My fingers tighten in his shirt, pulling him closer, and it is small and real and perfect, and it feels like it lasts forever.
The crosswalk signal blares.
The sound shatters the moment like a plate hitting concrete. The DON’T WALK hand vanishes, replaced by the glowing white WALK sign.
“Walk sign is on,” the mechanical voice announces, cheerful and deeply uninvited, “to cross the street.”
We spring apart like we have been burned.
Breathless. Flushed.
“Wow,” Leo breathes, his voice wrecked.
“Yeah,” I squeak.
I cannot look at him. I stare at my sneakers like they might open up and swallow me whole.
“Wow.”
Panic rolls over me, bright and hot, and I feel it physically. My ribs tighten. My skin prickles. My brain snaps back into survival mode.
The vulnerability is gone, replaced by a frantic oh God, what did I just do.
“I… I have to go,” I stammer, backing away from him.
“Tess, wait,” he says, reaching for me.
“No.” I flinch, my hand coming up between us. “Don’t.”
My voice is shaking, but I force it steady because if I do not, I will do something reckless. And I cannot afford to be reckless.
“This doesn’t change anything, Leo.” The words rush out, frantic, each one a brick slammed into place. “We work together. I am still the boss. This is… this is a nightmare.”
His face tightens.
“You are still the guy who brought a damn news van to my door.” The truth tastes like blood. “This… this can’t happen. It can’t happen again.”
I am rebuilding the wall. Brick by frantic brick. I can feel myself doing it, and I hate it, and I cannot stop.
He stands there, eyes wide. Earnest. Wrecked.
“But what if I don’t want it to be the last time?” he asks.
His voice is low.
It lands right in the softest part of my chest.
I look at him, and my eyes betray me, torn and full of war. Fear and longing crash into each other, wave after wave.
“You’re Leo Ashford,” I say, my voice breaking. “You’re a billionaire. I’m… me. I’m a baker with a spreadsheet problem. We are not from the same world, Leo. We can’t be. You can’t be with someone like me.”
“We are from the same world now,” he says, pleading. “In this bakery. On this street. You taught me something real. What we felt was real.”
I shake my head because if I don’t, I will say yes.
And yes, is a trap.
Yes, is the circus. Yes, are the sharks. Yes, is me losing everything I have fought for because I let myself want something.
