Chapter 9
Ace
Ididn’t bother knocking.
The bell above Bloom & Vine’s door rang sharply as I pushed inside.
Tessa jerked behind the counter.
For one split second, real fear flashed across her face.
Not annoyance.
Not irritation.
Fear.
Then the wall slammed back into place so fast I almost questioned seeing it at all.
“You need to leave.”
Her voice came out tight.
Thin around the edges.
I shut the door behind me carefully. “No.”
Her jaw flexed. “I’m serious, Ace.”
“So am I.”
The shop fell quiet except for the soft hum of the flower cooler in the back.
Buckets of roses lined the walls. Sunlight spilled across the wooden floor in warm strips, catching floating bits of pollen in the air.
Normally the place felt peaceful.
Right now it felt like a battlefield.
“You don’t get to walk in here after what happened,” she said.
I stepped farther inside. “Funny. Because you don’t get to run out on me either.”
Pain flashed through her expression before she masked it again.
“I don’t owe you explanations.”
The words were sharp on purpose.
I leaned one hand against the counter between us. “Maybe not. But I’m still here.”
“That’s your mistake.”
“No.” My gaze locked on hers. “Walking away would be the mistake.”
She laughed once under her breath.
No humor in it.
“God, you really don’t understand, do you?”
“Then help me understand.”
“No.”
Too fast.
Too automatic.
Like she’d spent years saying that word before anyone could get close enough to ask harder questions.
I studied her quietly.
The shadows beneath her eyes.
The tension pulling her shoulders tight.
The way she kept glancing toward the door like escape was still an option.
“I heard what he said in the tavern.”
Her chin lifted immediately. Defensive.
“Congratulations.”
“I don’t believe him.”
That stopped her cold.
Hope flickered across her face so fast it barely existed.
Then it disappeared beneath anger.
“You should.”
“I should what?”
“Believe him.” Her arms wrapped around herself tightly. “That’s what everybody else did.”
“I’m not everybody else.”
“That’s what they all think in the beginning.”
I pushed away from the counter slowly. “Tessa—”
“Stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” She broke off sharply, frustrated. “Like you already decided who I am.”
I frowned. “I decided you deserve someone actually listening to you.”
“You should stop trying to fix this.”
“What if I don’t want to fix anything?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“What if,” I continued carefully, “I just want to know you?”
That hit her harder than anger ever could.
I saw it in the way her breath caught.
The way her fingers curled tighter against her sleeves.
Dangerous.
Too dangerous.
“This,” she whispered, motioning weakly between us, “is exactly why I said no.”
“Because I care?”
“Because men like you always think caring is enough.”
I stared at her.
“And what if it is?”
“It’s not.”
The answer cracked out of her instantly.
Raw.
Certain.
Like she’d already learned that lesson the hard way.
Silence stretched between us.
Outside, a truck rolled slowly past the shop.
Inside, the cooler hummed steadily behind her.
“You think I didn’t try?” she asked suddenly.
My chest tightened at the look in her eyes.
Not anger anymore.
Exhaustion.
“You think I didn’t tell people the truth?”
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t interrupt.
Because something told me this mattered.
A lot.
Tessa swallowed hard, staring somewhere over my shoulder now instead of at me.
“I told my mother.”
The words landed like a punch.
Her laugh came out small and broken. “I stood there crying and begging her to believe me.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“And she looked at me like…” Her voice cracked hard enough to stop her completely for a second. “Like I was somebody she didn’t recognize anymore.”
Jesus.
“She chose the easier version,” Tessa whispered. “The version where I was guilty.”
The shop suddenly felt too small.
Too quiet.
“She stopped looking at me like I was her daughter after that.”
I couldn’t speak.
Could barely breathe around the rage building inside my chest.
Not at her.
At every single person who let her stand there alone.
“I went to prison,” she said softly.
The words settled heavy between us.
“Six years.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
Six years.
“And nobody came.”
Her voice went thinner then. More fragile.
“No letters. No calls. Nothing.”
My throat burned.
Tessa wiped quickly at her face like she hated that I’d seen any of this.
“There.” She stepped back, rebuilding the wall brick by brick right in front of me. “Now you know.”
I shook my head slowly.
“No.”
Confusion flickered across her face. “No?”
“I know what happened to you.” My voice lowered. “That’s not the same thing as knowing who you are.”
That hit.
I watched it hit.
Her breath caught softly.
“You should go,” she whispered.
“Not happening.”
“Tessa—”
“I said no.”
“And I said I’m not leaving.”
Emotion flashed across her face again.
Fear.
Hope.
Anger.
All tangled together so tightly I wasn’t sure she knew the difference anymore.
“Why?” she demanded suddenly. “Why are you fighting this so hard?”
Because walking away felt impossible now.
Because every time she looked at me like she expected me to leave, something inside me wanted to stay harder.
Because somebody should have stayed before.
“I don’t think you’re lying.”
The words settled softly into the room.
But they hit her like a gunshot.
Her lips parted.
Her eyes filled instantly.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head once. “You don’t get to say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because if I believe you…” Her voice broke completely this time. “And you change your mind later…”
She looked away fast, blinking hard.
But not before I saw it.
Terror.
Pure terror.
“…I won’t survive it again.”
That nearly wrecked me.
I stepped closer carefully this time.
Slow enough she could back away if she wanted.
She didn’t.
“I’m not them,” I said quietly.
A tear slipped free down her cheek.
“You are,” she whispered. “You just don’t know it yet.”
I stopped in front of her.
Close enough now to smell lavender and roses.
Close enough to see the tremble she was trying to hide.
“I’m not leaving, Tessa.”
Her eyes closed briefly.
“Please,” she whispered. “Just go.”
But I stayed exactly where I was.
Because walking away from her now?
That wasn’t happening.
Not even a chance.