I find her in the kitchen at dawn, stress-baking again. Flour dusts her clothes and exhaustion rings her eyes. She's been working through her confusion about my distance, channeling frustration into productivity.
"Trinity."
She doesn't look up from her mixing. "If you're here to maintain more professional boundaries, you can leave."
"I'm here to warn you."
That gets her attention. "About what?"
"The producers are planning to attack your bakery's reputation. Manufactured scandal designed to force emotional responses from both of us."
Her mixing slows. "What kind of scandal?"
"Financial impropriety. Romantic manipulation. Lies designed to make you look opportunistic and desperate."
"But none of that's true."
"Truth is irrelevant to them. Drama sells."
She sets down her whisk and finally meets my eyes. "How do you know this?"
"I investigated. Found files, photographs, prepared statements. They're waiting for the right moment to deploy everything."
"Why are you telling me?"
The question cuts deep because she deserves the full truth. About Strange, about the oath, about why I've been pulling away despite wanting her more than my next breath.
"Because you deserve to protect yourself. And because..." I force the words past the oath's resistance. "Because I care about you more than is wise."
"More than is wise." Her laugh carries bitter edges. "That's romantic."
"It's honest."
"Honest would be explaining why you've been treating me like a stranger for three days."
The oath tightens around my throat like a noose. "I cannot."
"Cannot or will not?"
"Both."
She stares at me for a long moment, then nods with terrible understanding. "There's someone else."
"No."
"A commitment you can't break."
Closer to truth, but still wrong in the way that matters. "Yes."
"And you can't tell me what it is."
"No."
"But you came here to warn me anyway."
"Yes."
"Why?"
