometimes Ella wondered just how she shared genes with the woman. Ella took after her father, that was for sure.

Off to the side, at a smaller desk, sat Stan, Ella’s stepfather. Technically, Kathy and Stan weren’t married, but they’d been together since Ella was six years old. And yes, her father also lived with them. No, it wasn’t a polyamorous relationship, although Ella often thought it would be better if it was. Harry and Stan had been best friends