Chapter 20
Leo
I don’t remember sitting down.
One moment, I am standing in the middle of my apartment with my keys still clenched in my fist, jacket sliding off one shoulder, my body buzzing like I have just narrowly missed being hit by a car.
Next, I am on the floor with my back against the couch, knees pulled to my chest, staring at the darkened television screen like it might explain what I just did to myself.
The silence is unbearable.
My apartment has always been quiet. Curated quiet. The kind of silence you pay for. Triple-paned glass. White noise disguised as luxury. A place designed so nothing ever intrudes unless you invite it in.
This silence is different. It presses. It crawls into my ears and down my spine and settles behind my ribs until I can hear my own heart beating, too loud, too fast, like it is trying to escape.
I close my eyes.
And there she is.
Not the version of Tess who yelled. Not the one who shoved me.
The moment after. The moment she stopped seeing me as someone worth arguing with.
The look on her face when she closed the tablet. When the door shut, not physically, but emotionally. When the trust did not just crack but calcified into something cold and unreachable.
You were protecting your version of me.
The words echo, over and over, each repetition peeling something else off me.
My certainty.
My justification.
My last excuse.
I was not protecting her. I was afraid. Afraid of waiting. Afraid of being unnecessary. Afraid of watching something extraordinary exist outside my control. Afraid she did not need me. That one lodges the deepest.
I have built an entire adult life on being needed. On being useful. On solving problems so efficiently that people forget what it was like before I arrived. I do not know who I am when I cannot optimize something into submission.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes until sparks dance behind my lids.
I have lost deals before. Burned bridges. Walked away from partnerships that everyone said would define my career.
None of it has ever felt like this.
Money losses sting. Reputation hits bruise. This feels like I tore something out of my chest and handed it to someone who never asked for it.
I push myself to my feet abruptly, restless energy flooding my limbs. I pace the length of the apartment, then turn and pace it again. The walls feel too close. The ceiling is too high. Everything is wrong.
I pass the kitchen and let out a sharp, humorless laugh.
I do not even know how to cook.
There is nothing in my fridge that does not come in a package or require exactly zero skill. The irony hits me sideways, and I have to grip the counter until it passes.
I stop at the window and rest my forehead against the glass. The city sprawls below me, alive and indifferent. Lights blinking. Cars flowing. People moving with purpose, which I suddenly envy.
Somewhere in that mess is Sunrise & Salt. Tess. The life I torched because I could not stand the idea of not being essential.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the glass.
The city does not answer.
My phone buzzes on the counter behind me.
I do not need to look.
Rex.
Of course, he is calling. Of course, he is energized. Of course, he thinks tonight was a win.
I let it ring.
Again.
Again.
On the fifth call, the buzzing stops, and a text replaces it.
REX: You handled her yet? The media’s warming up. We’re moving fast.
Handled her.
The phrase turns my stomach.
Like she is a liability.
Like she is a variable.
Like she is something to be managed rather than a person who trusted me with her heart, her history, and the most fragile parts of her dream.
I flip the phone face down.
I cannot deal with him yet.
There is something else I have to do first. Something I owe her, whether she wants it or not.
I scroll through my contacts until I find her name.
Tess Bennett.
It feels heavier now, like it knows what I did. My thumb hovers.
She told me to get out. She told me I was done. I deserve the silence. But I also deserve to say the words, even if they land in a void, even if she hangs up on me, even if it changes nothing.
I hit call.
The ring feels like a blade sliding along my nerves.
Once.
Twice.
By the third ring, I am already rehearsing what I will say to voicemail. Something short. Something that does not ask anything from her. Something that does not demand she comfort me or absolve me.
The line clicks.
“Leo?”
Her voice is not angry.
That somehow hurts more.
It is tired. Guarded. Stripped of warmth but not sharp enough to be cruel.
“Tess,” I say, and my voice cracks immediately. “I know you told me to leave you alone. I know I do not have the right to call. I just… please. One minute. You do not have to respond. Just let me say it.”
Silence.
I hear fabric rustle. A chair scrape. The careful sound of someone sitting down like she does not trust her legs.
“Talk,” she says.
Not permission.
A warning.
“I was wrong,” I say immediately. I do not soften it. I do not qualify it. “Not confused. Not misguided. Wrong. What I did was wrong.”
She does not answer.
“I told myself I was helping,” I continue, the words tumbling faster now that I have started. “That I was protecting you. But I see now that what I was really doing was taking something that scared me and putting my name on it so I could control it.”
My throat tightens.
“I did not listen to you. I listened around you. I heard the parts that fit into my world and ignored the rest. I treated your dream like a problem to solve instead of something to respect.”
A sharp inhale on the other end of the line.
“I do not expect forgiveness,” I say quickly. “I am not asking for it. I just need you to know that I understand what I did. Finally.”
The silence stretches long enough that my chest starts to ache.
“You always think you understand,” she says quietly. “That is kind of the problem.”
The words land exactly where they are meant to.
“I know,” I say. “And that is why this time I am not asking you to believe me.”
I take a steadying breath.
“I am terminating the LOI.”
The quiet that follows is different. Alert. Charged.
“You already signed it,” she says.
“I know.”
“You do not just undo things like that.”
“I know.”
“So, what is this?” she asks. “Damage control?”
“No,” I say immediately. “It is removal. I am pulling myself out completely. I do not get to restructure it. I do not get to salvage anything. I do not get to touch your business ever again unless you ask me to.”
I press my forehead harder into the glass.
“I do not get to fix this.”
She exhales, slow and sharp.
“And Rex?” she asks.
“I will deal with Rex.”
There it is.
The anger.
“That is exactly what scares me, Leo.”
“I will not deal with him by making decisions for you,” I say. “I will not speak for you. I will not negotiate your future. I will take the hit. Publicly. Legally. Financially. Whatever it costs.”
Another pause.
“You do not get points for doing the bare minimum,” she says.
“I know,” I say softly. “I am not asking for points.”
Silence again.
“I don’t trust you,” she says. It is not dramatic. It is not cruel. It is a fact.
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I ever will.”
I close my eyes. “I understand.”
“And I don’t know what happens next,” she adds.
“That is ok,” I say. “You don’t owe me clarity.”
Another breath.
“If Rex comes after me…”
“He won’t,” I say, firmer now. “Not without going through me first.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I know.”
The line stays quiet for a long moment.
Then, “Don’t come to the bakery.”
“I won’t.”
“This doesn’t fix what you did.”
“I know.”
“Goodnight, Leo.”
“Goodnight, Tess.”
The call ends.
I stay exactly where I am, phone still pressed to my ear like I might somehow hear her breathing through the dead line.
I don’t feel relieved.
I don’t feel hopeful.
I feel committed.
Not in the romantic sense. Not in the please let me back in way. Committed to consequences.
I move fast after that, not with panic, but with something colder and clearer.
I draft the termination notice myself. I don’t let legal soften the language. I don’t let PR touch it. I don’t let anyone reframe it into something palatable.
I write exactly what it is. A withdrawal. A refusal. An admission of fault.
I sign my name.
I send it.
Then I turn my phone back over.
Rex has called seventeen times. I answer the eighteenth.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demands the second the line connects. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
“Yes,” I say calmly. “I ended the deal.”
“You can’t just…”
“I already did.”
“You’re burning leverage,” he snaps. “You’re humiliating me.”
“You boxed her in,” I say. “You leaked it. You tried to force her hand.”
A pause.
“So, she turned you down,” Rex sneers. “Is that what this is? You’re emotional. You’ll regret this.”
“I regret trusting you,” I say.
He laughs. “You think walking away makes you noble? You think she’ll thank you?”
“No,” I say. “I think it’s the first time I’ve done the right thing without expecting a reward.”
I hang up.
I don’t sleep. I sit on the floor as the city turns from night to grey, replaying every moment I could have chosen differently.
Every time she told me who she was. Every time I decided, I knew better.
When the sun finally rises, it doesn’t feel like a new beginning. It feels like consequences.
And for once in my life, I don’t try to outrun them.
I let them come.
Whether Tess Bennett ever lets me back into her world or not, one thing is finally, painfully clear.
I don’t get to decide what happens next.
And that has to be enough.