Bea blinked. Monte stiffened.
I didn’t move.
Because I couldn’t.
He looked at me like I was the only thing in the room that mattered. Like maybe he’d meant to come last night after all, and the weight of not doing so was still dragging behind him.
“Sorry, I’m late,” he said, low and smooth.
He wasn’t on the guest list. He wasn’t even supposed to be in this room.
But there he was.
And I couldn’t decide if I wanted to throw my clipboard at his chest or drag him into a back room and remind him exactly what he’d missed.
Instead, I gave him the only thing I could offer in that moment.
Professional detachment.
“You’re interrupting a tasting,” I said, my voice level, clipped.
His gaze didn’t waver. “Didn’t want to miss the sweetness.”
My spine locked. The way he said it—like we were the only ones who knew what it really meant. Like the cake was just frosting over the fire still burning between us.
Bea cleared her throat, pretending not to smirk.
I turned sharply back to the couples. “Let’s move on to the fruit-forward pairings, shall we?”
As the servers brought out the next round of confections—champagne raspberry, blood orange buttercream, mango passionfruit—I felt Silas’s gaze track my every move.
Watching. Waiting.
And I knew, without a doubt, the storm I’d been trying to outrun had found me again.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
Silas moved to the back without a word. Just slipped behind the counter and disappeared down the hallway like he had every right to be there. Like he already knew the way.
Maybe he did.
I tried not to react. Tried not to feel the heat of his presence still clinging to the air he left behind. Instead, I adjusted Isabel’s tasting notes, offered Vivienne a napkin, and made a quick jokeabout passionfruit being the “Leo of fillings—bold, dramatic, and desperate to be the center of attention.”
But I wasn’t tasting anything. Not really.
Because my pulse had started to race.
And every breath felt like a countdown.
Silas wasn’t supposed to be here. Not today. Not after the night we’d both walked away from like two strangers who had no business missing each other. He hadn’t shown up at midnight like he said. Hadn’t texted. Hadn’t called.
And yet now he was here.
Walking through the back hallway of a luxury bakery like a man with unfinished business.
I took a breath. Then another. And then I followed.
