Chapter 1 #2
"It's my fault," he says, when I've got myself reasonably sorted. "I saw you both on the street and I should have had better control of Athos."
I look up at him. He's watching me with those eyes, and there is still that not-quite-smile, that warmth underneath the cool.
"It's fine," I manage. "Really. Benji is a menace. He does this."
"He's young."
"He's also two hundred pounds of chaos."
That gets him. Not a full laugh, but a real one, a low, genuine sound that I feel somewhere in the vicinity of my sternum, and I have to look away.
I take Benji's leash back. I turn to the barista, who has silently placed my iced Americano on the counter and is watching this whole exchange with barely concealed fascination. My eyes sting a little from the humiliation still hot in my chest.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her. "I'll bring the apron back. I promise. Clean."
"Forget it," she says warmly. "It's on the house." She pushes the coffee toward me. "You deserve it."
I take the coffee. I take Benji. I walk away.
I don't have a destination. I just need to move, to get some distance between me and this moment, to get my heartbeat back under something resembling control.
I hear footsteps behind me.
Not hurried. Not aggressive. Just steady, keeping pace.
I turn at the middle of the block, ready to confront whoever it is.
I nearly walk directly into the man again.
Up close, even more than before, he is a lot. He smells expensive, something dark and clean that goes straight to my head, and I take a small step back purely for self-preservation.
"Why are you following me?"
"I always walk in this direction," he says. A beat. "And I'd like to replace your jeans."
I stare at him.
"The ones my dog's interference ruined," he adds, as if I might need clarification.
"That's not necessary."
"I'd like to do it anyway."
There's something in the way he says it. Not pushy. Not performative. Just calm, and certain, and like this is simply what's going to happen because it's the right thing and he's decided.
I should say no. I should thank him politely and take my coffee and my mortified Great Dane and go home.
"Okay," I hear myself say. "Sure."
"Great come with me."
Moments later, I end up in the dressing room of a boutique three blocks over, staring at myself in a mirror while wearing a Bean There, Done That apron as a skirt, with shredded jeans balled up in the corner.
I’m ready for this day to be over and force myself to find a pair of jeans.
The first pair of won’t go over my hips. Ofcourse.
The second pair makes it halfway up my thighs and stops like it has suddenly reconsidered its life choices.
The third pair is a miracle. They fit like they were made for me, smooth in all the right places, fitted without being cruel about it. I look at the price tag and make a small, involuntary sound.
These are not normal jeans.
I'm buying a second pair the moment I have a good reason to justify it.
When I come out of the dressing room, the man has his back to me. He's looking at a display near the window, both dogs sitting at his feet with unnatural calmness, like they've called a truce in honor of the occasion.
I take the moment just to look at him.
He is, objectively, devastating. It's not just the face or the body, though those are doing a lot of work.
It's the way he holds himself. Like he's never once in his life questioned whether he belonged somewhere. Like every room he's ever walked into simply reorganized itself around him.
Every woman in the boutique is pretending not to stare.
I am also pretending not to stare.
He turns, and catches me at it, and I shut my mouth with an audible click.
His smile is slow. Appreciative. Knowing.
My face goes hot.
"Those work," he says simply, nodding at the jeans.
"They do." I clear my throat. "You really don't have to pay for them."
"I told you I would."
He says it with that same quiet certainty, and I decide it's not worth arguing. He pays with a black credit card, the kind that people don't question, while I stand slightly behind him and focus very hard on not thinking about his hands.
We walk out into the morning together.
I unclip Benji's leash from the stand outside and take a breath, ready to say thank you and goodbye and walk briskly out of this man's life before I do something embarrassing like ask for his number.
Then his hand lands on my elbow.
Warm. Steady. Large.
"Let me take you for coffee," he says.
I already have coffee. The words are right there, sitting in my mouth, ready to go.
"Okay," I say instead.
He smiles. It's the first real, full smile I've seen from him, and it rearranges something in my chest that I'll need to examine later when I'm alone and can be dramatic about it in private.
"I'm Viktor," he says.
"Leah," I tell him.
He takes my hand.
His grip is warm and deliberate, like he already knows exactly how much space he intends to take up in my life.
"Leah," he repeats. "It's a pleasure."
I believe him. That's the terrifying part.
I tell myself it's just coffee. I tell myself I'm a grown woman, a single mother with a seven-year-old and a pile of work waiting at home, and I do not have the bandwidth to lose my head over a silver-haired, blue-eyed stranger who says my name like it means something.
I tell myself all of that.
Then I walk into the coffee shop beside him, and the moment the door closes behind us, I think: I’m in trouble.