Chapter 3
Leo
Leo leaned against the stainless steel counter, holding a forkful of pesto tortellini from the takeout container. He watched Olivia move around the kitchen, her hands expertly organizing the metal prep bowls.
She was twenty-nine now, but looking at her still brought him back to the day they met.
She was a sophomore in college. He remembered the exact way she looked the first time she laughed at him.
He had been struck by her. It wasn't just the physical draw—though that was undeniable—but her brightness, her biting humor, and her unyielding determination.
Most of all, she was fiercely unimpressed by him.
At the time, Leo carried a well-earned reputation on campus as a player.
Girls threw themselves into his path, and everyone assumed he treated relationships like disposable entertainment.
Olivia knew all the rumors. She refused to be just another girl chasing him.
She kept him at arm’s length, laughed right through his best lines, and established an ironclad boundary.
Leo took the only spot she offered: friendship. He accepted it, hoping she would eventually see the man underneath the reputation.
He stopped hooking up with other women the week after they met. For the rest of that academic year, he wanted no one else. He never told her. He just stayed close, played the best friend, and waited.
Graduation day brought a vicious ache to his chest. He hated leaving campus, hated losing the effortless daily access to her life.
Yet, he refused to let the bond sever. He drove to her apartment, brought her dinner, picked her up for movies, checked on her, and made sure he was a permanent fixture in her world.
Olivia remained blissfully unaware. She treated him as one of the most important people in her life, but firmly categorized him as platonic.
Then came the convention. The day she met James.
Leo remembered the brutal sting of sitting on her couch while she excitedly recounted every detail of the ambitious intern she had fallen for at first sight.
She was glowing, buzzing with happiness, unaware that every word out of her mouth was breaking his heart.
He forced himself to accept James because James made her happy. Because Leo loved her enough to stand there, smile, and pretend it didn’t destroy him to watch her choose someone else.
Three years later, Olivia married him, and Leo watched from the pews as she promised her life to another man.
And for five years, as much as it hurt to admit, James gave her the marriage Leo had always hoped she would have.
He made her laugh. He built a life with her that looked solid and happy from the outside, and Leo told himself, that maybe this was enough.
Maybe loving her meant being grateful that someone else had managed to give her the life he had never had the courage to ask for.
Things were different now.
James was disconnected. Leo noticed the things she tried to hide. The late nights at the bakery. The transparent excuses. The isolation she buried under mountains of flour and sugar. If James was actually around, she wouldn't be hiding in the back of the bakery on a Saturday night.
Leo forced his mind away from the image of James touching her. He swallowed his pasta and pointed his plastic fork at her. "Are you still entering the cake competition?"
Olivia looked up, wiping her hands on a towel. "Maria signed the bakery up before she even asked me," she said, picking up a piece of garlic bread. "She told me I talk about it every year, overthink every detail, and then back out."
"Maria wasn't lying," Leo pointed out.
Olivia laughed. "She really wasn't."
"What recipe are you submitting?"
"I don't know yet," she admitted. "The competition is months away, and applying doesn't mean I get in. They do a full background check and review the business before confirming the final contestants."
"You'll pass," Leo said.
They finished the Italian takeout, packing away the empty containers. Olivia wanted to test a batch of cookies using the new violet hybrid he brought.
Leo watched her as she gathered the ingredients.
She was beautiful in a way that made his chest physically ache.
Her blonde hair was twisted up, her green eyes focused on the recipe.
Even hidden beneath the bakery uniform—fitted black pants, a sensible polo shirt, and that vintage, 1950s-style apron—she was dangerously tempting.
He tracked the curve of her full breasts, the dip of her waist, the flare of her round hips and thick thighs.
He wanted her. He had always wanted her. But she was married, and he guarded the boundaries between them with everything he had.
He washed his hands and stepped up beside her.
He took the measuring cups, scooping out the flour while she creamed the butter.
He knew exactly how to knead the dough, shape the edges, and cut the pieces.
They moved around each other with the practiced ease of two people who had shared this space countless times.
They pulled the lavender tart from earlier out of the oven, setting it on the cooling rack, and slid the tray of cookies in.
Olivia cut a small sliver of the cooled tart to taste the filling. She took a bite, closing her eyes as she analyzed the flavor profile. When she opened them, she missed a small smudge of the purple filling right at the corner of her mouth.
Leo reached out. He brushed his thumb over her skin, wiping the crumb away.
His hand didn't drop. His thumb lingered near her lower lip for a fraction of a second too long. He looked into her green eyes, and the playful ease in the room vanished, replaced by something charged and dangerous. Driven by a compulsion he couldn't stop, he stroked her cheekbone.
Olivia blinked, her breath catching. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice dropping a register. "You look... you're looking at me in a strange way."
The question struck him right in the chest. He wanted to tell her the truth.
He wanted to say it was desire. He wanted to tell her it was love, the exact same love that survived all these years of denial.
He wanted to confess that the strange look on his face was just the reality of everything he swallowed down daily.
Instead, he let out a short laugh, dropping his hand and stepping back. "I was just wondering how a twenty-nine-year-old woman who cooks for a living still manages to get her food all over her face."
Olivia let out a breath, the tension breaking. She bumped her shoulder into his arm. "I've seen you make a terrible mess eating the things I bake, and I never made fun of you for it."
She studied him for another second, her expression turning serious. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Of course," Leo lied smoothly.
They went back to the cookies, but the atmosphere had shifted. Leo tried to project the same playful energy, but it took immense effort. His thoughts were too present, too focused on the things he couldn't afford to want.
When the timer went off, they cleaned the kitchen together.
They washed the mixing bowls, wiped down the stainless steel, and packed the cooled desserts.
As they prepared to leave, Olivia shoved four different plastic containers into his hands, insisting he take the leftovers and the new test batches.
Leo smiled, accepting the food because refusing was pointless.
It was part of their established routine.
He walked her out to the back parking lot. Usually, he kissed her cheek or the top of her head before she got into her car. Tonight, he kept his hands deep in his pockets. After the moment in the kitchen, he didn't trust himself with even the smallest amount of contact.
He climbed into his pickup truck and followed her taillights through the city streets, making sure she pulled into her driveway safely.
Once she was inside her house, Leo drove toward his own place.
The dark roads offered too much time to think.
This dynamic had gone on too long. He couldn't keep desiring her this way.
She was married. She was supposed to be happy.
He had spent years letting his whole existence orbit around a woman who belonged to another man.
He needed to move on. He had to stop comparing every date to Olivia. He had to stop drifting through meaningless encounters. He needed to stop waiting for a future that was never going to arrive.
Leo parked his truck in his driveway. He turned off the engine, sitting in the dark cab. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone, the screen illuminating his face in the dark. He had finally made a decision.