Chapter 6
* * *
The click of Baron’s office door unlocking echoed down the quiet corridor like a starting pistol.
Inside, the air still clung to the scent of her perfume and his cologne, the musky trace of tension turned heat.
Penny stepped out first, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, and a slightly crooked smile curling her lips like she hadn’t stopped laughing since he kissed her the second time on his desk—after promising he wouldn’t.
Baron followed close behind, tucking his shirt into his slacks with one hand and adjusting his watch with the other. His usually perfect hair was slightly tousled at the temples, and a fresh bloom of color stained his throat just beneath his collar.
Penny gave a quick glance down at herself. She was decent. Professional. But barely. Her blouse was wrinkled, her gloss gone, and her legs? Still a little weak.
She couldn’t help but smile as she shook her head. “We are not getting coffee until I’ve made sure I don’t look like a scandal.”
Baron leaned in, eyes flashing. “You look like you’ve been thoroughly appreciated.”
Penny swatted his arm, her cheeks heating as she bit back a laugh. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet, here you are.”
She turned toward him, reaching up to fix the slightly off-kilter collar of his shirt—and that’s when she saw him.
Him.
Standing no more than ten feet away. Frozen. Staring.
Antonio Bruno.
Her ex-husband.
Her mistake.
Her former tormentor, dressed in a designer charcoal suit, his posture stiff as a board, mouth slightly parted like he’d just walked in on a dream that had turned on him.
Penny stilled. Not from fear—but recognition.
The past. Right there in the flesh.
It hit her in a flash. The years she spent dulling herself down.
The lunches she brought to cold receptions.
The nights she fell asleep next to a stranger who used to call himself her husband.
The way her body used to tense when she heard the sound of keys in the lock—never knowing which version of Antonio would walk through the door.
All of that rose up in her chest.
And then?
It passed.
Because this time, Baron was the one beside her.
Solid. Steady. Warm.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch. Just followed her gaze, tracked it to the man across the hallway, and took him in with all the clinical coldness of a man used to making high-stakes decisions in operating rooms.
Antonio’s gaze dropped to their hands—still clasped together.
His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “Penny.”
Her name sounded foreign coming from his mouth. Thin. Hollow.
“Antonio,” she said simply.
There was no hate in her voice. No venom. Just the cool detachment of someone who had healed from the wound and now looked back at the blade.
Baron’s hand tightened around hers.
Antonio looked between them, then offered a stiff, disingenuous smile. “Didn’t know you were seeing… anyone.”
Baron didn’t say a word. His presence spoke loud enough.
Penny lifted her chin. “You wouldn’t. We don’t keep in touch.”
That subtle hit landed.
Antonio’s jaw ticked. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t,” Baron said, his first words low and measured.
Antonio glanced at him—really looked at him this time. Tall. Calm. Powerful. The man looked carved from granite and dipped in control. And the way he stood slightly in front of Penny, like he’d shield her from everything, said more than any insult could.
Antonio tried for composure, but Penny saw it—the crack. The falter.
“You here for a consult?” she asked, arms crossing over her chest.
Antonio shook his head. “No. Board meeting.”
“Of course.”
Another silence. Antonio’s eyes flicked back to Baron’s hand still on her waist. And something in him snapped, just a little.
“You look… different,” he said. “Happy.”
It wasn’t a compliment.
It was a confession.
“I am different,” she replied, smile slow and deliberate. “And happy? Very.”
Baron turned slightly toward her. “Still want that coffee?”
Her smile bloomed wider. “Absolutely.”
Baron turned toward Antonio, his voice calm but final. “Excuse us.”
Then he placed a hand at the small of her back—possessive, but reverent—and guided her past Antonio without another glance.
Antonio stood there, gut twisting.
He had never seen Penny smile like that. Not once in their marriage. Not with him. Not even close.
He’d always thought she was too quiet. Too soft. Too easy to overlook.
And now?
Now she was walking beside a man who made the air around him shift. A man who looked at her like she was the only woman in the room. A man who had clearly just made her come undone and still treated her like a treasure.
Antonio turned his head to follow them.
But Penny never looked back.
* * *
Penny kicked off her shoes the second she walked in the door, practically tripping over one of Matilda’s glitter-covered sneakers that had been lying in wait like a trap.
The sneaker launched a rogue crayon across the hallway floor.
Somewhere nearby, a rainbow sock mocked her from under the edge of the console table.
“Y’all really don’t believe in hallway order,” she muttered, stepping over the debris like it was a battlefield and heading straight for the kitchen.
The house was quiet—eerily quiet. Esther was probably already in bed, cocooned in her eucalyptus sheets with her diffuser blowing lavender mist and some British murder mystery whispering through her earbuds.
Matilda was likely sprawled diagonally across her bed, limbs tossed like she’d just finished saving the world.
But Penny? She was still in heels and lipstick.
Dressed like temptation and feeling like a woman on the brink.
She hadn’t even made it out of her date clothes before her brain had gone into full mental chaos mode.
The second she walked through the door, her nerves had started shouting, her heart still racing from too many thoughts and one very perfect man.
She set her purse on the counter, dropped her phone on the table, then immediately picked it up again. Her thumb hovered. Then tapped.
Sara Ann “CIA with WiFi” Matthews—her best friend, her human panic button, her hotline to sanity.
One ring. Two.
“Okay,” Sara Ann answered, slightly breathless. “Who do I need to fight, flirt with, or Google-stalk into submission?”
Penny let out a long breath. “Girl.”
“That’s not an answer. That’s a distress signal. Are you pregnant, in jail, or currently undressing Baron Jones with your eyes?”
Penny blinked. “What?! No. Maybe. I don’t know. That’s not the point.”
Sara gasped. “Oh my God. You went to his office again, didn’t you? Tell me you showed up in those tight jeans. You heathen. Did you bring lunch? Did you feed him and straddle him like a queen with a stethoscope?”
Penny barked out a laugh, covering her face. “I wore a blouse. A very respectable blouse.”
“You know a blouse is the gateway drug to a lap dance, right?”
“I just… I brought him food and may have had a brief moment of out-of-body confidence where I sat on his lap and kissed the breath out of him.”
There was a stunned pause. Then—
“Queen behavior,” Sara whispered. “Absolute goddess tier. Continue.”
“It was incredible,” Penny said. “Like, weak-knees incredible. But that’s not the issue.”
“Wait—was this the first time? Did you leave him with a neck hickey and a ruined tie?”
Penny groaned. “No! Will you please stop inventing scenarios?”
“Fine. I’m focused now. What happened?”
Penny hesitated, her fingers tightening on the phone. “Antonio.”
The line went dead silent. No breathing. No ambient noise. Just pure, stunned tension.
“Sara?”
“I need you to say that again,” Sara replied carefully, as if the words themselves were contaminated. “Antonio. Like… your ex-husband Antonio?”
“Yep. That Antonio. The ego with eyebrows.”
Sara let out a low whistle. “Explain how Antonio ‘Midlife Crisis in Human Form’ Bruno appeared in your life today like a software update no one asked for.”
Penny sat down heavily at the table. “He was outside Baron’s office. Just… there. Looking like he’d seen a ghost. I didn’t even know what to say. He looked shocked. And I felt… nothing. Not panic. Not fear. Just this kind of dull, muted disbelief.”
“Because you’ve grown,” Sara said simply. “Because you’ve moved on. He’s yesterday’s paper. Outdated. Irrelevant. You, my love, are the whole damn headline.”
Penny gave a soft laugh. “I just don’t get it. Why now? Why today? Why after all this time?”
Sara made a sound suspiciously like typing. “What are you doing?”
“Activating full sleuth mode,” Sara said. “Laptop open. Search tabs multiplying. I’m about to find out if he’s in a financial pyramid scheme, starting a podcast about ‘alpha masculinity,’ or trying to write a memoir titled Her Loss.”
Penny snorted. “Please, not a podcast. If I hear him say ‘let’s unpack that,’ I will set my own ears on fire.”
“You’re safe. If he has a mic and a manifesto, I’m burning it down.”
There was a lull, soft but heavy. Then Penny whispered, “I don’t want him to ruin this. With Baron.”
Sara froze. “Say that again. Slowly. For the record.”
“I don’t want him to mess this up,” Penny said, heart thudding. “Because… I think I’m in love with Baron.”
A long pause. Then: “Hold on, let me pace.”
Penny waited as footsteps echoed on the other end.
“Penny.”
“What?”
“I have waited years for you to say that. Years. Do you understand what a milestone this is? You have an actual adult man who respects you, adores your child, and has forearms that could crush my self-restraint. This is the romance arc we dreamed about!”
Penny laughed, pressing a hand to her heart. “It snuck up on me. I didn’t even know. But today, seeing Antonio… I realized I didn’t shrink. I didn’t explain myself or try to disappear. I stood there, feeling nothing for him—and knowing exactly who I wanted to go home to.”
Sara let out a satisfied sigh. “Girl, you didn’t just survive. You thrived. You healed. You’re loving again. And this time? You chose someone who’s already chosen you.”
“I just needed to say it out loud.”