Chapter 3
Leo
My phone is vibrating itself to death on the marble nightstand.
That is the first thing I notice when I surface. The angry hum feels like it is drilling straight into my skull. I am about to put my phone on silent when the alarm goes off.
I groan and roll onto my back. The sky is still dark, but somehow the city is already awake.
My phone lights up again. It is Marissa. I ignore her call, and when the buzzing stops, I see this is the fourth missed call from her.
I let my head fall back into the pillow.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as a text comes through.
MARISSA: You said it was over because you needed space. How much space do you need, Leo?
I drag a hand down my face. We were never even really together, but I cut things off three weeks ago. Cleanly. Calmly. I was clear. I was kind.
She cried and apologized, but she promised she would respect my boundaries. It lasted twelve hours.
I stare at my phone, my thumb hovering uselessly over the screen. I feel tired. This is not passion. This is not love. It never was.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand, the cool stone floor grounding me. Outside, traffic is starting.
I grab my phone and type. I decide to be blunt.
ME: Marissa. I meant what I said. It’s over. Stop contacting me.
I lock the screen and toss the phone onto the bed like it might burn me. My apartment feels too quiet now. Too big. The glass walls suddenly feel like exposure instead of luxury.
I walk to the window and look out at the city I supposedly own pieces of. It does not care. None of it cares.
When I walk to my closet, I automatically grab a button-up until I see the baker outfit Amelia arranged for me. This is going to be one heck of a day.
At 4:45 a.m., the only light on the quiet, tree-lined street comes from the glowing, golden heart of Sunrise and Salt.
I stand on the sidewalk for a moment longer than necessary, staring at it.
The windows glow warm against the dark, like the bakery is awake before the rest of the city and slightly offended by that fact.
Everything else on the block is still, asleep, and damp from the night.
The air smells faintly of wet leaves and yesterday’s rain.
Inside, visible through the glass, the bakery looks like the living, breathing antithesis of my penthouse.
It is small, crammed with mismatched, reclaimed wooden furniture, and it smells overwhelmingly of life.
Even through the closed door, I can catch it: wild yeast, dark-roast coffee, warm cardamom, baking cinnamon, and, underneath it all, the faint, sweet tang of industrial sanitizer. It smells like effort. Like work.
Through the front window, I can see the owner at a massive, flour-dusted steel table near the back.
Amelia reminded me that her name is Tess.
She is wearing a faded Dolly Parton T-shirt that disappears beneath a patched, well-loved apron, a garment that looks like it has survived multiple eras and at least one economic downturn.
A single, stubborn curl of blonde hair has escaped whatever containment strategy she attempted and is stuck to her cheek with a smudge of flour.
She is leaning over a battered laptop, brow furrowed, lips moving as she silently calculates.
From where I stand, I can see rows of numbers reflected faintly in the glass.
I try to imagine what she is looking at: flour costs, butter costs, payroll hours.
Margins so thin they are practically theoretical.
Right now, all I know is that she looks like someone trying to physically intimidate Excel into submission.
She taps keys sharply, jaw tightening, shoulders squared as if the numbers might try something. There is tension in her posture, a tight, coiled focus that makes it clear this is not busywork. This is survival math.
The bell on the prep room door chimes, and another woman stumbles in from the back. She is yawning so wide it looks painful, hair a brown-streaked mess, moving on autopilot toward the industrial coffee machine like it is the only thing keeping her upright.
“Morning, boss,” she mumbles. “Did the numbers behave themselves, or do I need to prepare for another ‘we’re switching to cheaper chocolate’ speech?”
The woman at the laptop, Tess, does not look up.
“They’re on a final warning,” she says. “And we never switch to cheaper chocolate. We would rather go down fighting.”
“That’s my girl,” the other woman mutters, downing an espresso like a shot. “Ok, what’s the plan, Stan?”
Tess clicks Save and snaps the laptop shut. Even through glass, the sound feels final.
“You’re on laminated dough,” she says. “I need forty classic croissants, twenty pain au chocolate, and fifteen pistachio-cardamom twists. I’ll start the hearth loaves. Auntie June is feeling feisty today.”
“You got it.”
The two of them move immediately, seamlessly.
It is a practiced, silent dance, the kind that only comes from working together long enough to stop needing words.
I watch Gwen, because that must be Gwen, pound a block of butter into a perfect, cold rectangle with rhythmic precision.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Tess divides a massive tub of sourdough with a bench scraper, her movements economical and exact.
The low, powerful hum of the convection oven builds in the background.
Even from outside, it is obvious: this is her sanctuary. This is the work. It is hard, it is honest, it is real.
I ring the doorbell.
I know the exact second it happens because everything inside freezes. Tess stops mid-motion, scraper in hand. Gwen halts, butter mallet suspended in the air.
It is 5:00 a.m. on the dot.
I don’t know the bakery’s rhythms yet, but I understand instinctively that this is wrong. No customers. No deliveries. No casual drop-ins. Something about the way Tess exhales slowly and controlled tells me this hour only brings problems.
She wipes her hands on her apron, sending up a small puff of flour, and whatever dread flickered across her face is quickly replaced with irritation. I watch her stalk through the cozy seating area toward the front, past shelves she clearly built herself.
She reaches the door.
And stops.
I am standing under the flickering, old-fashioned gaslight of her antique sign, holding my phone and squinting between the address on the screen and the Sunrise & Salt logo etched into the glass.
I don’t knock. I don’t wave. I just stand there.
I am painfully aware, in this moment, that I look wrong.
I am tall, apparently distractingly so, with the kind of face that belongs on a billboard advertising billion-dollar watches, not on a bakery doorstep before dawn. And I am wearing what can only be described as a costume.
The baker’s uniform Amelia procured is blindingly white.
Sterile. Crisp. The jacket is custom-tailored, fitting my shoulders perfectly.
The pants have a knife-edge crease. The skull cap sits absurdly atop my dark, carefully styled hair.
It looks less like authentic workwear and more like an architect’s rendering of one.
It almost certainly costs more than her walk-in freezer.
The deadbolt clicks.
The door swings open, and cold morning air rushes past me, smelling of damp pavement and exhaust, cutting sharply through the warmth inside.
“We’re not open,” she says.
Her voice is flat. Final.
I look up, startled. She has dark, assessing eyes and an expression that could strip paint.
“Oh. Hi. I know,” I say quickly. “I’m… I’m not a customer.”
I attempt a smile. It is probably devastating in a boardroom. Here, in the grey 5 a.m. light, it feels deeply out of place.
“Right,” she says, crossing her arms. Flour puffs from her sleeves.
“So, you’re an influencer. Look, I don’t care how many followers you have.
We are not giving you free pastries for a post. I’m not interested in your collab.
The ‘grammable pastry shop with the neon sign that says You’re My Everything Bagel and the gold-leaf cruffins is two blocks down.
I’m sure they’d love to comp you for a reel. Good luck.”
She reaches for the door.
“No, wait,” I blurt, sticking out a hand. My hand. Clean. Soft. Completely useless. “I’m not… well, I guess I am one, technically, but I’m not here for that. I’m here to… work?”
I hear it as I say it, the uncertainty, like I’m testing a foreign word.
She stares at me.
I can practically see her recalculating my entire existence.
“Work.”
“Yes. My name is Leo Ashford.”
The reaction is immediate and visceral.
Her face changes, like she has been physically struck. The name lands between us with a dull, heavy thud.
Ashford.
Something hot and sharp flashes in her eyes, something old and well-fed.
This overdressed idiot standing on her doorstep is me.
And whatever I thought was about to happen next, I am suddenly, unmistakably, very wrong.