Viv shook her head. “Maybe Mom was considering selling months ago, when sales were really awful. That has to be it.”

Tessa tried to talk herself down. She wasn’t worried about the sale. Things were so much better now. There was no reason to sell. And surely Leo wouldn’t have known about something so catastrophic and not said anything.

Would he?

…

In the early afternoon, Tessa left the bakery, unable to concentrate. The little house was quiet, Leo hard at work at the restaurant. After feeding Cosette, she walked over to the nook where Leo’s grandfather’s desk sat. She sat in the sturdy oak chair and ran her hand along the smooth, cool grain of the wood as she looked out the window into the tiny backyard.

There was the wind chime that Leo had hung on a low-hanging branch for Cosette, who liked to sit on a rock and bat at it.

And the flowers she’d planted in two old barrels, now spilling over the edges.

She turned her gaze to the inside. The main sitting room was orderly and neat, the bright pillows she’d picked out lined up on both couches—the purple one and the leather one—and her plants arranged on the floor in front of the bay window. The mail sat tidily in a basket, the electronics lined up on a charging pad. And in the middle of the tiny kitchen…the now-finished door-turned-island that had stopped her late-evening forays downtown.

It was a home. Something both of them had made.

It didn’t look like two people forced by desperation into a fake marriage lived here. It looked like two people lived here who had given the best parts of themselves to merge their lives with compromise and care.

They’d both made it clear that their arrangement was strictly business, but somehow everything had gotten tangled up.

But it was…wonderful.

It had been so simple to fall for Leo. With his easygoing, charming personality. With his kindness. With his brilliant scheme to save both their businesses.

Neither of them had uttered the L word. But they’d begun to use words like we and future. Words that she’d taken for granted meant that he’d be sticking around.

Surely there had to be some explanation.

Leo was honest. He’d seen her for who she really was. He’d seen past the walls she’d put up. And he’d somehow done what no other man had done—actually broken through them.

Tessa put her elbows on the desk and dropped her head into her hands. She shuddered, a sinking sense of dread passing through her. What if Leo had gone behind her back to secure the bakery for his family? He certainly had the same competitive streak as always. What if Leo had used her? Or had intended to at some point?