Semua Bab North & Rye: The Billionaire Hockey Captain Next Door: Bab 11 - Bab 20

Emma: I looked up so quickly that the clipboard slipped from my hand and hit the floor, the clatter cutting through the bakery’s quiet. For a second I didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, because Ethan Brooks was standing just inside the door with one hand still on it, as if he hadn’t fully decided whether he was allowed to be here. “I thought you weren’t coming back,” I said at last, my voice thinner than I intended. “I wasn’t planning to,” he answered, closing the door behind him carefully, like the space might reject him if he moved too fast. “I know what I promised.” “Then why are you here?” “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” It was so simple it didn’t fit the version of him I had been carrying around. I bent down, picked up the clipboard, and used the motion to steady myself before setting it back on the counter. “I’m okay,” I said, and when I finally looked at him again, I saw his shoulders ease as if that was the only answer he had come for. “I was hoping you’d say that

Ethan: Olivia’s SUV pulled away from the curb and the sound faded into the street almost immediately, as if the city had swallowed it. The bakery didn’t move for a moment after that. Even the air felt paused, the kind of stillness that shows up when something has ended but nobody knows what comes next. The place was still warm, still carrying the smell of bread and coffee, but it no longer felt like comfort. It felt like a room that had been emptied and was now pretending nothing had changed. “I’m sorry,” I said. Emma didn’t look at me right away. When she finally did, it wasn’t anger so much as exhaustion. “Please don’t apologize again.” “I have to.” “No.” She ran a hand through her hair, already turning away from the conversation. “Ethan, I’m done with this. I don’t want my bakery turning into a headline every time someone recognizes your name. I don’t want strangers deciding who I am because you walked in here.” There wasn’t a version of me that could argue with that withou

Emma: By lunchtime, the internet had already circled back to North and Rye like it had nothing better to do. Christine had retreated upstairs with a stack of invoices and the kind of determined silence that meant she was pretending the world didn't exist, which left Sophie and me to keep the bakery running while she fought paper battles. The afternoon rush hadn't quite started yet, so the space sat in that brief lull where everything felt almost calm, except for Sophie's phone constantly lighting up under the counter. She tried to be subtle about it at first, but by the third sigh and the fifth glance at me over the top of a customer's head, it was clear she was holding something in. Eventually she gave up entirely. "They're talking about you again." I didn't even look up from wiping down the counter. "I assumed they would be." That earned me a pause, like she was recalibrating her expectations. "You're taking this surprisingly well." A customer near the window stirred sugar int

Emma: Two weeks had passed since Ethan Brooks walked out of court a free man, and I told myself I was not counting, even as the days slipped past in quiet, unmarked ways between shifts at North and Rye, between orders and receipts, between the bakery slowly returning to something like normal. The scandal no longer felt like a storm breaking overhead. It had become something distant instead, like weather you only noticed when someone else pointed at the sky and reminded you it had once been there. People still did. Not inside the bakery, where the rhythm of work had reclaimed its place, but out in the wider world where headlines faded and resurfaced in new shapes. A sponsor cutting ties despite the verdict. A sports panel debating whether he deserved to return. Comment sections full of strangers speaking with absolute certainty about a man they had never met. I stopped reading them after a while, choosing instead to let the noise fall away, because it was easier to breathe when there

Emma: I stood in the doorway of my bakery long enough for the bell above me to stop ringing, my overnight bag still digging into my shoulder, and tried to convince myself I was just tired. That would have been easier than accepting he was actually leaning against my counter like he belonged there, like he hadn’t vanished for a month and then reappeared in the middle of my flour-dusted world without warning. He looked up as if he’d been expecting me all along. “Welcome back.” I dropped my bag onto the nearest table a little harder than necessary. “What are you doing here?” “Greeting you,” he said, like that explained anything. “It doesn’t.” He pushed off the counter and snapped his fingers once in front of my face, not quite teasing, not quite serious. “Still with me?” I slapped his hand away and walked further inside, forcing my brain to catch up with my eyes. “When did you get back?” “This afternoon.” “And you came here first?” “I had priorities.” “That’s not an answer.”