Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Noah Reynolds
My vision tunnels as I burst through the kitchen doors.
The stainless steel counters blur past me, the familiar smell of yeast and flour doing nothing to calm the storm in my chest. I need distance.
Need to get as far from Alexis Hullinger as humanly possible before I do something stupid—like tell her exactly what her review cost me.
Or worse, let myself remember how drawn to her I was with those ocean-blue eyes and full lips when she first walked into Street Cucina three years ago, before everything went to hell.
The morning sounds of the kitchen—the rhythmic thud of dough being worked, the hiss of steam from the ovens—all fade to white noise. My hands are shaking. Actually shaking, like I’m some rookie on his first day instead of someone who’s been working kitchens for fifteen years.
“You okay, boss?” Charles glances up from the dough he’s kneading, flour dusting his dark forearms. There’s concern in his voice, the kind that tells me I must look as wrecked as I feel.
Fuck. Pull it together, Noah.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth like I’ve been eating sawdust. I force myself to swallow, to act normal, to pretend the woman who destroyed everything I built isn’t sitting in twenty feet away. “Yeah. Fine.”
He doesn’t look convinced but turns back to his work, his hands pressing and folding the dough with practiced ease. Smart kid. He knows when to leave well enough alone. The rest of the kitchen staff keep their heads down too, but I can feel their curiosity like static in the air.
This is quite the Monday morning kick in the teeth.
Customers are lined up out the door—probably half of them here to see if the bread’s as terrible as Alexis made my Italian food sound.
Vultures circling, waiting to pick apart the carcass of my reputation.
The rosemary starter stopped leavening overnight for no reason I can figure out, just sitting there like a science experiment gone wrong.
Still can’t source decent gluten-free oats anywhere in New Hampshire, and I’ve called every supplier from here to Boston.
And twenty minutes ago, one of the industrial mixers decided to give up the ghost with a grinding metal-on-metal screech that probably woke the dead and definitely scared away three customers.
So naturally, the woman who destroyed my reputation would be sitting in my dining room, ready to do it all over again. The universe has a sick sense of humor.
I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars, little bursts of light that are somehow less painful than reality.
Deep breath. The air tastes like butter and cinnamon from the morning’s first batch.
Another breath. My heart’s still hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape, but I can think past the roar in my ears now.
I could throw her out. Would be within my rights—this is my place, my kitchen, my dream she’s walking into uninvited.
But that would just give her more ammunition.
I can already see the headline: “Bitter Baker Can’t Take the Heat.
” Or worse: “Former Street Cucina Owner Still Can’t Handle Criticism.
” No. This is actually an opportunity, if I play it right.
Show her—show everyone—that I’m not the hack she painted me as.
That I’m a damn good baker. That Street Cucina was a fluke, not a pattern.
That I actually know what I’m doing with dough and flour and heat.
I just have to make sure everything’s perfect. Every bite she takes, every sip of coffee, every moment she’s here needs to be flawless.
I turn to head back out front, squaring my shoulders, and slam straight into something soft and warm.
Someone. Alexis stumbles backward, her arms windmilling like she’s trying to take flight.
A large mixer is behind her—still full of cinnamon raisin dough—and she’s heading straight for it.
I can already see the disaster: her landing back-first in twenty pounds of sticky dough, the health code violations, the inevitable lawsuit.
My hands shoot out on instinct, catching her upper arms. The fabric of her blouse is silk or something like it, smooth under my fingers.
I haul her upright, steadying her against me for half a second—close enough to smell her shampoo, something tropical and completely out of place in my flour-dusted world—before letting go like she’s made of hot coals.
She pushes her dark-blonde hair out of her face, cheeks flushed pink.
A strand sticks to her lipstick, and she brushes it away.
“Uh...th—thanks. That’s the second time I almost ate pavement today.
” A nervous laugh escapes her, the sound too bright for the tension crackling between us. “What a morning, right?”
My jaw tightens until my teeth ache. “That’s one way to put it.”
We stand there, three feet apart in my kitchen, just staring.
Her eyes are even bluer than I remembered—tropical water blue, speckled with green.
Eyes I want to drown in. She’s drinking me in like she’s cataloging every detail for her review, and it feels like being stripped naked in front of a firing squad.
Every flaw exposed, every weakness noted.
This is a contest I’m determined to win, a staring match with my entire future on the line.
I can hear Charles behind me, still working the dough. The ovens tick as they heat. Someone drops a pan in the dish pit with a clatter that makes us both flinch, but neither of us looks away.
Then I remember: I need her. Much as it burns to admit it, much as it makes me want to put my fist through the wall, I need Alexis Hullinger’s approval.
The line outside doesn’t mean anything if she writes another hatchet job.
People are sheep, always ready to join the latest outrage mob, ready to pile on whoever’s been designated today’s villain.
One bad review and tomorrow’s line disappears.
My suppliers start getting nervous. The bank starts making calls.
Which means I need this woman—this destroyer of dreams—to like my sourdough.
The thought makes me want to punch something. Preferably something that would break.
“All right.” The sigh escapes before I can stop it, all my exhaustion and frustration leaking out in that one breath. “Can I get you coffee?”
She blinks three times fast, like she’s processing a foreign language. “A... cup of coffee?”
“Yeah. We can sit in my office.” I stuff my hands in my pockets and unclench my jaw, trying to look casual instead of defensive, trying not to look like a man whose entire future depends on the next hour. “You want to interview me, right? Not just taste the bread?”
“Right.” She straightens her spine, and something shifts in her expression—vulnerability maybe, or guilt. “Listen, Noah, I...I didn’t know this was your place.”
The words hang between us like a challenge. Or maybe an apology.
“If you knew, you wouldn’t have come?”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again like a fish gasping for air. Nothing comes out. The silence stretches, uncomfortable and heavy.
“It’s fine. We don’t need to talk about it.” And I mean that—at least the last part. If I never have to think about her review again, if I never have to remember reading those words that turned my work into a punchline, it’ll be too soon.
“This way.” I lead her back through the kitchen, past the prep stations where tomorrow’s loaves are already taking shape.
I stop at the coffee station to fill two mugs—my hands are steady now, small miracle there.
The coffee’s good, single-origin Ethiopian that costs more than I should be spending, but if you’re going to do something, do it right.
Then it’s down the narrow hallway that still smells like fresh paint to my office, which is generous if you call a converted storage closet an office.
Morning light streams through the single window, highlighting the disaster that is my desk—invoices, supplier catalogs, recipe notes written on napkins and the backs of receipts.
I shove a box of files off the spare chair so she can sit, papers shifting with a whisper.
She’s not here to review my organizational skills, and I couldn’t give less of a damn what she thinks about anything except the bread. Nothing else matters.
“So.” I drop into my chair, the old wood creaking under my weight, and immediately wish I hadn’t looked at her.
The morning sun turns her into something out of a painting—all golden skin and shimmer.
The green and gold on her eyelids catches the light like she’s some kind of makeup artist, every line precise and perfect.
There’s an artistry to it that speaks of creativity, of caring about details.
What does she do when she’s not destroying restaurants?
Paint? Dance? Does she create anything, or does she just tear down what others build?
The thought catches me off guard, unwanted curiosity about the woman across from me, and I shove it down hard.
The only thing I should care about is how she became heartless enough to destroy a man’s dream with a few paragraphs.
She shifts in the chair, the leather squeaking slightly, and clears her throat. Her fingers drum once on her knee before she catches herself and stops. “First of all, thank you for having me.”
I grunt. It’s all I can manage without saying something I’ll regret.
Her eyes narrow—just for a second, a flash of steel—before she smooths her expression into something professionally pleasant, the mask sliding into place. “I had the house sourdough. It’s...amazing.”
My traitorous heart does a little skip. I keep my face blank, carved from stone, but inside I’m pathetic, desperate for crumbs of approval from the woman who ruined me. One word of praise and I’m ready to forgive everything. Weak.
“The texture, the layers.” She shakes her head slowly, and there’s something genuine in her expression, something that might be actual appreciation. “The ratio between crust and crumb is...”
“I know bread.” The words come out sharp, each one a bullet. It’s true, but it’s also a challenge—a reminder of our last encounter, when she demolished everything I thought I knew about food. When she turned my work into a joke.
Her gaze drops to the desk, studying the grain of the wood like it holds secrets. “You just opened, uh, last month?—”
“Last week.”
“Right. Last week.” Another throat clear.
She pulls out her phone, but the screen’s cracked to hell, spider web fractures making it impossible to read.
The damage looks fresh. After a few futile taps, her fingers sliding uselessly across the broken glass, she gives up and grabs a notepad from her bag.
She flips through it, pages rustling, clearly looking for something that isn’t there. The pages are blank. Completely blank.
“Why Portsmouth?”
“A combination of interest, need, and good real estate.”
“Right.” She scribbles something, though I can’t imagine what—maybe just marks to look busy. “And... do you—did you always want to make sourdough?”
The questions are amateur hour. Nothing like three years ago when she showed up at Street Cucina in New York and eviscerated me with surgical precision.
Her questions then were so sharp I could barely stammer out answers, each one designed to expose every weakness, every shortcut, every compromise.
Now she’s floundering, grasping at straws, those empty notepad pages mocking her.
She looks lost, unprepared, nothing like the composed destroyer of dreams I remember.
“You doing okay?” I can’t keep the amusement out of my voice. This reversal of fortune is too good, too perfect.
She huffs, shoving the notepad back in her bag with enough force to make the leather protest. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You spent years in New York’s best bakeries and patisseries.
Boucher. Lumière. Places people would kill to work at.
” Her voice gains strength, finding its footing.
“Why come here to Portsmouth and open a little shop? Was it really because of good real estate and need?” Her chin lifts, and there’s the fighter I remember.
“Because there are already two bakeries here specializing in bread.”
The anger I’ve been holding back for three years surges up like lava, hot and destructive.
My hands grip the edge of the desk until my knuckles go white, until the wood creaks under the pressure.
“Why?” The word comes out rough, scraped raw.
“You want to know why I came to a place the rest of the world drives through without stopping? Why I’m here in a town where most people wouldn’t know grissini from ciabatta if it bit them? ”
She swallows hard, her throat working. The confidence drains from her face as she realizes what she’s unleashed. She knows what’s coming, probably regrets asking, but it’s too late now. The door’s open and everything I’ve been holding back is about to pour out.
“Yes.” The word is barely a whisper.
I lean forward, making sure she can’t look away, can’t escape the weight of what she’s done.
Every sleepless night, every failed loan application, every rejection letter, every pitying look from former colleagues, every I’m sorry, we’re going with someone else—it all boils down to one word.
One person. One review that sent my life into freefall.
“You.”