All Chapters of Marked By Mistake: The Baker's Secret: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Roman's POV"You are doing the thing again." Marcus, my cousin, dropped into the chair across from me with two glasses of whiskey he clearly thought I needed. "The thing where you go quiet and stare at nothing for minutes." "I am not staring at nothing." I lied"No?" He slid a glass toward me. "Then what exactly were you staring at back there? Because from where I was standing, it looked a whole lot like you forgot how to speak in front of a woman holding a tray of cinnamon rolls." He let out a quiet laughterI did not answer, mostly because I did not have an answer that made any sense, not even to myself.I took the whiskey and did not drink it.Five years. Five years since Marisol died, since the bond I had carried my entire adult life snapped in half and left a hole in my chest that never fully closed, no matter how many cities I ran to or how many nights I spent trying to drown the silence where her voice used to be. Five years of being told by every Alpha, every healer, every so

Ivy's POV"You need to sit down before you fall down." My father's voice was steady despite the alarm etched into every line of his face, and I let him guide me into the chair at his kitchen table because my legs honestly were not sure they could hold me up much longer."Dad, look at it." I slid the envelope across the table, my hand trembling so hard the paper made a papery, frightened sound against the wood. "That is her handwriting, I’d recognize it anyway papa." I saidHe did not touch it right away. He just stared at it, his weathered face going pale in a way I had only seen once before, the night he told me my mother's family was something I could never ask about."Where did this come from?" he finally asked."A courier. No return address. It just showed up at the bakery today." My voice cracked on the last word. "Dad, she has been dead for five years. I watched them bury an empty casket because they never found her body. How is she sending me letters?"He opened the envelope wi

(Ivy’s POV)"Oh my God, I need to get home now" I gasped with fearsMy voice did not sound like my own, thin and cracking at the edges, and Roman was already moving before I finished the sentence, keys in hand, Marcus falling into step behind him without needing to be told twice."Ivy." Roman's hand found the small of my back, steering me toward his truck with a steadiness I did not feel anywhere in my own body. "Breathe. We will get there in four minutes." He tried to calm me down"Four minutes is too long, I need to see my family" I choked "It is the truck, or it is me running there on two legs faster than the truck, and I am not letting you watch me shift in the middle of the street in front of half the these people." He repliedA strangled, humorless laugh escaped me despite everything. "Is that supposed to be funny?""It is supposed to get you in the truck." He shrugged It worked.The drive felt like an hour crammed into four minutes, streetlights blurring past the window, my h

(Roman's POV)"Tell me about her."Ivy went very still across the small table, a fork halfway to her mouth, and I watched something complicated move behind her eyes before she set it back down."About who?""You know who." I turned my glass slowly on the table between us, watching the candlelight catch in it rather than watching her, giving her whatever small mercy I could manage. "Mari."The silence stretched long enough that I almost took it back, almost told her to forget I had asked, but then she exhaled, slow and careful, and began."She was loud." A faint, unguarded smile touched her mouth, the first real one I had seen all night. "Obnoxiously loud. She used to sing in the hallways between classes, badly, on purpose, just to make people laugh.""I remember that." The memory surfaced easier than I expected, warm and uncomplicated in a way most of my memories of that year were not. "She sang the school song at every single pep rally like it was an opera.""She thought she was very

(Roman's POV)"You understand what it looks like, do you not?"Councilman Ferris folded his hands ontop of the long table, his expression carefully neutral in the way that always meant he was building toward something considerably less neutral, and I resisted the urge to check the time on my phone for the third time in five minutes."Enlighten me." I said calmly "The Alpha of Darkwood, spending the better part of every week in a human facing bakery, in a town with no standing pack presence, courting the attention of a woman with no verified lineage and a child of uncertain parentage." He said it lightly, almost conversationally, which only made it worse. "It raises questions, Roman. Questions I would rather answer before someone outside this room starts asking them first.""There is nothing to answer. I am overseeing wedding logistics for my cousin, it’s as simple as that""For six weeks.""Weddings take time." I shruggedAcross the table, Daylan Ferris did not look up from the folde