Chapter 2
GAGE
Ididn’t remember the drive back to the office, only the echo of Tessa’s voice telling me to get out. One minute, I was slamming out of the bakery, and the next, I was in the underground garage at Langford Tech, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
I killed the engine and sat there, staring at the concrete wall like it might give me the answer to what the hell had just happened. My pulse was still hammering, the way it only did for one person.
Tessa.
Three years without a single word. Pretending she didn’t exist while I moved forward with a life I didn’t want because she wasn’t in it anymore.
She looked incredible. That hurt more than I was ready to admit.
Her hair was the same shade of brown but several inches longer now. Those hazel eyes that used to soften for me now had locked on mine like she was daring me to speak as she ordered me out of her bakery. Then ripped me to shreds when I did.
She carried herself with more confidence than when we’d dated. She wasn’t the woman I left behind. She was stronger now. And I hated that she seemed to think I was the reason she’d needed to be.
I dragged a hand over my beard, trying to scrub away the memory of her standing behind that counter in a flour-dusted apron, looking like she owned the world. Because apparently she did. Hale & Honey was hers. My assistant had said it was a trendy place that could do something high-end for me.
The fucking cake I hadn’t even wanted in the first place was how this shit show started.
I’d barely glanced at the order form Susan shoved under my nose a month ago. I just grunted in response and told her to handle it. The divorce party was a terrible idea, but I figured a cake might help drive the point home that my marriage was finally over.
My gut twisted as I replayed the moment she stepped beside the register. The way she shielded the girl behind the counter. How she tore into me without hesitation.
I raked a hand through my hair, frustration simmering under my skin. This wasn’t how I imagined it on the rare nights I let myself wonder what it would be like to see her again. I never thought she’d look at me as though she wished I were dead.
Squeezing my eyes shut so the memory would stop playing in my head, I slammed out of my Aston Martin and headed for the elevator. The ride to the executive floor didn’t help, and I was in a foul mood when I stalked out toward my office.
Susan’s head jerked up when I neared her desk. “Problem at the bakery, boss?”
Her chipper question pissed me off even more since she was the one who’d suggested that if the damn cake wasn’t to my liking that I should go complain because she refused to do it for me.
“Did you know?”
Her brows drew together. “Did I know what?”
“That Tessa owns the bakery.”
“Your Tessa?” she gasped, her eyes widening.
“What about Tessa?” Ethan asked from behind me.
I whirled around. “I just saw her, and it went even worse than anyone could’ve possibly imagined.”
“Fucking hell,” he groaned, gripping my forearm to drag me into my office. “What happened?”
“Are you really going to try to keep me out of the loop?” Susan demanded through the door Ethan kicked shut.
“You might as well let her in here,” I muttered. “She’ll just hound me relentlessly until I tell her what happened otherwise.”
I walked around my desk and dropped onto my chair while Ethan opened the door just wide enough for Susan to slip into my office. She’d been my father’s assistant before mine, so she got away with a lot more than anybody else at Langford Tech.
I waited until Ethan and Susan sat across my desk from me to fill them in on the basics of my trip to Hale & Honey. When I was done, I asked, “How did you not know Tessa owned the bakery when it’s named after her?”
Susan offered me a sheepish smile. “Why would it ever occur to me? Tessa worked in an office when you two dated, and she never shows her face on the bakery’s social media. All the photos and videos are focused on what she’s making. And it’s not like Hale is that unusual of a last name.”
“Is that how you heard about her place?” My shoulders slumped. “On social media?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I started following her account a couple of years ago when she really began to blow up. She had about one hundred thousand followers back then, but she’s up to more than half a million now.
Celebrities from across the country get their cakes from Hale & Honey.
Some of them even send private jets to pick their orders up. ”
I was impressed by what Tessa had accomplished during our years apart, but I wished I knew all of this a few hours ago. Then maybe I wouldn’t have fucked up so badly.
“How pissed was she?” Ethan asked.
“Very.” I scraped my palm down my beard. “She looked at me like she hated me.”
“Well, you were being an ass,” Susan pointed out unhelpfully.
I shook my head. “It was more than that. She said something about how I ended our relationship. That she’d put up with my arrogance when we dated but didn’t have to now. And I don’t see people like her employee when I tear through whatever is in my way of getting what I want.”
Ethan let out a low whistle. “Damn.”
“I mean, you’ve been more short-tempered than usual lately, but I wouldn’t go that far.” Susan reached across my desk to pat my hand. “The past six months have been rough with Vanessa fighting you every step of the way on the divorce.”
“It’s no excuse for how I lit into that poor girl behind the counter over a cake I didn't even want,” I mumbled.
I wasn’t proud of how I’d acted. She’d barely been twenty, stammering apologies while I acted like the entitled prick Tessa accused me of being.
“It isn’t,” Susan agreed with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “But your bad behavior just might be the perfect excuse to go back. You can apologize to the girl in person.”
“And risk Tessa actually calling the police on me?” I scoffed, shaking my head.
Ethan leaned forward and pressed his elbows against the top of his knees. “What do you think she meant about how you guys ended?”
“I don’t know.” The woman who’d just threatened to have me trespassed didn’t look like someone who’d moved on without a backward glance. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Ethan and Susan had both been in the office when my engagement to Vanessa came about, so they knew what had all gone down. How messed up I’d been over the end of my relationship with Tessa.
“Do you really think she’d have you trespassed from the bakery?” Susan asked, tilting her head. “I just can’t see her doing something so drastic, no matter how angry she is with you.”
“Probably not,” I conceded, rubbing my chest in an attempt to ease the ache there that had nothing to do with rowing at dawn or the divorce that had just been finalized. “But the asshole who thought he needed to come to her rescue would jump on any excuse to call the cops again.”
Ethan quirked a brow. “Sounds like you left some details out of what you told us.”
Remembering how that guy put his hand on the small of her back like it belonged there while Tessa tilted her head up to him and smiled like he was her salvation. Jealousy roared through me so hard my vision tunneled. I wanted to punch something. Preferably his smug face.
It took me a minute to get myself back under control, my teeth clenched too hard to speak. Then I gritted out, “Because I did.”
I told them about the man who’d come in toward the end of my confrontation with Tessa, and what he’d said about calling the cops, how he’d been willing to get arrested for punching me, and that he had easily guessed who I was.
Figuring out why I was struggling, Susan murmured, “You can’t be angry that Tessa has a boyfriend. It’s been three years, and you were married to Vanessa.”
“But I didn’t want to be,” I growled, getting to my feet to pace the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the wall behind my desk. “There hasn’t been a single day I’ve been truly happy since all that shit went down. I’ve wanted to be CEO since I was a little kid, but it wasn’t worth losing Tessa.”
Ethan stood and circled my desk to clap his hand on my shoulder. “We already knew you felt that way, but Tessa is the one who needs to hear that.”
I raked my fingers through my hair with a groan. “Like I said at the start of all this…my first conversation with Tessa in three years went even worse than you could imagine.”