Chapter Nine
Two minutes earlier…
When Rosine had left Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s office, she’d turned the corner to the staircase and couldn’t hold back the tears.
He’d manipulated her.
Toyed with her like a pawn on the chessboard.
And how could she outwit him, a master in the most difficult game of strategy?
Argh!
Then a click.
Sander emerged from Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s office. He’d hesitated and then turned to the corridor.
Fury rose in Rosine’s chest.
He was avoiding her?
Let’s see about that.
He disappeared into the hidden office, his chess sanctuary, and she followed him.
I’m going in.
The small office at the end of the hall held its usual cool ink, old wood, and the quiet made Rosine’s anger feel too loud.
Sander stood by the little chess table, the pieces already in their ranks.
He looked up with his piercing eyes that made her flip, and that was even more upsetting because he was angry.
Yet, the instant she entered, he didn’t even seem startled…
as if whatever she brought, he would take.
“You set a match without asking me,” she said. Her voice held. Her hands did not.
“Yes.” No embroidery. “And I meant to tell you tonight.”
The steadiness of him pricked worse than excuses. “You went around me and contributed to a lease,” she said. “You put your hands on my future without my permission.”
“I put them under it.” His words stayed even. “A lease you can hold. Deliveries that still arrive if a raid sweeps the Den’s kitchen. Terms written so what is yours remains yours—married or not. If you never take my hand, you still take that door and keep your independence.”
That gave her pause, and she pursed her lips. She had carried the white pawn in her pocket like a hot coal. She set it on the center square and watched it settle. “You should have asked me first.”
“I should have, but you wouldn’t have accepted my support and my heart in that order,” he said, and did not look away. “I’m asking now, was I right?”
“I hate that you are,” she growled and clicked her tongue. He was three moves ahead of her wit and her heart.
“Then tell me why you asked at all.”
“Because I respect your priorities. The bakery over me, fine. But there’s nothing more that I ever expected to want after I lost my family. I didn’t know what else to do, Rosine. Nobody ever taught me what to do if one loves another person as fiercely as I love you. I have no strategy for this.”
The words landed in parts—sense here, care there—and the whole of them hurt. She had kept her life neat because neatness did not break; he had put a bend in it. “Independence is mine to earn in my life,” she said, lifting her chin. “Not yours to give.”
“I know, but I wanted to give you security before I could give my heart,” he answered softly. That’s why I wanted to let the shop come before me. Then you’ll know I’m not offering a leash. I only helped with the money to speed it up.”
The candle’s glow emphasized the cut of his jaw, the tiny nick his razor had missed, the lips she’d kissed and thought she could finally heal from all the grief in her life.
The way he’d gone quiet under her hands—after—told her the kisses had eased some long, private hurt, too.
Heat ran through her, quick and unwelcome.
I must not love him so. But I do. She swallowed it back.
“You planned for me,” she said. “Like one of your lines of strategic play.”
“I planned protection for the danger I knew was brewing,” he said. “Not you.”
“Then why not trust me to stand beside you while you did it? Why the secrecy?”
He glanced at the board and back again. “Because I wanted you too much to risk getting it wrong. I’d rather die.”
It was silly and honorable at once, and she hated that both could coexist in her heart. He got it all wrong.
“And the match?”
“I asked for respectability, not a promise,” he said. “So if whispers come that mean we can’t work at the Lyon’s Den any more, they find us in daylight. So you can refuse me and keep your place. I wanted to show you what I am without taking anything from you first.”
Anger did not leave her. It changed shape. Under it lived a sharp, frightened thing—don’t lose him—and she wished it would be still. She stepped closer because distance made her thoughts tidy, and she did not feel tidy. The heat of him soaked up the air between them.
“You bruised my plans,” she said. “I had a straight path. Flour at dawn. Sugar at noon. Sleep in safety. Everything seemed so clear until you took my heart and made me look farther.”
“I know.” His voice roughened, then steadied. “Wait, I did?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if the price of your freedom is me at a distance, I’ll pay it. If it’s me at your side, I want to earn it.”
That admission slid under her ribs and caught there. If she sent him away, he would go cleanly; he would not make trouble. A life with him would become a door she had chosen not to open. That’s not what I want. The thought stole her breath.
“Say everything,” she told him. “No more clever omissions.”
He did. “I did not ask for your yes yet because I don’t feel that I have earned it yet.” He drew a calmer breath. “I can wait for that as long as it takes.”
The room came back into its plain details—the flickering candle leaning almost dangerously to one side, the dried, lopsided puddle of wax, the faint noise from downstairs.
Ordinary things. Ordinary was where she knew how to live.
In that ordinary, she recognized the risk: if she chose pride alone, she would win her independence and lose him.
If she chose him blindly, she might wake one day and not know where she had put herself.
Except, with his investment in her bakery, the lines were not as clean as he’d made them look. She owed him now. Not because he demanded anything in return but because her heart wanted to give him… everything.
“My money is in that lease,” she said. “But so is yours. You never asked if I wanted your help.”
“No,” he said. “I asked myself if I could live with not helping. I could not. Take the lease. Refuse me. Keep both without owing me anything.”
Something inside her loosened and hurt at the same time. “You are infuriating.”
“I know.” His mouth edged as if a smile wanted a place and couldn’t find one. “I’d rather have you choose me in anger than love me in danger.”
Her laugh came low and unsteady. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, then lowered it.
Hiding from him felt worse than letting him see.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she said. The words tasted too bare.
“But I won’t lose myself to have you.” When my family died, I nearly lost myself to the grief. I can’t bear it again if I lost you.
He closed his eyes for an instant and opened them clear. “You won’t,” he said as he combed his hands through his hair. The unruly black hair. “Not to me.”
“Stand still,” she said, because she needed one thing she could control.
He went still—every muscle leashed—no reaching, no coaxing, only the kind of waiting that had kept doorways safe and stairs clear. The obedience of it, the control, slid under her anger and melted it to something hotter.
She rose into him and took his mouth because choice had to taste like him.
The first brush hit sharp with temper; his breath caught—then he held steady, hands at his sides, until she caught one and set it at her waist. A tremor ran through his fingers.
He took exactly the inch she gave. Heat unfurled—low, sure—when his thumb learned the curve there.
She parted for him; he answered with a rough sound that lived against her tongue—matching her, never overrunning, as if her pace were the only rhythm he trusted.
She ran her hands through his hair and held him close.
Not close enough.
She broke for air, and he followed a fraction; she touched two fingers to his jaw, and he stopped, chest heaving against hers.
“You’ll tell me first next time you want to decide something for me,” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“You won’t come to my shop unless I ask.”
“I won’t.” His voice rasped; it thrilled through her.
“If the raid comes—”
“I stand in front. If danger touches you, it has gone the wrong way.”
A hot tear slipped; he didn’t flinch toward it. The restraint steadied her more than any oath. “I am still angry,” she said, softer, raw.
“I know.” A beat. “May I?”
She nodded. He bent—careful—and pressed his mouth to the salt at her cheek. The tenderness of it undid her worse than heat. She caught his lapel and kissed him again, deep and slow, drawing a shiver from him that answered somewhere low in her spine.
“And if I don’t finish being angry?” she whispered against his mouth.
“I’ll be here anyway.”
Her hand found the small white pawn. Two fingers nudged it forward one square. The click sounded like a decision. “I’ll sign the lease,” she said, chin high. “On terms that favor me.”
“Please do.” He didn’t move his hand from her waist. “I’ll fetch the ink.”
“And later,” she added—because sending him away now carved a hollow she could not bake through—“you may walk me back to the kitchen.”
Relief flickered over his features and settled into something warm.
She stepped back first; he let her. The candle ringed him—bandaged leg, steady eyes, a man who would not cross a line she hadn’t drawn.
“Rosine,” he said.
She looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Thank you for not wanting to lose me.”
“Don’t make me,” she answered.
“I won’t.” It sounded like a vow he’d keep even if it cost him.
In the quiet hall, warmth from the ovens drifted up—cinnamon, sugar, the kind of hope that holds. She slipped the pawn into her pocket and its smooth crown against her palm. Independence and him—if he keeps his word.