* * *

Rowan made one more visit than usual to the bakery that day. He greeted me as he had the day prior, by rounding the counter and kissing the heck out of me. He got cheers from the afternoon rush, who obviously approved of this new relationship.

I had hidden my face and muttered about PDA but had leaned into the warm, hard space of his chest.

Despite the PDA, Rowan hadn’t mentioned anything more about a date. I might’ve been self-conscious about that, thinking that he’d abandoned the need to wine and dine me to get me into bed since I’d already gotten into bed.

Or on the counter, if you wanted to get technical.

Rowan was not giving me vibes that he was just in it for the conquest; he was giving me long-term, commitment kind of vibes. But I wasn’t experienced enough to see the truth of the situation, certainly not when I was so infatuated with this man.

So, when I didn’t hear from him after the bakery closed, my mind ran to a bad place. I was a mess during my drive home, even more so when it occurred to me that I didn’t even have the man’s phone number.

Which of course, was incredibly dramatic and over the top since I’d already seen him three times that day. He’d literally fucked me in the kitchen in the early hours of the morning. It was greedy of me to expect him to structure his entire life around me after less than a week.

This was good, I told myself. This was getting closer to the way a regular relationship operated. Space. It was important. So I didn’t lose myself. So this didn’t burn out hot and quick.

Yet there I was, driving home with an ache in my chest, a familiar, burgeoning panic taking root in my stomach. It was foolish of me to think that any man, even Rowan, could fix something that had been off in me for years.

I couldn’t start to expect things from him. Couldn’t start relying on him.

Which was really fucking hard to do when I pulled up to my house to see two trucks parked in the driveway with the script ‘Derrick & Goodman Construction’ on the doors. The signage was in a large black font, very masculine and strong yet still elegant and artful.

The ache in my chest subsided as I got out of my car and walked through my house.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, staring at the space where my patio furniture used to be.

Now there was a collection of timber, Kip looking at some kind of blueprints with a pencil behind his ear. He looked up at me and gave me a chin lift in greeting before turning his attention back to the blueprints.

He looked up at me and gave me a chin lift in greeting before turning his attention back to the blueprints.