Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 39414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Levi blinks. “Excuse me?”
Wyatt’s voice stays calm. “Now.”
Levi opens his mouth, probably to joke, but Sadie grabs his sleeve and tugs. “Come on. Let them.”
Levi points at me as he backs toward the door. “For the record, Ellie, if you need someone to bury a body—”
“Levi,” Sadie warns.
He grins. “Kidding. Mostly.”
Then they’re gone, and the shop is suddenly too quiet.
Wyatt turns toward me slowly.
His eyes hit my face and something in him shifts again—tension, fury, restraint so tight it looks like pain.
“Come here,” he says.
I lift my chin. “Don’t order me around.”
His gaze drags down my body, then back up. “I’m ordering you around.”
My pulse jumps. My throat tightens. “Wyatt—”
He takes one step closer. “Ellie.”
The way he says my name makes it feel like a hand at the back of my neck.
I try to keep my voice sharp. “I handled it.”
“You didn’t,” he says. “You survived it.”
Anger flashes. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me sound weak.”
His eyes harden. “I’m not making you anything. He did.”
The words land like a hit to the chest. My breath catches. I look away because if I keep looking at Wyatt, the dam breaks.
Wyatt’s hand catches my chin, turning my face back to his. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just… inevitable.
“Tell me,” he says.
I swallow hard. “Tell you what.”
“The truth,” he replies. “No more minimizing. No more ‘I’m fine.’”
I laugh once, brittle. “You want the truth? The truth is I’m standing in my own shop wearing your shirt because my ex locked me out of my life.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightens. “Keep going.”
My throat burns. “The truth is he didn’t just… finance my shop. He owned the air around it. He made every ‘help’ feel like a debt. He kept me grateful and small.”
Wyatt’s eyes go darker.
I shove my chin out of his hand, because I need space to speak. “He wasn’t just a boyfriend.”
Wyatt’s gaze pins me. “What was he?”
“A leash,” I say, and the word tastes like humiliation. “He was… a leash I let myself wear because I thought it was normal. Because my family taught me that being taken care of is the same as being loved.”
Wyatt’s nostrils flare slightly. His hands curl at his sides.
“And now?” he asks.
I swallow hard. “Now he’s tightening it because I slipped out.”
Wyatt steps closer again, so close my back hits the edge of the display counter. The candy case is behind me, full of truffles I’m not even sure I’m allowed to sell, and Wyatt is in front of me like a wall.
“You’re not going back,” he says.
I let out a shaky breath that turns into anger because fear is exhausting. “I don’t want to. But I’m terrified.”
Wyatt’s eyes flicker. “Of what?”
I laugh again, but this time it cracks. “Of losing everything. Of my dream dying because a man with a tie decided to punish me. Of having to go home and listen to my mother say, ‘I told you so,’ and my father looking at me like I proved him right.”
Wyatt’s jaw clenches hard.
I force the next words out. “Of crawling back to Graham because at least then I’d still have a roof and a key to my own shop.”
Silence drops.
Wyatt doesn’t move. He just looks at me like he’s seeing blood.
Then his voice goes low. “He doesn’t get you back.”
My breath catches.
I try to scoff. “Wyatt—”
“He doesn’t,” Wyatt repeats, louder now, and the restraint in him snaps just enough that it changes the temperature in the room. “Not with money. Not with fear. Not with a smile.”
I shake my head, throat tight. “You can’t—”
Wyatt’s hand lands on my waist, fingers spreading over the flannel like he’s claiming territory. His other hand cups the back of my neck, steadying me, holding me.
“You want to know what you can do?” he says, voice rough. “You can stop thinking you have to earn your right to exist.”
My pulse hammers.
Wyatt leans in, not touching my mouth yet, hovering close enough that I feel his breath on my lips. It’s torture. It’s control.
“You want a shield?” he murmurs. “Then let me be it.”
I swallow, voice barely there. “This is still a deal.”
Wyatt’s mouth tilts, dark. “We can call it whatever you need to sleep.”
Then he kisses me.
It isn’t gentle.
It isn’t tentative.
It’s a claim—hot, steady, unfiltered. Like he’s been holding back for years and decided he’s done pretending. His hand tightens at my waist, pulling me in until there’s no space left to breathe, and I hate how fast I melt into him. I hate how my fingers grab his shirt like I’m afraid he’ll disappear.
Wyatt’s kiss deepens, slow and devouring, and the world narrows to heat and breath and the hard line of his body against mine. I make a sound I don’t recognize—half protest, half surrender—and Wyatt answers it with a low growl that vibrates against my mouth.
I should push him away.