2

The bakery smelled like heaven.

Butter and sugar and chocolate and vanilla—all the things Emma couldn't eat. All the things she spent her days creating for other people while her stomach growled and her head swam with hunger.

She forced a smile as the morning rush began, serving lattes and cappuccinos to the steady stream of customers who'd discovered Savor Bakery. It was a small shop in a trendy neighborhood, filled with mismatched furniture and the warm glow of fairy lights.

It was the only place Emma truly felt like herself.

"Coffee, black," said a voice that made her heart skip.

Emma looked up, and there he was.

The customer.

Every bakery had one. The one who walked in and made everyone stop and stare. The one who was so beautiful, so magnetic, so intense that the air seemed to change when he entered the room.

This man was tall, with dark hair that fell across his forehead and eyes so deep they seemed to see right through her. He wore expensive suits that probably cost more than Emma made in a month, but there was something about him that seemed completely detached from the world around him.

He came in every day. Always ordered a black coffee. Always sat in the corner and watched her.

Emma had convinced herself he was just observing the chaos of a busy bakery. But sometimes, when she looked up, she caught him staring at her with an intensity that made her breath catch.

"Here you go," she said, sliding his coffee across the counter. "One black coffee."

He reached for the cup, and for a moment, their fingers brushed.

Emma felt electricity shoot up her arm.

"Thank you, Emma," he said.

Her eyes widened. "How do you know my name?"

"I read your name tag." His lips curved into a small smile. "Also, you're the best pastry chef in the city. It's not exactly a secret."

Emma blushed, looking down at her hands. "I don't... I mean, I just try my best."

"You're too modest." He leaned against the counter, studying her. "I've watched you work. You care about what you create. You put love into everything you make."

You put love into everything you make.

Emma felt tears prick her eyes. She blinked them back quickly, but not quickly enough.

"I'm sorry," she said, forcing a laugh. "I don't know why I'm getting emotional."

His expression shifted—softened. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." Emma waved her hand dismissively. "Just... just tired. It's been a long week."

He didn't look convinced. But he didn't push either.

"Maybe you should take a break," he said quietly. "Even the best pastry chefs need to rest."

For a moment, Emma felt something she hadn't felt in years.

Seen.

This man—this stranger—was looking at her like she mattered. Like she was more than just a number on a scale. Like she was worthy of concern.

It was too much.

"I have to go," Emma said suddenly. "There are other customers."

She turned away before he could say anything else, practically running toward the back of the bakery. But even in the kitchen, surrounded by the comforting warmth of ovens and the scent of rising dough, she couldn't escape the memory of his eyes.

You put love into everything you make.

Who was he?

And why did she care so much about a stranger's opinion?

Emma came home early that night.

She'd left work without cleaning up, which she never did. But Michael had called her at 5:00 PM, demanding to know why she wasn't home yet. He'd scheduled a dinner party, and he needed her there to greet his colleagues' wives.

Emma had rushed home, desperate to make him happy.

She'd been making too many mistakes lately, and she knew it. Letting her emotions show at work. Letting herself cry in the walk-in freezer when she thought no one was watching. Letting her mind wander to the mysterious customer with the dark eyes and the gentle voice.

She was supposed to be trying harder. She was supposed to be focusing on losing weight, on pleasing her husband, on being the woman he wanted her to be.

Instead, she was thinking about a stranger who'd made her feel like a person.

You're pathetic, she told herself. Pathetic and weak and—

The sound stopped her cold.

It was coming from the bedroom. From her bedroom. A sound Emma hadn't heard in years.

Moaning.

A woman's voice, soft and breathless. And then a man's—deep, hungry, familiar.

Michael.

Emma's feet carried her forward before her brain could catch up. She pushed open the bedroom door—the door to their bedroom, the place where she'd slept alone for three years—and stopped.

There they were.

Michael, her husband, the man who'd told her she was barely a woman. The man who hadn't touched her in years. The man who'd made her feel ugly and worthless and undeserving of love.

He was lying on top of another woman.

And he was desperate.

Emma watched in horror as Michael buried his face in the woman's neck, kissing her passionately, touching her like she was precious. His hands roamed her body with a hunger Emma hadn't seen in a decade.

The woman beneath him moaned, arching into his touch.

"Oh god," she breathed. "Don't stop. Don't ever stop."

Emma knew that voice.

She stepped forward, her heart pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

It was Sarah. Michael's best friend's wife. The woman who'd been sitting at their dinner table last week, smiling at Emma like they were friends.

"Michael?" Emma whispered.

Her husband looked up.

For a moment, she saw something flash in his eyes. Surprise. Maybe even guilt.

But then it was gone, replaced by cold annoyance.

"Oh, for god's sake, Emma," he said, not even bothering to move. "What are you doing here?"

Emma stared at him. At her husband. At the man she'd loved for ten years.

The man who was cheating on her in their own bed.

"I was... I was coming home," she stammered. "You said there was a dinner party—"

"No dinner party," Michael said flatly. "I just wanted you out of the house."

Sarah giggled, covering her naked body with the sheets. It didn't matter—Emma had already seen everything. The way Sarah's slim, perfect body looked wrapped around Michael. The way she moved against him like they'd done this a hundred times.

Which they probably had.

"Sweetie," Sarah said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "Didn't you realize? He's been seeing me for two years."

Two years.

Emma felt the ground drop out from under her.

"Two years?" she repeated, her voice faint. "You've been... two years..."

"Don't look so shocked," Michael said, finally climbing off Sarah. He stood there, completely naked, not even bothering to hide his erection. "You really thought I was going to spend the rest of my life married to a cow? A woman who couldn't even give me a child?"

The words slammed into Emma's chest like bullets.

"I thought..." she struggled to speak through the tears. "I thought you loved me. I thought we could fix this. I thought if I just tried harder—"

"Tried harder?" Michael laughed bitterly. "You couldn't lose weight. You couldn't get pregnant. What exactly were you trying?"

"We were in love," Emma said brokenly. "Remember? We were so happy together. We used to—"

"Used to," Michael cut her off. "Key words. You used to be beautiful. You used to be desirable. Now you're just... disgusting."

Sarah sat up in bed, her expression gleaming with cruel amusement. "Oh, honey. You really didn't know, did you? He's been saying these things about you for years. How you let yourself go. How he can't even stand to look at you. How your body makes him sick."

"Sarah..." Michael said warningly.

"What? It's the truth." Sarah shrugged. "Maybe you should learn to take care of yourself, Emma. Maybe then your husband wouldn't have to find someone else to satisfy him."

Something inside Emma snapped.

The emotion she'd felt when her mother died. The anger when she'd lost her dream culinary school scholarship. The heartbreak of every failed fertility treatment.

All of it came roaring to the surface, channeled into a single, blinding moment of clarity.

They were mocking her.

These two people—her husband, the love of her life, and the woman who'd been pretending to be her friend—were laughing at her. They'd been laughing at her for years.

And she was done.

"Fuck you," Emma said quietly.

Michael blinked. "What?"

"You heard me." Emma's voice grew stronger, fueled by rage and pain and something new—something that felt dangerously like freedom. "Fuck you, Michael. Fuck you and your pathetic need to tear me down so you could feel like a man."

"Emma—"

"You wanted a child," she continued, stepping forward. "I went through hell for you. Injections and hormones and losing my body—my health—because we wanted a family. And you repaid me by cheating? By turning me into a punching bag?"

"You're being dramatic—"

"I'm being done," Emma said. "I'm being done with you. I'm being done with this marriage. I'm being done with feeling worthless because of a man who never deserved me in the first place."

She pulled off her wedding ring—a thin gold band she'd worn for a decade—and threw it at his chest.

"Goodbye, Michael."

She turned and walked out the door.

She heard him calling after her. Heard Sarah laughing. Heard the frantic scramble of her husband trying to find his pants.

But she didn't stop.

She walked through the house they'd bought together, past the photos on the walls, past the furniture she'd carefully chosen, past the kitchen where she'd cooked thousands of meals for a man who never appreciated a single one.

She walked out the front door.

And she didn't look back.