Chapter 10 #2
"Sir," he says, no preamble as usual. "Update on the Sweet Haven situation."
I say nothing, unwilling to admit aloud that I'm desperate for this information while simultaneously unable to ask for it directly. Garrett continues into my silence, understanding my unspoken need.
"Business has increased approximately 127% since the article. Lines form before opening. They're selling out by early afternoon. The owner has extended hours and hired additional help—the part-timer's hours doubled, plus two new employees."
My chest tightens with conflicting emotions—satisfaction that the article achieved exactly what I intended, bitterness that Clara's success comes at the price of my absence from her life.
"She looks tired," Garrett adds, the personal observation uncharacteristic from my usually clinical head of security. "Successful, but tired."
I swallow against the tightness in my throat. "That's all."
"One more thing," he says. "The Tribune ran a follow-up piece today. Front page of the lifestyle section."
I end the call without responding, already reaching for the newspaper I haven't yet opened. The lifestyle section is filled with the usual society drivel—charity announcements, restaurant reviews, profiles of people more famous than significant. And there, taking up half the page, is Clara.
The photographer caught her in a moment of unguarded joy—head thrown back in laughter, flour dusting one cheek, hands mid-gesture as she explains something to someone outside the frame.
The headline reads "SWEET SENSATION: How Clara Benson Became the City's Hottest Baker Overnight.
" The subheadline twists the knife: "Local Baker Proves Success Comes to Those Who Persevere. "
I trace her image with my fingertip before I can stop myself. She looks beautiful. Vibrant. Alive in a way that makes my chest ache with something between desire and longing.
Perseverance. The article gives her that, at least—acknowledges her years of work, her dedication to quality, her refusal to cut corners even when facing financial pressure. It mentions the article that "discovered" her but credits her talent for the subsequent success.
Small mercies.
I read every word, absorbing details about her that I already know from Garrett's reports and my own observations during those quiet mornings at her bakery.
Her daily routine starting at 4 AM. Her commitment to European butter and traditional techniques.
Her plans to expand the menu now that she has additional help.
What the article doesn't mention—can't mention—is how her eyes crinkle at the corners when she genuinely smiles.
How she hums under her breath when concentrating on intricate decorations.
How she remembers every regular customer's preferences and family details.
How her rare, unguarded laugh sounds like something precious breaking open.
I fold the paper with careful precision and set it aside.
Five days of respecting her demand that I get out of her life.
Five days of restraint that feels like withdrawal from a particularly potent drug.
Five days of telling myself that giving her space is the right thing, the respectful thing, the only thing I can offer after trampling her boundaries.
Five days of absolute hell.
My calendar alert chimes—a meeting with investors in fifteen minutes. I should be reviewing numbers, preparing arguments, planning strategic responses to anticipated concerns. Instead, I'm staring at the folded newspaper, Clara's image burned into my retinas like I've looked directly at the sun.
I cancel the meeting with a text to Jennifer. Reschedule. Family emergency. Not entirely a lie—this feels like an emergency, and Clara has somehow become more important than blood family ever was.
My driver looks surprised when I slide into the backseat without warning or scheduled appointment. "Where to, sir?"
"Just drive," I say, unable to give voice to what I actually want. He knows better than to ask questions, pulling smoothly into traffic while I stare out the window at a city that suddenly feels too small to contain both Clara and myself without collision.
Fifteen minutes later, we're approaching her neighborhood.
I didn't give directions. Didn't need to.
The car seems drawn by the same magnetic pull I've been fighting for days, as if Clara Benson has her own gravitational field that bends everything in her vicinity—including my ironclad self-control.
"Just past Sweet Haven," I instruct as we approach. "Slowly."
The bakery glows from within, golden light spilling onto the darkening sidewalk.
The line still stretches outside despite the late hour.
Through the window, I catch a glimpse of her—moving with efficient grace behind the counter, smiling at a customer, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear with that unconscious gesture that has become painfully familiar.
For one insane moment, I consider ordering the car to stop. Consider walking into that bakery as if our last interaction didn't end with her ordering me out of her life. Consider crossing the distance between us and pulling her into my arms regardless of witnesses or consequences.
The intensity of the impulse terrifies me. I've built my success on calculated decisions, on emotional control, on never wanting anything or anyone badly enough to compromise my judgment.
Yet here I am, palm pressed against the window like a lovesick teenager, physically aching at the sight of a woman who wants nothing to do with me.
"Keep driving," I force myself to say. The words taste like ash.
We circle the block. Twice. Each pass allowing me a brief glimpse of her through the window—a punishment and reward simultaneously. By the third circuit, my driver's eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror, concern evident despite his professional detachment.
"Home," I instruct finally, the single word nearly choking me.
Back in the penthouse, I stand before the wall of windows, the city spread before me like a kingdom I no longer want. My phone burns in my pocket—her number memorized, the urge to call her, to hear her voice even if only to have her hang up on me, nearly overwhelming.
This isn't sustainable. This hollowness in my chest, this constant awareness of her absence, this pathetic circling of her bakery like a moth around flame—it's beneath me. Beneath the control and calculation that define me.
Yet I cannot stop.
I've never wanted anything I couldn't eventually acquire—through persistence, strategy, or sheer force of will. But Clara isn't a company to be purchased or a deal to be closed. She's a woman who has explicitly rejected my help, my influence, my presence in her life.
Respecting that should be the honorable choice. The right choice.
But tomorrow, I know with absolute certainty, I will find myself driving past Sweet Haven again. And the day after. And the day after that.
Until something breaks—her resolve or my control.
At this point, I no longer care which.
Rain hammers against the windshield, transforming the city into a blurry impressionist painting of streaked lights and indistinct shapes.
I've been sitting here for twenty-three minutes, engine off, watching the CLOSED sign in Clara's bakery window like it might suddenly change its mind if I stare hard enough.
The rational part of my brain—the part responsible for building an empire, for strategic decisions that altered markets, for the calculated control that defines me—is screaming that this is madness. The rest of me doesn't care.
Through the downpour, I can see movement inside—Clara's silhouette moving between counters, wiping down surfaces, performing the closing ritual I've memorized from Garrett's reports.
In seven minutes, she'll check the front door lock, turn off the main lights, and disappear upstairs to her apartment.
My window of opportunity is closing faster than multibillion-dollar acquisitions.
I should leave. She made her position clear: get out of her bakery, her business, her life. Three separate domains, all explicitly off-limits. Yet here I sit, watching her through rain and darkness like a stalker, like a man who's lost the rigid self-control that's defined him for decades.
Perhaps I have.
Without allowing myself further deliberation, I exit the car.
Rain immediately soaks through my suit—a bespoke Italian creation now clinging to my shoulders like a second skin.
Water streams down my face, into my eyes, plastering my hair to my forehead.
I probably look deranged. I certainly feel it.
The distance to her door has never seemed longer.
Each step gives my rational mind another opportunity to reassert control, to remind me of the humiliation of showing up uninvited, unwanted.
To recall the fury in her eyes when she ordered me out of her life.
To calculate the professional reputation damage if word spreads that Alexander Devereux stood in the rain outside a bakery like a lovesick teenager.
I ignore it all, driven by something more primal than reason, more essential than pride.
The lights inside flicker as she moves toward the back. Three minutes before she locks up. I rap on the glass sharply, the sound nearly drowned out by the drumming rain. For a moment, I think she hasn't heard. Then she emerges from behind the counter, frowning at the unexpected interruption.
When she sees me—soaked, disheveled, standing in a deluge like a man who's lost his mind—her expression transforms from annoyance to shock. She freezes midstep, one hand clutching a cleaning rag, the other rising unconsciously to her throat.