Chapter 33
Iopened the door and caught the tail end of the conversation.
“—and I remembered to put almonds in the sandwich.” Terry was beaming, clearly proud of himself.
Alessia stared at him, her brow furrowing. “Almonds? Why would you put almonds in my sandwich?”
“Because you said you wanted it.” Terry’s smile began to waver, just slightly.
“No.” She shook her head, still confused. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t say anything about almonds.”
Terry’s confidence faltered. He looked down at the bag in his hand, then back at her. “Are you sure? I could have sworn someone said something about putting almonds in—”
He stopped.
His face went through a series of rapid shifts: confusion, realization, dawning horror.
“Ohhh.” He dragged the word out, stretching it like a curtain being drawn open. “The person in front of me said that. In the line. Not you.” He winced. “Shit.”
He stood there for a second, processing his mistake, then brightened. “Would you eat your sandwich with almonds?”
“What? No—”
I stepped further into the room. “It’s okay, Terry. You can take that one. Have it for lunch.”
Both of them turned. They’d been so absorbed in the almond crisis that neither had noticed me standing there.
Terry spoke first. “I can?” He glanced at Alessia, checking.
She waved a hand. “If you don’t mind almonds in your sandwich.”
He was already nodding, the sandwich bag clutched to his chest. “Oh, yeah. Totally fine. Love almonds. Big almond fan.”
He gave me a quick nod and was out the door before anyone could change their mind.
After the door closed behind him, Alessia shook her head. “How is he related to Naija? I refuse to believe it.”
Naija had insisted she didn’t need time off after the fire. Alessia gave her two weeks anyway. She wanted to give her two months, but they bargained it down. In her absence, one of her cousins had been sent to fill in.
Terry was… enthusiastic.
Mostly.
I glanced at the door where Terry had disappeared. “Maybe he’ll learn?”
Alessia’s skepticism was audible. “I hope so.”
I lifted the bags in my hand, drawing her attention. “Come on. We have lunch plans.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Since when?”
I walked toward the low table in front of the couch. “Since you don’t have any food.” I set the bags down and unzipped the first one. “It’s your favorite.”
She sighed, but there was no real weight behind it. “Fine. Can you set it up? I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into the bathroom while I unpacked the containers.
Liam had dropped me off ten minutes ago, on his way to lunch with Rohan. I’d asked if he wanted to join us. He’d laughed and said he didn’t want to be a third wheel.
Before I’d gotten out of the car, he’d asked, Are you going to tell her today? About stepping down?
I’d said yes.
The decision had been sitting with me for weeks, growing more certain with each passing day. Stepping down as CEO. I’d been nervous about it ever since I first considered it, turning it over in my head and waiting for it to feel wrong.
It never did.
It was the right move—for the company, for Liam, for me. Mr. Johnson would be a better partner than I’d ever been.
I needed to be somewhere else.
Liam had been against it at first. But I’d told him, over and over, that Mr. Johnson was better at this than I’d ever been. That the company needed someone who could focus on strategy without losing himself in it. That I needed to be somewhere else.
After a long, long time, he’d relented.
Now I just had to tell her.
I laid out the containers, arranging them carefully, and tried to ignore the slight unsteadiness in my hands.
To distract myself, I went back to Alessia’s desk.
The files were spread out the way she always left them—organized chaos, everything exactly where she needed it. My eyes drifted over them, not really seeing any of it, until they landed on the photograph.
The only one on her desk.
It was a man. Young, probably in his twenties, squinting into the sun like someone had caught him mid-laugh. His hair was light, his smile easy, his whole posture open and unguarded.
Something tightened in my chest.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Just stood there, frozen, staring at the face of a stranger who had no business being on my wife’s desk.
Who is he?
The question lodged itself behind my ribs.
Why is he here?
Alessia’s footsteps came up beside me. She stopped, following my gaze to the photograph, and I felt her shift—waiting, watching, figuring out exactly what was happening in my head.
“Why,” I said, my voice coming out flatter than I intended, “is there a photo of a man on your desk?”
My eyes stayed locked on the photograph.
The corner of her lips twitched. I caught it in my periphery. She cleared her throat, her voice carefully neutral. “That is my father. My mother sent me his photo a while ago.”
The words took a second to land.
Her father.
I had been glaring at her father for the last several minutes.
I straightened immediately. My whole posture shifted—shoulders back, jaw unclenching, the cold thing in my chest dissolving into something warm and deeply embarrassed. I softened my face into something I hoped looked pleasant and not like I’d been silently interrogating her dead father.
“Hello.” I offered the photograph a small, respectful nod. “I’m Cassian. Your daughter’s husband—”
“Ex-husband,” she murmured beside me.
“—and I want you to know,” I continued, louder, “how amazing your daughter is.”
I looked at the smiling face in the photograph and meant every word. “She’s the most hardworking person I’ve ever met. The most passionate. The kindest.”
I felt Alessia shift beside me, but I kept my eyes on her father.
“The funniest.”
A pause.
“And the most beautiful.”
I finally turned to her.
She was watching me with an expression I couldn’t name. Something serious. Something soft.
I held her eyes. “I feel so lucky that I get to be a part of her life.”
For a moment, she didn’t move. The moment stretched. Then she looked away, heading toward the couch. “I lied. That’s a random stock photo.”
“What?” I stared at the photograph, then at her. “Are you serious?”
She sat down, biting the inside of her cheek, fighting a losing battle with her own face.
“No,” she admitted, the word cracking. “That was the lie. It is my father.”
She broke.
Laughter spilled out of her, bright and helpless, and she buried her face in her hands. “Your face—”
I stood there, caught between outrage and the sound of her laughing, and realized I didn’t care about the photograph. The joke didn’t matter either. I just wanted to keep her laughing like this, warm and open and unguarded, for as long as she’d let me.
I narrowed my eyes at her as I dropped onto the couch beside her. “You’re evil. I should snitch to your father.”
She opened one of the takeout bags, completely unbothered. “Snitch away. He’s still going to be on my team.”
I grabbed my sandwich. “I’ll make up stuff, then.” I took a bite. “I’ll tell him you kicked a puppy once.”
She paused mid-bite. “What?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. Let’s see how long he stays on your side after that.”
She stared at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, just before she took another bite, she said very calmly, “I’ll tell him you’re a cannibal.”
I stopped chewing.
Blinking at her, scandalized, I sat there with the sandwich in my mouth, completely immovable. I finally forced myself to swallow, the effort visible.
“How do you expect me to keep eating after that?”
She shrugged. “Not my problem.”
I stared at my sandwich for a long moment, trying to reclaim the appetite she’d just annihilated. She watched me, completely unrepentant, and took another bite of her own food.
Between sips of water and stolen spring rolls, we talked about work. The press conference we’d done a few days ago had helped. The headlines had shifted from “disaster” to “recovery,” the story now about resilience instead of failure.
The restaurant was almost ready to reopen.
A soft launch this time. Smaller. Quieter.
By the time we’d worked through the containers, only one thing was left.
A single chocolate cupcake, sitting at the bottom of the last bag.
She stared at it, eyes narrowed. I watched her, amused, already knowing what was coming.
“Do you want to split it?” she asked.
There was no way I was going to let the chance to share something with her slip away.
Not this time.
“Yes.”
She groaned, slumping back against the couch. “Why couldn’t you be one of those people who hates dessert? Or bought two cupcakes?”
“I’m stingy.”
She shot me a look that said she didn’t believe a word of it.
We each took a spoon.
Dug into the small cupcake.
She took her bite first, and her eyes fluttered closed. Her whole face relaxed into something soft, something purely content.
“This is the best cake I’ve ever had,” she said, and I couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t do anything but watch her.
Then I remembered my own spoon, raised it to my mouth, and took the bite.
The sweetness hit me like a wave.
Overwhelming.
Cloying.
I could feel my throat closing against it, my body rejecting the sugar in a way that was completely involuntary. I forced myself to swallow.
It took everything I had.
A bottle of water appeared in front of my face.
I grabbed it, twisted the cap, and drank half of it in one go. Then the rest.
When I finally lowered it, she was eating the cupcake like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t noticed me struggling. Like she hadn’t already solved the problem before I could even think to ask.
I hadn’t seen her move.
I hadn’t seen her reach for the bottle.
She did things like this.
All the time.
After the paintball match, when we’d all gone out to eat, our food came last. The waiter had set it down with a flourish, and I’d watched in slow motion as two sauces that should never touch merged into one ugly, congealed puddle. Liam had seen it. Had been stifling a laugh behind his hand.
I’d glared at him, already mentally calculating how to salvage the meal, how to eat around it, how to pretend it didn’t matter.
And then Alessia had swapped our plates.