Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
ALEX
I can't focus.
The quarterly reports blur in front of me, numbers swimming like fish scattering from a predator.
I've read the same paragraph six times. I push away from my desk with a curse, stalking to the floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the city like a painting I bought but no longer see.
Fifty-two stories below, people move like ants, oblivious to being watched. None of them are her.
Clara Benson. The name circles my thoughts like a shark that's scented blood.
Two days. It's been two days since she stood in my home with flour on her nose and fear in her eyes, and I still taste sugar when I close my mouth. I've had supermodels in my bed who left less of an impression than this baker with her trembling hands and stubborn chin.
She looked at me differently. That's what I can't shake. Not with the glossy-eyed worship of someone seeing dollar signs, not with the calculated seduction I've grown immune to. She looked at me like I was simply a man. A dangerous one, perhaps, but just flesh and blood.
When she first walked in—this small woman with flour dusting her clothes and determination in her spine—I nearly dismissed her.
Another delivery person. Another forgettable transaction.
I remember the flicker of shock on her face when she saw me half-dressed by the fire.
The way she tried not to stare and failed spectacularly.
Most women hide their reactions better. Clara wears hers like neon signs.
I hadn't slept in thirty hours. The Tokyo deal had dragged through the night, and I'd finally closed it at dawn, stripping off my suit and falling into a workout to burn off the residual tension. I wasn't expecting visitors. Wasn't expecting to be interrupted. Wasn't expecting her.
I remember the way she thrust that tray toward me, like offering meat to a lion she hoped wouldn't bite. I remember thinking I'd taste one pastry to be polite, then send her away.
But then I tasted what she'd made.
I've eaten at restaurants with three-month waiting lists and personal chefs who demand six-figure salaries.
Nothing prepared me for the way her simple dessert dissolved on my tongue.
Perfect balance of sweet and bitter, the pastry yielding like silk, the filling rich but not cloying.
It was honest. Unpretentious. Transcendent.
Just like her.
I've summoned memories of thousands of business details on command, but I couldn't tell you what we discussed after that first bite.
All I remember is watching her hands as she spoke—capable hands, with short, practical nails and a small burn scar on the left index finger.
Honest hands that create rather than take.
When I told her to come back, I didn't plan it. The words just emerged, a command my brain issued before consulting the rest of me.
And she came back. Skittish as a deer but with steel underneath. When she bit into that pastry I held for her, something cracked inside my chest. Something I thought had calcified years ago.
"Mr. Devereux?"
My assistant stands in the doorway, uncertainty softening her usually clipped tones. I wonder how long she's been there, how many times she's said my name.
"The Hong Kong investors are waiting in the conference room." She hesitates. "Should I tell them you need a few more minutes?"
"No." I straighten my tie, locking away thoughts of flour-dusted fingers and warm brown eyes. "I'm coming."
For three hours, I perform the role expected of me. The ruthless negotiator. The visionary. The man who never blinks first. I secure terms that will add millions to the company's bottom line.
And I taste nothing but sugar the entire time.
By evening, I've had enough. I dismiss my driver and take the Aston Martin, needing the physical control of something powerful beneath my hands. I tell myself I'm just going for a drive to clear my head.
I end up in front of her bakery.
Sweet Haven glows from within, warm yellow light spilling onto the darkening sidewalk.
Through the window, I can see her—hair escaping its knot, sleeves pushed up, wiping down counters with the same focus she'd give a delicate sugar sculpture.
She moves with quiet efficiency, unaware of being watched.
I stay in the car for ten minutes, telling myself to drive away. This is beneath me. This fascination with a woman I barely know, who probably fears me, who lives in a world so removed from mine we might as well speak different languages.
But I've built an empire by recognizing quality when I see it. By claiming what others overlook.
I get out of the car. The winter air bites at my face, carrying the scent of her baking even to the sidewalk. My hand hovers above the door before I finally get ahold of myself and pull it back like I’ve been scalded.
With a curse, I head back to my car and slam myself in it.
I watch Clara through the window of her bakery until I can’t stand it anymore and pull my rock-hard cock from my pants.
I stroke myself in the dark, the glass fogging with my breath.
She’s closing up, counting the till, humming off-key, oblivious to what she’s doing to me.
I fist my cock and imagine her mouth, her hands, her flushed face from earlier—imagine her kneeling on the bakery tile, palms sticky with sugar, her lips glossed with caramel and cream.
I come in my own hand, eyes never leaving her through the glass.
Pathetic, but the release only makes it worse. I’m still hungry, still hollowed out, still vibrating with need.
I clean up with a napkin from the console, throw it on the floor, and rest my forehead on the steering wheel.
I remind myself: I have women. Options. A list of names and numbers longer than her entire address book.
None of them matter. None of them hold a candle to the thought of Clara, her skin dusted in flour and her voice trembling when she says my name.
I don’t want to scare Clara. I just want her. I want to peel her open like warm bread and devour the soft center. I want to know every part of her, every recipe, every secret.
I want her so bad it’s a fucking problem.
I've barely slept.
The memory of Clara's face when she saw me in her bakery—the startled doe-in-headlights look—kept me awake until dawn painted the sky the color of bruises. By six, I'm at my desk. By six-fifteen, I've made the call.
Garrett enters my office with the efficient silence I pay him obscenely well to maintain. My head of security is ex-military, ex-special forces, and makes ninety percent of people uncomfortable just by existing in the same room. I appreciate his complete lack of unnecessary conversation.
"Sir," he says, the only greeting he ever offers.
"I need information." I slide a piece of paper across my desk. On it, I've written only two things: Clara Benson. Sweet Haven Bakery.
Garrett's face remains impassive, but I catch the microscopic raise of an eyebrow. In our fifteen years together, I've never asked him to investigate a woman.
"Everything?" he asks.
"Everything," I confirm. "Financials. Background. Family. Suppliers. Customer base. Daily routine. The brand of flour she prefers. If she has a cat, I want to know what she named it."
He nods once. "Timeline?"
"Yesterday."
Another infinitesimal reaction. "Three hours," he counters.
I glance at my watch. "Nine-thirty, then."
He nods again and exits, leaving me with the thought that if I'd asked him to commit murder, the conversation would have unfolded identically. But what I've requested feels more intimate somehow. More invasive.
I tell myself it's basic due diligence. I never enter any arrangement—business or personal—without complete information. Knowledge is control, and control is survival. I've lived by this principle since I was old enough to understand that the world gives nothing freely.
Still, something squirms uncomfortably beneath my ribs.
For the next three hours, I'm physically present in budget meetings and strategy sessions, but my mind remains in a small bakery with peeling paint and the scent of vanilla in the air.
I catch my CFO giving me strange looks when I miss questions directed at me—something that's never happened before in the company's history.
At precisely nine-thirty, my private line rings.
"It's ready," Garrett says.
The elevator to the basement security suite seems slower than usual. When I enter, Garrett is alone, a slim folder on the desk in front of him and a laptop open to a series of photographs.
"Go," I say, and he begins the briefing with military precision.
Clara Benson. Twenty-five years old. No siblings.
Parents divorced when she was twelve; father remarried and moved to Arizona, minimal contact.
Mother died of cancer three years ago. No serious romantic relationships in the past two years.
Graduated top of her class from Westfield Culinary Institute, turned down prestigious positions at three high-end restaurants to open her own bakery eighteen months ago.
Sweet Haven operates in the black, but barely.
The location is good but the rent is punishing.
She lives in the small apartment above the shop, works sixteen-hour days, has no employees except a part-time high school student who helps on weekends.
She grows her own herbs on the roof. Supplies top-tier ingredients despite the cost, refuses to compromise quality.
Has a growing word-of-mouth reputation but lacks the capital for meaningful marketing.
No pets. No parking tickets. No debt beyond the bakery's startup loan, which she's paying ahead of schedule despite the tight margins.
"She's clean," Garrett concludes. "Works hard. Keeps to herself. Couple close friends, but no entanglements."