All Chapters of SHE WAS NEVER HIS MISTRESS : Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

ISABELLA'S POV"Five dollars for the lemon cakes," I said, and the woman in front of me handed over a crumpled bill without even blinking.That was the fourth batch gone before ten in the morning. I looked down at the empty trays on my little foldout table and felt something warm move through my chest. Pride. Real pride. Not the fake kind I used to wear like makeup back in Portland.I had only started this because the nights were too quiet and my hands needed something to do to get me extra money. So after the bake sale I thought about just baking a few things and selling them at the Saturday market. Make a little cash, keep my mind busy. That was the whole plan. I never expected people to line up before the tent was even set up."Izzy, you're out again?" Ethan's voice came from behind me, amused.I turned around and there he was, holding two coffees like he did every single Saturday now. He handed me one without asking if I wanted it. He already knew I did."Don't judge me," I said.

ISABELLA'S POVI went back to the storefront alone three more times that week. I stood in the middle of the empty storefront, my footsteps echoing off the bare floor.I had come alone every time. No Ethan or anybody, just me and a notebook full of numbers I kept adding and subtracting until they made sense. I ran my hand along the dusty counter and pictured it clean. I pictured the glass case full of pastries, the little chalkboard menu and my name somewhere on the door.I sat down on the floor with my back against the wall and pulled out my notebook again. Savings from Portland, some money from the bake sale, market stall profits from the last few weeks. I added it all up for the tenth time that week, and it was close. Not comfortable, but close enough that I could make it work for an initial deposit and the first six months of rent if I was smart about it.I wanted this to be mine. All of it. Not something handed to me, not something I owed anyone for. That was I didn't ask. That

**ISABELLA'S POV**Hold the ladder steady, would you? I don't want to end up on the news for falling off a step stool.""I've got you," Ethan said, one hand braced against the metal frame while I reached up to screw in the last light fixture. "Trust me."I glanced down at him. "That's a big ask, you know. Trust.""I've got time." He said it easy, like it cost him nothing, but something in his eyes told me it wasn't as simple as he made it sound.The bakery slowly stopped feeling like an empty room and started feeling like mine.We spent three weeks turning it into something real. Painting the same wall twice because the first coat dried patchy. Rewiring the light above the display case until it stopped flickering. Ethan showed up every single day without me ever having to ask, and somewhere in the middle of all that sawdust and paint, work stopped being just work. It became the place I told him things I hadn't said out loud to anyone.I told him about the version of myself I used to b

ETHAN'S POVI keep going back to the exact second before I said it.Isabella was laughing at something I'd said about the brewery, her whole face open in a way I'd been chasing since the day I ran into her on that jogging path. I remember thinking, right then, that I had never wanted anything as badly as I wanted to keep being the reason she laughed like that. That thought. That was the reason I said it. "Izzy, I need to say something." I set the glass down as this was going to be serious. “Oh, what is it?” “I have been keeping this for quite sometime now and I think it's best you know. Not pressuring into anything though.. I just.. it's right for you to know that.. Izzyyyy I like you. This is way past friends. I have for a long time now, longer than I probably should admit."I had been carrying the words for weeks. They finally came out quiet and careful. Wasn't so hard was it? At least that was what I thought. Her face changed the second the words left my mouth. The soft warmth

ETHAN'S POVIt’s been three weeks of forcing myself to eat food that turned to sawdust in my mouth. Three weeks of lying awake staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping, replaying the sound of her voice cracking apart on that until I knew every syllable of it by heart.I kept coming back to her face when she told me about Dominic. Not the anger in it, though there was plenty of that. It was the sadness underneath. I'd stood there and watched her hand me the worst parts of herself like she expected me to flinch away from them, and all I'd wanted to do was pull her close and tell her none of it changed a single thing about how I felt.But I didn't get the chance. She'd asked me to drive her home, and I had, because that's what she needed even if it wasn't what either of us wanted.I told myself giving her space was the right call. My staff later noticed my behavior was off. My oldest friend asked twice if something was wrong with me and I lied both times.The truth was simple enough.