I crossed the floor and reached her before she'd taken more than three steps inside. Her eyes found mine immediately, the way they always did, across every distance we'd ever put between us.
"Hi," she said. Carefully even.
"Hi," I said. "Come with me."
I put my hand at the small of her back and guided her past the counter, through the kitchen door and into the small office at the back that barely fit a desk and a filing cabinet and the two ofus standing close together. I pulled the door shut behind us and the noise of the bakery dropped to a muffled hum.
She held out the folded cardigan.
"I came to return this," she said.
"I know," I said, taking it and setting it on the desk without looking at it. "That's not the only reason you came."
She looked at me for a moment, then her shoulders came down.
"They were all staring at me," she said.
I sighed, “I know and I’m sorry.”
She stared up at me, “The bakery is packed. On a Monday morning."
"Marco showed me the society page headline at six thirty," I said. "Youngest Solas prince claims mystery Omega at Valentine gala. Scales visible from across the ballroom." I paused. “It wasn't inaccurate."
She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan and pressed her hand over her face.
The scales were still moving restlessly beneath my skin, responding to every wave of nerves rolling off her. I reached up and wrapped my hand gently around her wrist, drawing her hand away from her face until I could see her eyes.
"Look at me," I said.
She looked at me.
"You walked through that door this morning," I said. "Seven forty-five. Same as always. Same bag, same cardigan, same coffee you're about to let me make you. Whatever is happening out there, whatever gets printed or whoever shows up wanting to see if you're real, none of it changes what happens in this bakery."
"Kael..."
"I'm still your baker," I said. "I was yours before I was anything else to you and I'm still yours now. The rest of it is just noise."
She searched my face the way she always had, quietly and carefully, looking for the thing underneath the words and the scales settled.
Not because the moment was less charged but because I stopped holding anything back.
"Amara," I said. "I need to tell you something I should have said before any of the rest of it happened."
She waited.
"I love you," I said. "Not because of fated match biology. Not because my dragon recognized you across a ballroom. I loved you before I had words for any of that, in the only way I knew how at the time, which was getting up before dawn to make sure your favorite pastry was ready when you walked through that door." The scales pulsed again warm and steady. "I loved you every morning you stood at that counter and had no idea I was a prince. Every time you talked to me like I was just a man and meant it. Every time you walked out that door and I stood there wishing I'd said more."
Her eyes were bright.
"You made me chocolate lavender tarts," she said softly.
"I did."
"Because you were already thinking about me."
"I was always thinking about you."
She closed the small distance between us in the cramped little office and kissed me. Soft and sure and entirely hers.
