Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
EMILY
Dallas breezed into the shop the next morning looking like a human sunbeam in a crisp white apron. She’d spent the night upstairs again since her relationship with Micah was officially “on the fritz.”
“Grand opening day,” she sang as she arranged the display case.
Before I could reply, the bell above the door chimed. Real estate agent, Willa, swept in. “This place looks amazing.”
I showed her around and she studied the chocolates in the case.
“I would like to put you on a retainer,” she said.
“I don’t bill by the hour anymore,” I leaned on the spotless marble counter. “I bill by the ounce.”
Willa clapped. “Deal. I need closing gifts. Client appreciation events, open house spreads. We want a standing corporate order. Fifty boxes a month to start. Custom ribbons with our name on them, if you can swing it?”
My brain automatically calculated wholesale margins, supply chain contingencies, and delivery schedules.
“Fifty boxes is doable,” I said, slipping into the dry, pragmatic tone I used to reserve for opposing counsel. “I’ll need a two-week lead time for the custom branding, and a forty percent deposit upfront.”
“You know where to find me. Send me the contract,” Willa said with a wink. “Now bag me a half-dozen of the sea-salt caramels for the road?”
Dallas boxed the caramels and the second Willa was gone, Dallas caught my eye, a slow smirk spreading across her face. “First corporate contract, secured.”
A standing corporate order meant the start of a steady baseline of income to keep the lights on.
“This is going to work,” I said to Finn.
He nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
I grabbed a microfiber cloth and cleaned the hell out of already gleaming silver trays. I polished until my reflection stared back at me.
I rebalanced truffle trays, nudging a dark chocolate raspberry a millimeter to the left.
Sharon showed up to work, even though she wasn’t officially being paid. She sang softly to herself as she tied crimson ribbons around a stack of gold gift boxes.
She’d created a small mountain of perfect, four-looped bows, their tails snipped to sharp, perfect angles.
Honestly? They were flawless.
Which is why my own hands betrayed me, reaching out to pick up a finished box.
“This one’s just a little… loose,” I said as I worked to undo her perfect knot.
The loops were symmetrical, the tension exact. My interference was a lie my anxiety insisted on.
Sharon stopped humming and placed a steady hand to still my frantic fingers. “Your shoulders are up around your ears, Emily. Everything alright?”
“Everything’s great,” I said, bright as plastic. “Just grand opening jitters. You know how it is.”
Maya had flown back to her recording studio in LA, and Angela got extra busy with her Cherry Creek gallery. Their supportive energy now reduced to a string of encouraging messages.
I’d built this new world—chocolate, friends, sunlight—and somehow it still felt like standing on a sheet of glass, listening for the first crack.
“They’re ready for you,” Pam announced, herding me to the front of the store.
A man in a slightly-too-tight suit from the Chamber of Commerce cleared his throat, holding a pair of comically large silver scissors that I kind of wanted to keep.
He was flanked by two women in burgundy blazers with patches that read, Chamber Rangers.
“We’ll hold the ribbon, you hold the scissors and once the ribbon falls everybody is going to cheer,” he said.
This was it. The official moment.
I nodded and stepped to the front door.
Through the gleaming glass I’d polished over and over, a line snaked down the block.
My breath actually caught. An honest-to-God line of people stood outside, waiting to enter my little shop.
Dallas worked the crowd, slinging napkins autographed by Maya to the sidewalk pre-order crew.
“You’re holding them wrong,” Finn felt the absolute need to announce as I took the scissors.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Please enlighten me on the scientifically correct way to wield giant cartoon scissors,” I shot back, but didn’t really mean it.
The satisfying snip of the oversized scissors through the velvet ribbon shoved all the worries they carried with them to the back of my brain.
My parents stood slightly apart from the line: my dad, looking proud in that bemused way of his. He stood with his new wife, a woman so relentlessly pleasant she was practically a human Pinterest board for “Napa Chic.” I did like her, though, and I appreciated that she made Dad happy.
My mother? She stood a little to the side of them with her purse clutched in front of her. She was a woman who considered “artisanal” a synonym for “unprofitable,” but she’d shown up for me.
“You made it,” I beamed.
“You’ve done a lovely job with the space, Emily,” Mom said, looking around the room. “It has very good bones.”
Good bones. Not I’m proud of you. Not even this is a real business. Good bones.
She’d complimented the drywall.
Six months ago, that would have sent me replaying the compliment, dissecting it for hidden approval the way I used to parse contract language.
But I was standing in a shop I’d built, with a line out the door, and a man behind the counter who loved me.
And my mother had shown up. She was here. And that was as close to a standing ovation as she was ever going to give.
It would have to be enough.
And for the first time in my life, it actually was.
“Thank you, Mom.” I pressed my hand down to smooth my apron. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She picked up a truffle, turned it over, and took a small, deliberate bite.
She savored. I waited.
“That’s quite good,” she said, and from my mother, that truly was a five-star review.
I turned to greet my dad and stepmom before she could see how that affected me.
“Come get your serotonin squares!” Dallas called out with more samples.
My phone buzzed repeatedly in my pocket in a dizzying stream of notifications. Texts from friends, congratulatory posts on Instagram, even a call later from my mom, who wanted me to know that she truly found the chocolate “surprisingly good.”
The rest of the day dissolved into a blur of espresso steam and ringing registers. Dallas moved through the thinning crowd on autopilot, her phone face-down all day. She hadn’t picked it up once.
Just as we were about done for the day, my attention was pulled to the entry as if on a string.
Elliott stood there, a bouquet of bright, hopeful peonies in his hand. And right behind him, calm but with eyes as sharp as ever, was Angela.
Seeing Elliott was a surprise. But Angela? Shouldn’t she be halfway across the country by now?
“I thought you were on a plane,” I said, my voice a little breathless as they approached.
She shrugged, something careful behind her eyes. “Missed it. The universe apparently decided I needed to stick around.”
Elliott set the flowers down for me, a peace offering that made my throat tighten. “I’d have brought chocolates to go with them,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting like he was testing whether it was allowed, “but that seemed a little… redundant.”
A laugh escaped me, fragile but real. Angela’s was quicker, a warm sound that filled the space between us.
“Thank you,” I said. “Really.”
Finn had moved closer, not hovering, but wiping down the already-spotless espresso machine just a few feet away. A silent, steady presence in my periphery, ready if I needed him.
Dallas walked the last customer out, then flipped the sign to Closed. The bell over the door gave one final jingle and went quiet.
Finn clapped and whistled. “That’s a wrap.”
Dallas wiped her hands on her apron and nudged the box by the door with her foot. “And just in time for the delivery guy to drop this off. Denver Business magazine. Guess they couldn’t elbow through the crowd earlier.”
“Or they were intimidated by all the chocolate,” Sharon said, heading toward Dallas and the box.
Dallas crouched, tore the tape, and grinned. “Front page, Boss. New Businesses of Note.”
My own smiling face looked back at me from the cover. I snatched it and flipped it open, my heart dancing a little dance.
The headline was perfect: Sweet Redemption: Former Corporate Attorney Trades Lawsuits for Truffles.
Then I saw the pull quote, big and bold beneath the photo of me holding a tray of caramels: “After defending certain corporate clients, I needed to do something that actually felt good.”
My smile held for one heartbeat, two. The words rearranged themselves in my head, stripping the joy right out of the room.
Because below that, in smaller but no less damning print: “Sinclair left the prominent law firm, Rydell, Marks they were reading, his focus narrowing with an intensity I knew all too well.
His smile evaporated, replaced by a tight, professional stillness. The happy chatter of my friends, the scent of chocolate, the glow of my new life—it all faded.
The air crackled between Elliott and me with a language no one else in the room spoke. The attorney in me, the one I thought I’d buried under layers of ganache, looked straight at the attorney in him, and we had an entire conversation without saying a word.
You see it, don’t you? his eyes asked.
I see it, mine answered, the cold dread of a missed clause, a fatal loophole, flooding my veins.
A sudden fatigue settled deep inside me with the rustle of jackets and bags.
“We’re gonna go for dinner,” Sharon gestured to Dallas and Pam, oblivious to the silent sibling conversation happening between Elliott and me. “You all want to come along?”
The question was casual, and she was already gathering her things, her purse slung over her shoulder as Dallas and Pam followed suit.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m just going to sit here for a while and bathe in the grand opening vibes.”
“Can’t let her bathe alone,” Finn added. Then frowned. “I mean…”
“You’re making it weird,” Elliott said, clapping him on the shoulder.
The girls grabbed copies of the magazine for themselves, and left.
That’s when I studied Elliott.
The muscles in his cheek were working, a tiny, repetitive clench.
“I’m worried,” he said, his voice a low murmur.
“It’s fine,” I said, my voice unnaturally steady. “It’s fluff.”
“The firm got name-checked, Em,” he whispered. “AVX Core is mentioned. Douglas and the partners are going to lose their minds.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Finn asked.
“Hopefully, nothing.” My pulse hammered against my ribs. “It was an offhand quote. They pulled it out of context.”
Elliott’s gaze flickered to Finn for a fraction of a second before his focus zeroed back in on me.
“But intent doesn’t matter in things like this,” he said, the words cold and precise. “Sometimes all that matters is how it looks.”