My palms started to sweat as a customer stepped in front of the register. “No, you don’t need to go on your break,” I told her, my pulse spiking.

She leaned toward me, hands on her hips. “Yes, I do. It’s the law. I could sue you.” She looked purposefully at the place in line I was studiously avoiding. “You’ve gotta start doing things for you now, babe.” Then she winked and sauntered off.

I gaped at her in disbelief and horror.

Panic crawled up my throat as I dealt with the next customer on autopilot.

I looked at Tina who was banging at the espresso machine. “Why don’t I take over there, and you take the cash register?” I offered, my voice dry and scratchy.

He was getting closer in line.

Tina glanced at me with a twinkle in her eye. Normally, she would thankfully switch since she had a love-hate thing going on with the espresso machine, and she was firmly in the hate phase today.

“Nah.” She grinned. “Think it’s time.”

Then she turned her attention back to the machine, giving me no other option but to continue serving customers. I considered just leaving them there and running out of the room, but though I might’ve been a little eccentric, flighty and anxious, I was also a businesswoman who would not just run out on paying customers like that.

I rolled back my shoulders, working to plaster a smile on my face and continued working as he got closer. I took great care in plating cakes, cupcakes, croissants… taking much longer than I normally would’ve. But then Angelina—the teenager we’d hired to wait tables and take food out—took over, leaving me no other option but to man the cash register.

Fiona’s words echoed in my mind as I gave the last customer his change, my hand shaking in anticipation of my next one.

I set my palm flat on the counter so I could hide the shake and steady myself.

This is ridiculous, I thought. You don’t even know this man. You’re acting like some idiotic lovestruck teenager just because he has good bone structure. And disarming features. And dark hair that curls out from underneath that backward baseball cap. And broad shoulders. And arresting, silvery-blue eyes. And the hands. Large. Long fingered. Clean but always speckled with paint. If they went over my skin, his calluses would be rough, textured.

My eyes met his silvery blues.

As always, his jaw was covered in stubble.

His mouth perfectly formed, those lips never turned upward into a grin but not angled downward in a scowl either. He was stern, masculine and somber but not entirely terrifying. Well, I was sure to the general public he wasn’t entirely terrifying. To me he was.

It occurred to me that he’d been standing in front of me for at least thirty seconds, and I hadn’t said a word. I’d just been staring at him, at his jaw, at his lips.

To be fair, he hadn’t said anything either. Actually, he was staring at me too. My nipples pebbled underneath my shirt in a way that was incredibly inappropriate in a place of business.