“Where are all the store receipts?” I asked her calmly.

She reached under her chair and brought out an old metal cookie tin filled with paper receipts for butter, fresh eggs, expensive fondant, real gold leaf, and individual sugar flower tools.

I added every item up on my phone calculator, then asked her how many total hours she had worked over the last few days.

“Three full days, mostly working from early morning until late at night,” she admitted weary-eyed.

I pulled out my wallet and counted out enough crisp cash to cover every cent of the supplies while paying her fairly for her hard labor.