“Coming right up.”
She moved to the coffee station, grateful for occupation. Behind her, she felt his gaze tracking her movements. Cataloging. Assessing.
He’s a bear. That’s what they do. They watch.
But this didn’t feel like idle observation. It felt personal. Pointed.
It felt hungry.
She poured the coffee, added a lid, and turned back to find him closer than he’d been before. He’d moved without making a sound—too silent for someone his size.
“Anything else?” She set the cup on the counter between them.
He reached for it. Their fingers brushed.
Dahlia sucked in a breath.
The touch was electric. Brief. A spark of contact that shouldn’t have meant anything, but instead burned through her nerve endings and lodged deep in her gut. His skin was rough. Callused in ways she hadn’t expected from a corporate CEO.
His hand went still on the cup.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The air between them felt charged, heavy with a tension neither could name. His nostrils flared slightly—a bear taking in her scent. His jaw tightened. His pupils dilated.
Then he pulled back like she’d burned him.
“What do I owe you?” The words were clipped. Harsh.
“Three-fifty.”
He dropped a ten on the counter. “Keep the change.”
And then he was gone, pushing out the door with more force than necessary, bell jangling in his wake. Dahlia stood behind the counter, staring at the ten-dollar bill, pulse hammering and her skin still tingling where they’d touched.
Marzipan materialized on the counter, having crept down from the apartment. The cat stared at the door with profound hostility, tail lashing.
Dahlia said nothing. Her hand still tingled. Her pulse still raced. Her body still felt flushed and aware in ways she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to examine.
Callum Ursa had come home.
And Dahlia’s carefully ordered life—the routine she’d built, the role she’d perfected, the dreams she’d buried in a desk drawer—suddenly felt far more precarious than the territorial dispute that had brought him here.
Through the window, she watched his truck pull away. Watched him grip the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands. Watched him stare straight ahead, not looking back, shoulders rigid with tension.
He felt it too. The realization landed with startling force. Whatever that was—he felt it too.
Marzipan hissed at the retreating vehicle.
Dahlia picked up the ten-dollar bill, tucked it into the register, and tried to convince herself that everything was fine. That this was attraction—simple, uncomplicated, easily ignored.
She was very good at lying to herself.
But even she couldn’t deny that a shift had occurred. A crack had opened the moment their fingers touched. And the look onhis face when he’d pulled away—startled, almost frightened—suggested he was thrown by it as much as she was.
She thought about what Sue had said. Bears who need feeding.
Unfinished business.
She thought about the Paris letter in her desk drawer. About the dreams she’d convinced herself she didn’t deserve to want.
