Chapter 22
twenty-two
. . .
Good Intentions, Bad Boundaries, Worse Timing
WARREN
I stand in the kitchen with one hand braced on the counter and read the email twice. Then a third time, because the subject line is polite, which means the contents are not.
Updated Account Terms.
Effective immediately, Bitter Bloom’s standing weekly specialty flour delivery is being reduced due to market demand shifts. Future orders will require payment upon delivery instead of the previous net-thirty terms. We appreciate Bitter Bloom’s understanding during this period of vendor adjustment.
The thing is… that doesn’t just happen.
There is no missing payment. No overdue invoices. No credit issue. No supply shortage that explains why Bitter Bloom is suddenly less secure than every other food business in the city. I check the order history anyway.
Paid.
Paid.
Paid early twice.
I look toward the front of the bakery.
Halston is standing at the chalkboard, one foot propped on the lower shelf, a blue chalk marker tucked between her teeth while she adds tiny angry eyebrows to the illustrated coconut beside today’s latte special.
Her hair is half up in a pink ribbon. There’s flour on her cheek, and she’s wearing that sweater that drives me nuts because it keeps slipping off her shoulder and I can’t stop thinking of the marks my teeth left in her skin.
Dev is beside her, offering commentary. “More eyebrow,” he says.
Halston steps back, narrows her eyes, and draws the coconut a little angrier.
Dev nods. “Perfect.”
Oliver stands in front of the counter drinking a coffee and looking like the inspiration for the angry coconut.
“This is why I don’t let artists in my bar,” he muses.
“You have a framed painting of a crab smoking a cigarette in the men’s room,” Halston points out.
“The crab is cool as fuck.”
“The crab has lung disease.”
Lisa laughs quietly from the pastry case, and Halston grins.
The sound of happiness hits me in the chest.
She doesn’t know about the email yet, and I feel relieved.
I don’t want to hide it from her. I tell myself it’s not hiding if the information is incomplete. I’m gathering facts before presenting a problem that may hurt her.
I take my phone and step into the alley.
The vendor answers on the second ring. I’ve spoken to Kenji twice before, both times about delivery windows.
“Harbor Vending, this is Kenji.”
“This is Warren King, from Bitter Bloom.”
There’s a pause.
“Warren. Hi.”
His tone is careful and polite. Far more polite than usual.
“I received updated account terms,” I say.
“Yes, I was going to call Halston later today.”
“Why were the terms changed?”
He exhales quietly. “It’s a company-wide review.”
“No.”
Another pause. “I’m sorry?”
“Bitter Bloom doesn’t have payment issues.
Halston’s order volume is consistent. She’s been buying the exact same amount for over a year and you haven’t had any issues with the account.
A company-wide review wouldn’t target specialty flour allocation and payment terms simultaneously without a risk trigger. ”
Silence.
Then Kenji says, “You sound like you’ve worked in procurement.”
“Why were the terms changed?”
He lowers his voice. “I can’t give specifics.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I can’t give the one I’d like to give.”
My hand tightens around the phone. “Was someone in contact with your accounts department about Bitter Bloom?”
Kenji is quiet for too long.
“Kenji.”
“I’m not supposed to discuss internal review.”
“Was it Grant Whitaker?”
“No,” he says too fast. Then, after a second, “Not directly.”
Not directly.
I close my eyes.
Barrett. Caroline. Some other person with enough influence to turn her life upside down.
“Bitter Bloom is a good account,” I stress.
“I know.”
“Then why reduce allocation?”
Another pause. “I pushed back where I could.” He ends with a sigh, and I can almost see him shaking his head.
His words tell me more than he likely intended.
“Give me what you can.”
“I can hold the previous allocation for one more week,” he says quietly. “Maybe two. Payment terms are already changed in the system.”
“Who has the authority to reverse them?”
“The accounts director.”
“Name?”
“Sir—”
“Name.”
He gives it to me, and I write it down on my phone.
Then I call the accounts director. Another flour supplier.
The dairy vendor. An old contact near Lancaster.
An hour later, I know this is about more than flour.
The dairy vendor has been asked to “reassess exposure” on local accounts tied to “public reputational volatility,” and the commercial landlord’s property manager has scheduled a building assessment next week.
It’s all bullshit. Not a single explanation makes sense, nor is any of this something a vendor like this does.
An hour after that, I read Halston’s lease again.
The lease isn’t terrible. It’s worse than terrible. The building is old, and the landlord retains rights to assess for structural issues at any point. If they find that there’s an issue, the business will have to close until it’s taken care of.
It’s reasonable, which is why it’s so much more of a pain in the ass.
Another hour later, I’m in Oliver’s office with the lease and my notebook spread across his desk. Oliver sits across from me at his laptop, eating a piece of toast and watching me patiently.
I debate whether I should bring all of this up to him.
I sigh. “Her vendors are changing their agreements.”
His gaze flicks to mine. “How?” His tone is, as always, grumpy and a little abrasive.
“Her flour supply is being reduced, something I’ve never heard of. Payment is now due on delivery. It sounds like the dairy vendor may follow.”
His eyes narrow. “Why?”
I shrug. “It sounds like someone with enough influence has convinced them that Bitter Bloom is a reputational risk.”
But these people don’t care about reputation. They never have. I’ve never heard of a company changing its terms with a business by forcing that business to buy less.
“Grant?”
“Probably, though likely not directly.”
“That family loves to fuck everything up. I told her that for years.”
“I know.”
He leans back. “Does Halston know?”
I don’t answer fast enough.
His eyes narrow. “Warren.”
“I was trying to gather information first.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“I want to be able to offer a solution before stressing her out.”
I stand up. “Her suppliers may be under pressure and I’m not even sure what’s going on with the lease at the moment. Grant’s family has development connections. If they can’t damage her business directly, they’re going to do whatever else they can.”
Oliver’s gaze flickers toward the closed door. “Tell her.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“When I know what to tell her.”
“You know enough to tell her now, Warren. She needs the truth.” His face is flat. “You’re not her crisis manager.”
I take a breath. “I know.”
Halston finds out that afternoon.
She’s behind the counter, boxing pastries for Mrs. Alvarez, who’s telling her that men who use the word volatile are usually the cause of illness in the city.
“Put that on a mug,” Halston says.
Her phone rings and she glances down at the screen.
I know who it is before she answers.
“Hi,” she says, pressing the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she folds the box.
She listens.
The box stops moving.
Her gaze finds mine, and my stomach drops.
“What do you mean, Warren already asked?”
Everything goes quiet.
“No,” she says. “I understand. Thank you for calling me directly.”
A pause.
“Yes. In the future, please call me first about my account.”
Her eyes stay glued to mine.
“No, Warren does not have authorization to make changes to Bitter Bloom’s account.”
She hangs up.
For half a second, no one moves. Then Marley, at the corner table, slowly closes her laptop.
Halston looks at me. “What did you do?”
“We should talk in the back,” I say quietly.
“No. What did you do?”
My eyes drop. “I contacted them after seeing the email.”
“I heard.”
I close my eyes. “I talked to two alternate suppliers to see if there was a chance I could fix it.”
“What else?”
“Your dairy vendor.”
I sigh. “I emailed a commercial attorney to review your lease.”
She shifts her weight.
“Excuse me?”
My eyes sting. “Your lease has some issues that could lead to your bakery shutting down for an undetermined amount of time.”
“You sent my lease to an attorney?”
“I was going to ask you—”
“When?” She throws her arms up. “And why are you going through my paperwork, Warren?”
“I just wanted to be helpful,” I say, but I can feel my heart sinking as I say it.
Because sometimes my need to be useful comes before anything else, and it’s becoming abundantly clear that I fucked up.
So I confess the last thing.
“I contacted another commercial kitchen.”
The color leaves her face. “You what?” she seethes.
I close my eyes. “I wanted you to know there was a solution to the problem before telling you. It would only have been an emergency backup.”
“For my kitchen?”
“If something happened—”
“My kitchen?”
I step toward her before I can stop myself, and she takes a step back.
I stop.
“You tried to find another kitchen for me?”
“As a contingency,” I say, but even I can hear how bad it sounds on my tongue.
“For the business I own?”
I nod. “I wanted options—”
“For who?”
“For you.”
“No.” Her voice breaks, but Halston stands straighter. “No, Warren. I don’t need options. I need the truth. I need to be the one deciding. Don’t you understand that?”
I do, too late.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I didn’t commit you to anything.”
She stares at me, the silence seeping into my bones.
Marley whispers, “Warren.”
“I meant to protect you,” I say weakly.
“I know,” she responds immediately. “But Warren, I told you a million times that I don’t want to be controlled. I don’t want to be a pawn used by men. And while I was mainly referring to my ex’s family, that means you, too.”
I don’t answer.
She steps closer. “Grant constantly made decisions behind my back.”
My body goes cold at the comparison. “Halston.”
She shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes. “No, you don’t get to say my name like that. You’re not him, but I thought I made it abundantly clear that this is my business.”
My heart drops further.
“Grant decided what I could handle. Grant decided what version of me to show people. Grant decided what information mattered and when I deserved to know it.” She pauses, her lip trembling. “I’m done dealing with that, Warren.”
“You can’t say you care about me while controlling what information I’m allowed to have and when I’m allowed to have it.”
I look at her, understanding settling in my bones. Making the calls was one of my biggest mistakes, and I have a feeling I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting them. Because it doesn’t matter what I intended. It doesn’t matter if I wanted to protect her.
She’s a strong woman. My actions hurt her, and I’ll have to live with that.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s not enough. I know the words are far too small and the damage is way too large.
She runs her bottom lip between her teeth. “What are you sorry for?”
I look around. At my notes, my phone, and the bakery I’ve been learning to call home.
“For hurting you. For calling it protection simply because I was the one doing it.” I look at my hands. “It was stupid and selfish and if I could take it back I would.”
Halston looks at me for a long moment. I don’t know what she sees. Not enough, or too late. A man with a notebook full of backup suppliers and no idea how to keep fear for someone he cares about from becoming control. A man considered a flight risk.
Finally, she nods once. “Send me everything,” she says flatly.
“Okay.”
“Every name you contacted. Every email. Every note. Every call.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ll tell the attorney I’m the only one authorized to discuss the lease.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll tell the suppliers the same about my accounts if they contact you.”
I nod.
“Unless I ask, you won’t call about my business.”
I bite my cheek.
“Understood.”
She looks down at my notebook. “Please leave that.”
I go still for a moment before forcing myself to move. With one finger, I push it further toward her.
She looks at it for a long moment before meeting my eyes again. But when she does, I can see the words I’ve been terrified of on the tip of her tongue.
“I need you to leave,” she whispers.
My chest tightens, but I nod. “Okay,” I say softly, moving toward the back to get the keys to my rental.
No argument. No explanation. No insisting that I stay and fix it. No “Let me make it better.” There is no fixing this right now. There’s only making it worse.
My footsteps toward the side door echo in my ears, each step heavy and loud.
When I pass Oliver in the alley, he doesn’t move. His face is unreadable.
Almost sad.
My heart leaps when Halston calls my name, and I turn around.
She stands in the kitchen now, shoulders slumped as she looks at her feet. Her face is pale, her eyes red, and she looks like a woman who spent weeks learning to trust a man only for that trust to crumple around her in an instant.
Because she did.
“You were different,” she says with a sigh. “I really wanted this to work. I want you to know that.”
The words feel like a bullet.
When she looks away, I turn and head out.