Chapter 5 #2
I stare at him. The practical voice in my head, the one that has kept me alive for six years, starts listing reasons like items on a grocery list. Flowers to condition.
Cooler to restock. Toby’s delivery at four.
Wedding bouquet due tomorrow. I don’t just close my shop in the middle of the afternoon for no reason.
My heart is fluttering in my chest.
I’m supposed to hate him. He wants to buy my shop.
The yellow flowers are still in Julian’s hand, and he is looking at me like he is genuinely waiting to hear what I will say, and Pepper has tilted his head ninety degrees to look at me and is humming a soft little burble that sounds almost encouraging.
Against every instinct I have built, against every wall I’ve erected brick by brick for three years, I hear myself saying. “What kind of fun?”
Julian’s whole face lights up. The dimple appears, deep on the left, and something in my chest does a complicated flip.
“Whatever you want. You pick. Anything.”
I shake my head slowly. “I don’t know what people do for fun anymore.”
His expression softens. “Then I’ll pick. Do you trust me to pick?”
I don’t. I don’t trust him at all.
But being around him gives me a sense of excitement that was lost for many years.
“...Okay.”
Julian beams. “Okay. Go change the sign. I’ll wait.”
I turn. Walk back into my shop and rip off my apron, throwing it behind the counter. I’m moving faster than I have moved all week, my fingers fumbling with the lock, flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED with a decisive snap. The bell rings as I pull the door shut behind me.
My reflection catches in the glass—flushed cheeks, eyes still wet, a curl of dark auburn hair fallen out of my bun and clinging to my neck. I do not recognize the woman looking back. The woman looking back has plans that don’t have anything to do with work and chores.
Julian is waiting on the sidewalk. He has not moved.
Pepper, on his shoulder, says cheerfully. “Pretty girl.”
I lock my door. “Don’t push it.”
We end up going to a spring street fair six blocks from my shop in a park I have walked past a hundred times and never stopped at. I had not known a fair was happening this weekend.
The smell of fried dough and grilled corn and cotton candy mingles with the salt-tang of the East River twenty yards away. A small Ferris wheel turns slowly against the blue evening sky, its lights not yet lit.
A brass band plays near the food trucks.
Kids run past with painted faces—tiger stripes, butterfly wings, glitter catching the lowering sun. Paper lanterns strung between lampposts sway in the breeze, red and gold and white, and the river beyond glints copper and gold.
Pepper, on Julian’s shoulder, is causing a sensation. Every child within thirty feet points and squeals. A young mother with a toddler on her hip approaches, phone already out.
“Can we take a photo? He’s never seen a parrot in real life.”
Julian kneels. Brings himself down to the child’s level with a grace that makes my throat tight. Julian’s pretty charming. I can see an easy, natural side to him, his smile warm and unguarded. He lets the little girl stroke Pepper’s emerald feathers while the mother snaps photos.
Pepper, predictably, says, “Hi gorgeous.”
The mother dies laughing. The child, wide-eyed, whispers it back: “Hi gorgeous.”
Pepper puffs his chest. “Pretty girl.”
Afterward, Julian buys me cotton candy. The largest size, a cloud of pink spun sugar bigger than my head.
“I haven’t eaten cotton candy since I was fourteen,” I admit, tearing off a piece. It dissolves on my tongue, pure sugar. Simple. Childish. Perfect.
He buys himself a smaller blue one, and we walk along the waterfront eating cotton candy while Pepper occasionally dive-bombs Julian’s hand, trying to steal pieces.
Julian fights him off without breaking stride, swatting gently at the bird’s beak while maintaining an ongoing conversation about nothing in particular.
This feels so…normal.
My shoulders drop an inch I didn’t know they were holding.
We stop at a flower-crown stand. An artist with a folding table sells crowns made of fresh flowers and dried herbs—foxglove, lavender, baby’s breath, white roses wired together with questionable technique.
I cannot help myself. I critique her work in my head.
“What do you think of that?” Julian asks me.
“The foxglove placement is asymmetrical. The wire-wrapping is sloppy; it’ll cut the stems within an hour. The lavender is conditioned and will wilt by nightfall. The whole thing is pretty but doomed.”
He laughs. A real laugh, head thrown back, the sound carrying over the fair noises. “You’re terrifying,” he says, and he means it as a compliment.
Julian approaches the seller, buys a flower crown, and then heads towards me.
“I don’t need—”
“You’re always worrying. Let go for today.” He sets the crown gently on my hair. His fingers brush my temple, the lightest contact, and my skin burns where he touched. Pepper supervises from his shoulder, making soft approving noises.
I catch my reflection in the dark window of a food truck.
Brown apron, smudge of dirt still on my cheek, flower crown slightly askew on my dark hair, cotton candy in one hand. I am smiling. I have not looked this carefree in years, and in public.
I’ve always felt safe indoors in case Magnus or his pack found me again. Being outdoors for so long is a luxury, but I’ve never felt safer.
We end up on a bench overlooking the water as the sun begins to drop.
The fair noises are softer here, twenty feet down a small path away from the food trucks.
Julian sits, and I gingerly sit as well, leaving a careful foot of space between us.
Pepper hops down from Julian’s shoulder to the bench between us, claiming the middle territory like a tiny green landlord. He preens.
For a while, neither of us speaks. We eat our cotton candy. I watch a tugboat drift across the East River, leaving a wake of white line against the water.
Julian watches me watch the tugboat. “I’m sorry. For the meeting. The one with my brothers.”
I don’t look at him. “But are you?”
“Yes.” His voice is quiet. Certain. “I am, and I’m sorry.
The way we approached you was wrong. Ezra sees numbers.
Properties. He doesn’t always see people.
” A pause. “I’m going to fix this, Liana.
I’ll do everything I can to make sure you keep your shop.
It’s not just a building to you. I see that now. ”
A long silence. Pepper has gone very still between us, his bright eyes fixed on Julian.
I don’t know what to do with this. I look down at the cotton candy in my hands. Most of it is gone. The paper cone is sticky, pink sugar clinging to my fingertips.
“Thank you for saying that,” I say, very quietly. “It means a lot.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
Pepper, from the middle of the bench, announces: “Bedtime.”
We both laugh, startled and in our own world. Pepper looks pleased with himself.
“Bedtime,” he repeats gravely.
I lean over slightly to look at him. “Is he always like this?”
“He’s nineteen years old and runs my entire household. So, yes.”
I’m laughing again. “He’s wonderful.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly while looking at me and not at Pepper, his expression soft. “I agree.”
My heart is beating so hard at this point that I feel weak. My palms are sweaty.
“I need to get home. It’s getting late,” I say quickly, realizing I took up so much time of this powerful CEO.
He stands up immediately. “I’ll walk you.”
“It’s only fifteen minutes. I walk alone all the time.”
He just looks at me until I stop talking. His expression is settled. Not pushy. Not commanding. Just certain.