For a heartbeat, none of us moves.
The bakery hums around us: refrigerators cycling, metal cooling, the low, constant electrical sigh. But it feels unreal, muffled, distorted, like we’re underwater.
Leo stands in the doorway, jacket half off one shoulder, the sleeve slipping, mouth slightly open, eyes locked on the tablet like it might bite him.
Good. Let him look.
The tablet sits on the stainless counter, glowing too bright, too clean. It doesn’t belong here. Nothing that polished ever does. The screen faintly reflects in the steel, doubling the logo like a mocking echo:
Sunrise & Soul.
My stomach twists.
“So.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine, flat, calm, almost curious, like I’m asking about a new flour supplier instead of staring at the wreckage of my life.
“This is what you’ve been doing.”
Leo swallows. His throat bobs. His eyes flick to me, then to Gwen behind me, then back to the tablet, as if it might disappear if he stares hard enough.
“Tess…”
“No.”
The word lands hard. Final. Even I’m surprised by it.
“You don’t get to start with my name.”
Something shifts in his expression, not anger, not defensiveness. Just the look of someone realizing, too late, that the rules have changed and no one told him.
Behind me, Gwen shifts. Not dramatically. Not threateningly. Just a half-step closer, close enough to feel her warmth, her quiet solidity bracing my spine. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to. Silence has always been her sharper tool.
Leo takes a step forward, hands rising instinctively, palms out, the universal “please don’t hit me” gesture, whether he knows it or not.
“I was going to tell you,” he says, too quickly. “I swear. I just… things moved fast, and Rex…”
“You signed it.”
I push upright, palms flat on the counter. My legs feel distant, like they belong to someone else, but they hold. Strange, detached pride.
“You didn’t draft it. You didn’t workshop it. You didn’t sit at this counter at two in the morning, tearing your hair out over margin projections and grant eligibility. You didn’t even ask me if I wanted a partner.” I meet his eyes. “You signed it.”
He shakes his head, panic flaring raw and unmistakable. “It’s just an LOI. It’s not final. It doesn’t mean…”
“It means you decided my life without me.”
My voice sharpens, edges honing themselves like steel.
“About my bakery. About my family’s legacy. About my fucking name.”
I step closer to the counter and rotate the tablet so he can’t avoid it. The logo glows between us:Sunrise & Soul. My stomach twists harder this time, bile creeping up my throat.
I tap the screen with one finger.
“Explain this.”
His mouth opens. Closes. He drags a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. He looks younger like this. Less curated. Like a kid who studied the wrong chapter and only realized when the exam landed on his desk.
“Rex thought…”
