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He tested the locks of the door and checked the windows, the latches, the back door. “You’ll need proper bolts. And curtains for the window. This place will be noticed.”
“Is that not good for a bakery? To be noticed?”
“Not always. But if they’re noticing the smell of your buns and not your name, you’ll have won.”
Their eyes caught. A beat. Then two.
“You still haven’t told me your real name,” she said softly. “Sander is from Lysander. That’s not your real—”
“Aryeh Ben Yaakov.” The words landed heavy, offered like a secret. “Aryeh means lion.”
“It suits you,” she whispered. “You don’t just protect. You choose who to fight for. Better than fox.”
He showed the barest flicker of amusement. Did she wink at him at the mention of fox—or had he imagined it?
She shook her head, curls slipping forward. “I’ve been hiding in kitchens for years. This… bakery. It’s the first thing that feels like stepping forward to my own storefront.”
The confession caught him in the chest. He answered before he could stop himself, voice rough. “Then let it be your new beginning.”
Silence fell again. Not the silence of fear. The silence before a first step.
She trailed her fingers along the counter, naming the tools she’d need—a brass scale, a marble board, sacks of flour enough to feed an army. A sugar station, racks for cooling. She saw not a bare room but a future, and the sheer audacity of her imagination set something burning in his chest.
Her hands moved as though shaping the bakery already, sketching invisible lines through the air. Strong, deft, stained faintly with flour—capable of coaxing beauty from dough, of turning the simplest ingredients into something that could make a man believe in comfort again.
He shouldn’t have stared, but he did. At the curl of her fingers, at the way the light brushed her cheek, at the fire in her eyes that made him ache with thoughts he had no right to welcome as much as he did. Thoughts of her hands not on wood or sugar, but on him—claiming.
And worse—he realized he didn’t only want her hands, her mouth, her body. He wanted her mind, her wit, the way she could imagine walls that still smelled of dust into a place that functioned like a bakery.
That was what undid him. Not just her beauty. Not even her strength. But the way she dreamed, bold and unapologetic, as if daring him to believe alongside her.
“I need enough molds to fill the oven every time it’s fired,” she said, tapping her luscious lips with her index finger in a way Sander wished he hadn’t seen—but couldn’t peel his eyes from.
“And a lockbox,” he added, trying to ground himself.
Her gaze lifted to his. “And if I need help with deliveries—”
“I’ll be there.”
He spoke with a composed tone, yet inwardly he was shaken; each word seemed to bind him to her in a way he couldn’t resist.
She studied him then, really studied him, her lips parting slightly. “You’re always there for me now, aren’t you? Not just anywhere, but by my side.”
“Together, yes.” Heat prickled down his spine. “I’ll try to be everything…” His hand almost lifted—almost—to tuck a curl back from her cheek. Almost, but not yet.
Not a vow. But it might as well have been if there wasn’t the question of whether Sander would have to leave for Boston if Nagy got his way.
She turned toward the window, brushing the lace with her fingertips. “The Den never smelled like safety. Not at first. But it grew into something. And maybe this place will, too.”
He moved closer, drawn before he thought better of it, his shadow joining hers on the wood floor. “You’ll make it more than a baker’s shop.”
She smiled faintly, her voice low. “I’ll make it home.”
His reply came rough, certain, closer than he should have dared. “Then I’ll guard its door.”
The air between them tightened. One more step, one more breath, and his mouth would be on hers. But instead, he let the promise hang there, undeniable.
Chapter Eleven
