Not a full laugh, more of a surprised exhale, but his lips curved into an actual smile. Brief but real, transforming his face from dangerous to devastating. A dimple appeared in his left cheek and my brain short-circuited entirely.
“Yes, very well-rounded.” I nodded, not sure what was coming out of my mouth right now. I was not in charge of speech, my mind was running on automation. “The abs, I mean. Characters! Well-rounded characters.”
Kill me. Kill me right now.
But he was still smiling that half-smile, and his eyes had warmed from storm cloud gray to something softer. “I’ll let you get back to your... book.”
He returned to his table with that same measured stride, leaving me clutching a romance novel about a duke’s abs to my chest while my face burned hot enough to brew coffee. When I finally managed to reshelve the book and stumble back to the counter, Mika was grinning at me with pure evil in her eyes.
“Well-rounded characters?”
“Shut up.”
“The duke or his abs?”
“I will fire you.”
“No you won’t. I make the best lattes in town.”
She was right, but I didn’t have to admit it. Instead, I busied myself with cleaning the already spotless espresso machine while trying not to replay the conversation in my head. The way he’d said “clearly.” The warmth of him standing behind me. That smile.
God, that smile.
I was in so much trouble.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of customers and coffee orders, but I remained hyperaware of the man in the corner. When six o’clock rolled around and he stood to leave, I pretended to be deeply invested in the cash register when things took a turn.
“This is wrong!” A middle-aged man in a wrinkled suit slammed his cup on the counter, making me jump. “I ordered a half-caf, soy, extra foam cappuccino with exactly two pumps of vanilla. This tastes like three pumps!”
“I’m sorry, sir, I can remake-”
“Sorry doesn’t fix incompetence!” His voice rose, drawing stares from other customers. “Do you have any idea how much I pay for coffee here? I expect perfection, not this amateur-hour bullshit!”
My hands shook as I reached for his cup, but suddenly Matthias was there, stepping smoothly between us.
“I believe the lady offered to fix your drink,” he said quietly, but there was steel in his voice which somehow made it more threatening. “You’re going to apologize to her. Now.”
The angry customer puffed up. “This doesn’t concern you-”
“Wrong.” Matthias stepped closer, and the temperature seemed to drop. “It does. Everything about her concerns me. And right now, you’re making her hands shake. I don’t like that.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m telling you how this ends. You apologize, you leave, and you never raise your voice to her again. Or we can explore other options.” His smile was all teeth, no warmth. “Your choice.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before the customer’s nerve broke. He muttered something that might have been an apology and practically ran for the door.
“Thank you,” I breathed, still shaky.
He turned to me, and his entire demeanor shifted. “No one should ever speak to you that way.” The possessiveness in his tone should have scared me. Instead, it made my knees weak. “To anyone, I mean.” He cleared his throat.
I nodded, speechless, as he made his way out to the door.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asked, and there was something in his voice that made it sound less like a question and more like a promise.
“We’ll be here,” I managed.
He held my gaze for a moment longer than necessary, then nodded and left. The bell chimed softly in his wake.
