Chapter 14
Tess
I look at him, startled, like I forgot he was there. Like I just confessed my most guarded secret to a stranger on a sidewalk, and I am only now remembering that I have a mouth and I used it.
I laid my soul bare.
And he does not try to fix it. He does not offer to buy it. He does not do that billionaire thing where the solution is always a number with a lot of zeros.
He just listens.
Something in my chest goes tight and hot with the embarrassment of being seen.
I look away, flustered, my vulnerability turning my skin inside out. “I… I’m…” I gesture vaguely, as if motion can undo what I said. “This is my corner. I have to…”
I am so wrapped up in my confession, so flayed open by my own honesty, that I stop paying attention to where my feet are going.
I am at the curb. At the crosswalk. The DON’T WALK hand is a solid, glowing red.
And I step off the curb.
“Tess!”
The shout slices through the dusk.
A dark blue sedan barrels toward me, too fast, too quiet, headlights off like the driver wants to be a ghost. Then the horn blares, a furious honk that slams into my chest.
My body freezes in the street, like it has forgotten how to be a body.
Leo does not freeze.
He does not think.
He does not plan.
He moves.
One second, he is beside me. Next, his hand snags the strap of my canvas bag, and his other arm wraps around my waist and yanks.
Hard.
I stumble backward off the curb and into him, flush against his chest.
The sedan whooshes past so close I feel its wind, like the street itself exhales. The driver shouts something obscene out the window, angry and unintelligible, and then it is gone. Over in a second.
And I am pressed against Leo Ashford, my back to his chest, my whole body shaking.
A fine, terrified tremor runs through me like static. I cannot stop it. I cannot hide it. My legs feel boneless.
He is holding me too tight. Protective. Possessive. Like his arm is a seatbelt, and I am the thing he refuses to let the world crash into.
His hand is still tangled in my bag strap. His other hand is splayed across my waist, and I hate that I notice exactly where his fingers are. I hate that my brain is capable of registering the size of his hand while my heartbeat is trying to escape my throat.
“Are you…” He breathes, his voice a rasp.
His face is buried in my hair.
And I smell him. Sweat and flour and something warm and human. I hate that even in the middle of almost getting flattened by a reckless idiot in a sedan, my senses are still traitors.
“Are you ok?” he asks. “You… you just… You walked…”
“I wasn’t looking,” I whisper.
My hands come up and clutch his forearm, the one locked around my waist, in a death grip, like if I let go I will float away or collapse or start sobbing in public like a lunatic.
“I… I didn’t see him.”
“It’s ok,” he murmurs, his voice thick. “He’s gone. You’re ok. I’ve got you.”
He should let go. I know he should. I know it with the cold clarity of someone very familiar with boundaries and consequences, with how one wrong move can make your whole life implode.
This is exactly the kind of line-crossing, boss-intern, HR nightmare scenario he just apologized for.
But he does not move. And I do not move.
I just lean back.
It is small. Almost imperceptible. A shift of my spine. A surrender of my weight. But I lean into him, my head resting, just for a brief, shattering moment, against his collarbone.
And I let out a long, shaky breath.
The DON’T WALK hand is still glowing red.
The street is quiet again.
“Leo,” I whisper.
My voice sounds too small for what I am feeling.
“I’m here.”
Slowly, I turn in his loose embrace.
I am still inside his arms, his hand now at the small of my back. I can feel the tremor still running through me, but it is fading, draining out into the sidewalk.
I look up at him.
My face feels pale. My eyes feel huge. Luminous in the orange streetlight. The anger is gone. The fear is gone.
It is just me.
Raw, real, and vulnerable, and I hate it.
“You,” I say, breathless, “are an excellent baker, Leo.”
He lets out a shaky laugh. The last of the adrenaline drains away, leaving something warm and soft in its wake.
“B plus, you said,” he murmurs. “Just B plus.”
“Maybe…” I whisper, and I hate that my eyes drop to his mouth. I hate that my body is doing this. “Maybe an A minus.”
His eyes are on my mouth too.
“For…” I swallow. “For Snorlax.”
“Yeah?” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
And suddenly the world dissolves.
It is not the bakery. It is not the locker room. It is not the dare. It is just a quiet street corner, a man who smells like flour, and a feeling in my chest so bright it hurts.
“Tess,” he murmurs.
It is a question, an apology, and a plea all at once.
He leans down.
Slowly.
So slowly.
He gives me all the time in the world to pull away. To rebuild the wall. To turn this into something I can control.
I don’t.
I rise onto my toes just a little. My hands slide up his arms. One hand grabbing his sweat-damp T-shirt, right over the gold star sticker, like I need something solid to hold onto. The other comes to rest on his chest, my small calloused palm flat over his hammering heart.
And he kisses me.
It is not the frantic, frustrated almost kiss from the locker room. It is soft. Hesitant. Gentle. So impossibly sweet.
It feels like a question, and my lips, soft and chapped and tasting faintly of cinnamon, are the answer.
It is a kiss of equals. Two people who have seen the real, messy, tired, lonely parts of each other and did not run.
I kiss him back.
My fingers tighten in his shirt, pulling him closer, and it is small and real and perfect, and it feels like it lasts forever.
The crosswalk signal blares.
The sound shatters the moment like a plate hitting concrete. The DON’T WALK hand vanishes, replaced by the glowing white WALK sign.
“Walk sign is on,” the mechanical voice announces, cheerful and deeply uninvited, “to cross the street.”
We spring apart like we have been burned.
Breathless. Flushed.
“Wow,” Leo breathes, his voice wrecked.
“Yeah,” I squeak.
I cannot look at him. I stare at my sneakers like they might open up and swallow me whole.
“Wow.”
Panic rolls over me, bright and hot, and I feel it physically. My ribs tighten. My skin prickles. My brain snaps back into survival mode.
The vulnerability is gone, replaced by a frantic oh God, what did I just do.
“I… I have to go,” I stammer, backing away from him.
“Tess, wait,” he says, reaching for me.
“No.” I flinch, my hand coming up between us. “Don’t.”
My voice is shaking, but I force it steady because if I do not, I will do something reckless. And I cannot afford to be reckless.
“This doesn’t change anything, Leo.” The words rush out, frantic, each one a brick slammed into place. “We work together. I am still the boss. This is… this is a nightmare.”
His face tightens.
“You are still the guy who brought a damn news van to my door.” The truth tastes like blood. “This… this can’t happen. It can’t happen again.”
I am rebuilding the wall. Brick by frantic brick. I can feel myself doing it, and I hate it, and I cannot stop.
He stands there, eyes wide. Earnest. Wrecked.
“But what if I don’t want it to be the last time?” he asks.
His voice is low.
It lands right in the softest part of my chest.
I look at him, and my eyes betray me, torn and full of war. Fear and longing crash into each other, wave after wave.
“You’re Leo Ashford,” I say, my voice breaking. “You’re a billionaire. I’m… me. I’m a baker with a spreadsheet problem. We are not from the same world, Leo. We can’t be. You can’t be with someone like me.”
“We are from the same world now,” he says, pleading. “In this bakery. On this street. You taught me something real. What we felt was real.”
I shake my head because if I don’t, I will say yes.
And yes, is a trap.
Yes, is the circus. Yes, are the sharks. Yes, is me losing everything I have fought for because I let myself want something.
“Goodnight, Leo,” I whisper.
Then I turn.
Before he can say another word, I flee. I cross the street as the WALK sign blinks, and I disappear into the small brick apartment building on the corner, my heart battering my ribs, my lips still tingling, my entire body buzzing with what I just did.
I don’t look back.
Because if I look back, I won’t keep walking.
And I need to keep walking.
I need to keep my life intact.
Even though I already know, deep down, sick and certain, that intact is no longer possible.