Chapter 4
Charlotte
I tell myself I’m not going to the bakery today.
I say it out loud as I get ready, once again as I grab my bag.
And then I walk directly to the bakery because apparently my legs have no respect for boundaries. It’s not even subtle. I turn left at the corner like my body is programmed to do it, and there it is: Spice Spice Baby, with its door slightly open and warm air drifting out like it expects me.
Maisie spots me the second I step inside.
“Charlotte!” She barrels toward me with the energy of a child who has never known exhaustion. “Daddy said you weren’t coming today.”
I look at Liam. “Did he now?”
He stands behind the counter, looking far too good for someone surrounded by flour. His eyes drag over me once, warm and slow, and then he forces them back on whatever he’s pretending to sort.
“I said you might be busy,” he says.
“You did not say that,” Maisie says. “You said she probably has a job to do.”
I put a hand over my heart. “You wound me.”
Liam mutters something under his breath that sounds like a prayer for patience.
I lean on the counter. “Relax. I’m here for work.”
He gives me a look that says he absolutely does not believe me.
“Festival stuff,” I clarify.
“Mhm,” he says, unconvinced.
I ignore the way my pulse jumps at the sound of his voice. I ignore the way his eyes drop to my mouth for half a second before he shuts the expression down.
Nope. Not thinking about that.
“Have you tasted the new samples?” I ask.
“What new samples?”
“The ones I need for the gala table.”
He looks confused. “We finalized that yesterday.”
“Great,” I say brightly. “Now we’ll finalize it better.”
He exhales, long and slow. “I knew you were trouble.”
Maisie gasps. “Daddy.”
“It’s true,” he says.
“I take it as a compliment,” I tell him.
“I know,” he answers, and something warm flickers between us before he turns away.
I follow him to the prep table because I am absolutely not done annoying him.
“What if we add a chocolate-hazelnut mini tart to the lineup?” I suggest.
Liam doesn’t turn around. “We are not adding anything.”
“We could.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you already changed the menu twice.”
I shrug. “I like to improve things.”
“You improve things into chaos.”
I grin. “Sexy chaos.”
He freezes for half a second.
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t breathe. He just… stops.
Then he inhales, slow and controlled, and says, “Please don’t say things like that in my bakery.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m trying to work.”
“And?”
“And you’re not helping.”
The way he says it sends heat straight through me.
“Oh,” I say softly. “I can be helpful.”
He finally turns around and looks at me directly. The pull between us snaps right back into place, strong enough to make my breath catch.
He opens his mouth to say something, but Maisie hops onto a stool and announces, “I need a cookie.”
Liam closes his eyes. “It’s eight in the morning.”
“It’s almost eight-thirty,” she counters.
“That’s not a difference.”
Charlotte-to-the-rescue mode activates. I grab a cookie from the cooling rack and hand it to her. “For morale,” I say.
Liam gives me a look. “Don’t encourage her.”
But he’s smiling, and good Lord, that smile does something to me.
Maisie takes her cookie and wanders to her coloring station.
And suddenly it’s just him and me again.
He steps closer. “So. What did you actually come here for?”
I lift my clipboard. “I need your help finalizing the tasting board styling.”
“You don’t need my help for that.”
“Maybe I just want your opinion.”
“You definitely don’t need that.”
I step closer too. The air between us changes in that quiet, tightening way it does every time we stand like this.
He swallows. “Charlotte.”
“I need you to taste something.”
His eyes flare, and oh, he’s thinking it too.
“Dessert,” I clarify, even though I want to leave it unclarified.
He steps back like the distance will help. “Fine. What are we tasting?”
“Your creativity,” I say.
He groans. “I knew this was a trap.”
“It is absolutely a trap.”
But he still follows me into the test kitchen.
We stand next to each other at the counter, and the space feels smaller than normal. He brushes past me to grab ingredients, and every time he does, I feel it all along my skin.
I shouldn’t be this aware of him, I shouldn’t be this tempted to lean into him.
“You’re staring,” he says without looking up.
“I am observing.”
“Same thing.”
“Observing is scientific.”
“You are not doing science.”
“You don’t know my life.”
He shakes his head, but he’s smiling again.
I catch his arm lightly as he reaches for a bowl. “You know,” I say, “we never talked about flavor combos yesterday.”
“We did talk about flavor combos.”
“No. You shot down flavor combos.”
“I shot down unreasonable flavor combos.”
“There is no universe where cinnamon-maple-cherry-orange is unreasonable.”
He gives me that look again, the one that says he’s two seconds from losing it. “Charlotte.”
“It could work.”
“It absolutely could not.”
“Okay, but—”
“Charlotte.”
“Fine,” I say. “How about lemon-vanilla?”
“That’s normal. What’s the catch?”
“No catch. I’m capable of normal.”
“I’m not convinced.”
I bump his shoulder. “I can be normal.”
He glances at me thoughtfully, then looks back down at the bowl.
“Charlotte,” he says quietly.
“Yes?”
“You’ve never once been normal.”
Heat floods my cheeks.
I should walk away, should redirect the conversation, and I definitely should stop staring at his mouth.
Instead I ask, “Is that a problem?”
He doesn’t answer.
At least not with words.
He lifts his eyes to mine, steady and warm, and the way he takes me in knocks the air right out of me.
My hand rests on the counter, and he moves toward it. We’re both pretending this is accidental, but it isn’t, not even close. His fingers brush mine and I feel it everywhere.
He must feel it too, because he freezes, then exhales through his nose like he’s holding himself back.
“Charlotte,” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I whisper back.
We are dangerously close.
I should step away.
I don’t.
He leans in a little, I lean in a little, and we would absolutely kiss right then if a voice didn’t cheerfully announce.
“I finished my cookie!”
We jump apart like we’ve been caught. Maisie appears in the doorway; her face covered in crumbs.
Liam clears his throat, adjusting himself like he needs a second to recover. “Good job,” he says, voice too rough to sell the lie.
She looks at us, head tilted. “Why are your faces red?”
“We’re baking,” I blurt.
“Yes,” Liam agrees, too quickly. “Heat.”
Maisie shrugs like adults are very strange, she skips out of the room and returns to her coloring.
Liam and I stand there, completely rattled.
“You okay?” I ask.
“No,” he says honestly.
“Same.”
Liam moves toward me, focused in a way that sends a jolt through my whole body.
I step in too. No more sidestepping. No more pretending this isn’t happening.
The pull between us finally wins. He reaches for my face, slow enough for me to stop him.
I won't stop him. I lean into his touch like it’s been waiting for me.
Then he kisses me.
God. Yes.
It starts soft, just a brush of his mouth against mine, but when I kiss him back, he deepens it immediately, like he’s been waiting for the signal.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, his thumb brushing my skin, steadying me.
My fingers hook into his shirt and pull, because he’s close but not close enough, the kiss gets messy fast, hot, hungry, and it feels stupidly perfect. When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing harder than we should be.
His forehead rests against mine for a second. “Well,” he says. “That escalated.”
“Regrets?” I ask.
“Not even one,” he says. “And I’m hoping for a repeat.”
Then a small voice drifts from the other room.
“Daddy, are you kissing Charlotte?”
We both freeze. Liam looks like he’s calculating the odds of surviving the next thirty seconds.
“She has excellent timing,” I whisper.
He groans softly. “This is… I don’t even know.”
I straighten his shirt where I grabbed it. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We should talk,” he says.
“We will.”
“But not right now.”
“No,” I agree. “Not right now.”
We take one step apart just as Maisie reappears, she squints at us suspiciously, then shrugs.
“Can I have another cookie?”
Liam rubs his face. “Yes. Please. Take all of them.”
Maisie cheers and sprints toward the display case.
I look at him one more time, and he looks right back at me, and the pull is still there, stronger now.
Something is definitely changing, and I’m not sure either of us is ready for it.