Chapter 2
two
. . .
Apology Croissants and Other Bad Ideas
HALSTON
One week prior
I’m bringing my fiancé an apology croissant.
The croissant was beautiful. Laminated and buttery, with golden edges and delicate layers that shattered when you bit into them and made people close their eyes like pastry was a religious experience.
It was filled with almond cream, dusted with powdered sugar, and tucked into a white pastry box with a pink Bitter Bloom sticker pressed over the lid.
A perfect little peace offering.
For what?
Existing too loudly, apparently.
I balance the pastry box on my hip, the tray of iced coffees in my hand, and use my elbow to hit the elevator button in the glossy lobby of Whitaker Development.
The building smells like expensive air-conditioning and lemon cleaner.
Everything is marble, glass, and strategic lighting, and even the fake plant near the reception desk looks wealthy.
Grant loves this building. He tends to love anything that makes success look inevitable.
Today, I’m trying not to think about the argument we had last night. Attempting not to replay his voice in the back of my head, smooth and tired and edged in that particular kind of disappointment that always makes me feel younger than twenty-eight.
“Halston, you can’t take everything personally.”
I hadn’t taken anything personally. Well, just the part where my fiancé had implied my bakery’s new late-night menu sounded immature.
And the part where he said my pink and blue branding was cute, but not elevated enough for the clients his family could introduce me to.
And definitely not the part where he looked at the sketches I’d drawn for my new fantasy map cookies and smiled like I’d shown him a finger painting.
He always said the same things. That’s adorable. Or, that doesn’t seem really creative. Or maybe even I don’t find that interesting. And my personal favorite, that doesn’t seem ambitious, does it?
Did I mention adorable?
The only thing stopping me from feeling worse is the fact that I did not throw the sketchbook at his head, which does feel like personal growth.
Instead, I went to the bakery, blasting Fall Out Boy while making banana-vanilla muffin batter, cried into a sink full of mixing bowls, and decided by morning that love required compromise.
Which leads me here, in his lobby with coffees sweating through cardboard in the Maryland heat, and an apology croissant I had absolutely not needed to make.
The elevator doors open, and I step inside with a man in a navy suit who looks at my pastry box, then at me.
“Bitter Bloom?” he asks.
I brighten automatically. My bakery is the one subject I can always talk about no matter where I am. “Yeah. I own it.”
His eyes light with recognition. “The place with the blue cream puffs?”
“Cloud puffs,” I say with a smile. “They’re seasonal.” For spring.
He smiles. “My wife loved those.”
“Your wife has excellent taste,” I say, pride blooming within my chest.
He smiles. “Are you catering something here?”
I shake my head. “Nope, just feeding my fiancé.”
“Lucky man.”
I smile in that way you do when someone calls your life lucky. Like if you let it sit there long enough, it’ll fit.
The elevator climbs, and I watch the numbers blink and adjust the pastry box against my hip. My engagement ring catches in the light, the diamond flashing bright enough to catch my gaze.
It really is a beautiful ring—oval cut. Gold band. Elegant and tasteful. Grant had picked it himself, which everyone said was romantic.
I had wanted a vintage ring. Something with strange details and a history.
Maybe a little imperfect. Maybe just a little too much.
But Grant had slid this one onto my finger at a rooftop restaurant while a violinist played nearby.
Both of our families watched from tables arranged in a semicircle like an audience.
My mother had cried over FaceTime from New York while his mother had clapped with both hands pressed beneath her chin.
His father, Barrett Whitaker, had raised a glass of champagne and made a toast about tradition, legacy, and excellent taste. My father had given me a forced smile.
Oliver and Marley had not known about it and were not invited. Family only, Grant had said.
His best friend, Tony Cross, had been there.
When I met them at Saints & Sinners that night, neither of them could hide their disappointment, even though Marley tried her best to pretend she was excited. Oliver left the building for a good twenty minutes.
But everyone at the engagement had looked so pleased. I thought I was too.
The elevator dings before I can think about it any longer.
Whitaker Development takes up the entire twenty-second floor.
Grant’s family didn’t do partial. They did whole floors, large corner offices, private clubs, wine cellars, donor walls, and vacations they described as “the coast” because apparently rich people lost the need for specifics after they passed a certain tax bracket.
I step out into the reception area, and the first thing I notice is how quiet it is.
Usually, there’s someone sitting behind the desk. There’s phones ringing, heels clicking, and men with cufflinks moving between glass-walled conference rooms looking urgent and grossly self-important.
Today, the front desk is empty.
I walk toward Grant’s office. “Elise?” I call. There’s no answer.
Elise Harding is Grant’s secretary. Executive assistant, technically, but Grant always calls her his secretary because Grant’s vocabulary sometimes gets stuck in 1985 when women were either wives, secretaries, or too complicated to care about at all.
Elise is twenty-five… or maybe twenty-six.
Glossy brown hair, careful makeup, and wore tiny gold necklaces layered in that effortless way that I’ve tried to pull off and always got them tangled.
She’s pretty, efficient, and always looks at me like she’s still deciding whether I’m impressive enough to be in Grant’s life.
I didn’t dislike her. Not really. I didn’t like the way I felt around her. Like I needed to stand taller. Or like my bakery shoes or the flour smudged on my shirt are evidence that I’m somehow lacking instead of proof that I make things with my hands.
I shift the coffees and continue my walk to his office, only to find his door closed.
Grant usually has his door shut. It’s normal. But what’s not is the sounds coming from behind it.
At first, I thought it was a laugh. A short breath, soft and strange. Then a low murmur. Then Elise’s voice. It wasn’t crisp, nor professional.
“Grant.”
My breathing stops, and I’m shocked at how fast my body responds to something my mind is refusing to name. Every part of me is still. The pastry box is pressed hard into my ribs, the cold coffee sliding down the side of one cup and dripping onto my fingers.
Behind the door, something thumps. A desk drawer? A chair?
I stare at the handle and think of the croissant.
All of those layers. The butter folded into the dough, again and again, each turn creating something delicate and breakable.
It takes time to make a croissant properly.
Patience, protection, and restraint. I had woken up early to make them.
Four-thirty, to be exact. Because Grant had an eight o’clock meeting and I wanted to catch him before his day got away from him.
I had spent the whole night convincing myself I had overreacted.
I loved him, and love means you keep trying.
Another sound comes from behind the door. This one, however, is unmistakable.
A woman’s soft gasp.
My hand moves before I can think. The door opens, and for one second, no one understands what’s happening.
The office is bright with morning sun. Glass, chrome, navy and wood accents… Grant’s suit jacket hangs over the back of his chair. His tie is loose. His white shirt is open at the collar.
Elise is perched on the edge of his desk, one heel on the floor and the other dangling. Her blouse is unbuttoned enough, but my brain refuses to count how many. Grant stands between her knees with one hand braced beside her hip and the other tangled in her hair.
They both turn. Grant understands the gravity of this first.
Shock, then guilt, and then what I assume to be irritation. I’ve seen it enough. But it’s gone so fast I almost miss it.
Elise makes a small sound and scrambles away, tugging her blouse.
The coffees spill from my hand, hitting the floor with wet, ugly bursts. One of the lids pops off, ice scattered across the hardwood. Coffee spreads under my boots, pale and sweet and humiliatingly domestic in this situation.
The pastry box is still at my side. I could hold onto it through an apocalypse. Grant isn’t worth that.
“Halston,” Grant says, but my name ends up sounding wrong coming from his mouth. Not because he says it with fear, but because he says it like I’m doing something that’s entirely inconvenient. Like I had interrupted.
I had.
I look at Elise. She’s pale beneath her makeup, her hands shaking as she buttons her blouse. One of them is misaligned, and I want to laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it feels easier than collapsing.
I look back at Grant. His hair is messy, which is a shock.
He never lets it get messy. I’ve seen him in bed, in the shower, halfway through the flu, and once after a charity 5k he had only run because his father sponsored it.
His hair has never looked like this. Even in bed with me. Even after we had gotten engaged.
Elise did that.
Something in me cracks.
Grant steps toward me. “This isn’t—”
“Don’t.” The word comes out calmly.
He stops.
Elise whispers, “I’m so sorry.” I look at her again and honestly? She looks sorry.