“I don’t want to help people at the cost of my soul,” I say. “And I don’t want to help them by becoming the thing that destroyed my family.”
The words tear something open in me.
I see my parents’ restaurant again, the flickering neon sign, the smell of burnt oil that never quite left the walls, my mom crying in the walk-in so customers wouldn’t see. My dad insisted it was temporary. Always temporary. Until it wasn’t.
I swore I would never build something that could be taken from me that way.
Leo takes a step toward me. Just one.
“Tess, please. We can walk this back. I’ll kill the deal. I’ll call Rex right now…”
“You already signed,” Gwen says flatly.
“You don’t just ‘kill’ Rex Chen.”
Leo hesitates. Just for a fraction of a second. But that hesitation tells me everything I need to know.
Something inside me goes very, very still. I straighten. The last of my softness snaps into place like armor locking closed.
“You don’t get to fix this,” I say. “You don’t get to touch my business again. You don’t get to be in my kitchen.”
His face crumples. Fully. Unmasked.
“The dare…”
“I don’t care about the dare.”
I point to the door. My hand doesn’t shake.
“You’re done here.”
He looks at me like I’ve knocked the air out of him.
“Tess…”
“For what it’s worth,” I add, my voice betraying me now despite everything, “the baker you were becoming? That part was real. I believe that.”
His eyes close.
“But this?” I gesture to the tablet, to the space between us thick with betrayal. “This is exactly why I was afraid.”
For a long second, he doesn’t move. Then, slowly, like each movement costs him something, he nods.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he says.
“I know,” I reply. “That’s the worst part.”
He turns and walks out. The bell above the door jingles softly behind him, bright and cheerful and completely wrong, as if nothing had just been destroyed.
The door swings shut.
The bakery feels too big without him. Or maybe it’s just quieter. I sag against the counter, the adrenaline bleeding out of me all at once, leaving behind bone-deep exhaustion. My hands ache. My chest aches. Everything aches.
Gwen steps forward and puts a hand on my back. Solid. Real. Here.
“We’ll fight this,” she says. “Ok? He doesn’t get to take this from you.”
I close my eyes.
