Five-thirty in the morning came fast. It felt like she would never fall asleep even though she wound up cleaning the entire kitchen once she’d finished up with the refrigerator, and had even vacuumed every room downstairs even though the place hadn’t needed it. As usual the townhouse was spotless, cleaned by those unseen hands that had kept the fridge stocked on his orders.

That was all liable to change, too, wasn’t it?

She’d bathed and fallen into bed gratefully, though she’d had no idea what time it was by then. Late. Very late. She remembered only vaguely coming from the bath to bed, stark naked, wandering through the house with a certain courage she might have lacked before. This, too, was part of the new Kallie, confident in her own skin.

Which had turned into the child Kallie, who had crawled under half a dozen blankets and slept in a soggy mess of tears and self-recrimination, listening to the air conditioner click on and off in long, slow cycles for what seemed hours.

Which, of course, ended with her waking up late, after too many hits on the snooze alarm. For the second morning in a row, she woke up with the nearest thing to a hangover without having the benefit of drinking anything beforehand. Bleary-eyed, she threw on clothes without really looking at them, and stood outside waiting for the driver.

The driver usually was cheerful to her. But it was the same one who had driven heaven knew how many hours of day and night to find her, with never so much as a complaint. Well, that she’d heard anyway. He didn’t seem to be much happier than she was to be up this early after such a long day. He ignored her greeting, and didn’t even bother to let her buckle up before he accelerated out into the road.

“Thanks for picking me so early. I think I can manage it tomorrow,” she said into the angry silence.

“It’ll do whatever Sasha says.”

“Of course,” Kallie murmured quietly, recognizing that this, too, was a relationship she’d broken with her hasty actions.

She sighed, and tried to see things from his point of view. She wouldn’t want to get up at the crack of dawn, dress, drive twenty minutes to pick up a client to drive them all of five minutes. For all she knew, it had nothing to do with anything she had done. Maybe he was just tired.

“Thank you,” she said, letting herself out as he pulled into the parking lot of the bakery. He never so much as acknowledged her, but pulled out before she’d even reached the front door.

With a sigh, she paused a moment and looked at the business that had been hers and Sasha’s. This was supposed to be their project. Their combined dream. It had been a dream come true, when they’d bought the place. Sasha bankrolled the purchase of a neighborhood landmark—a mom and pop kind of place that had been right here in this building since his parents were kids. It was something he thought he and Kallie could do together. An apology for what he did to her own business. Sasha had even let her sign the contracts.

That was all he had let her do. He worked so fast, that every time she turned around to suggest something he had already done it. He never once consulted with her. He interfaced with the remodeling contractors. He hired all the staff, and he handled all the cash. His excuse was that the people he hired were from the neighborhood, and the contractors he had used on a gazillion jobs before. There was no sense in reinventing the wheel.

But stuff happened that seemed shady to Kallie. First, the delivery man for the bakery wouldn’t allow her to touch the food bags. But then he’d also treated her rudely. Sasha didn’t do anything about that. It began to look like Sasha was just handling everything, down to even the most boring detail. She was being shut out. Worse, he hid stuff from her. When it seemed like history was repeating itself, and he was using the bakery as a front to sell drugs, Kallie left him. She ran off with half the cash register, to Ocean City. Somewhere in her mind, she felt like she had been entitled to the cash in the drawer. That’s where Sasha found her. In a rustic old building with a great view of the ocean.

She shivered a little in the chill morning air. With the Town Car already gone, it felt lonely and strange on the sidewalk at this hour. The lights of the bakery were buttery in the morning dark as Kallie stepped up to the front door. There were no blinds to shield the street view of the work the baker and the cook were doing. She needed to count out the drawer. The place would be open in just half an hour.

She remembered she had left her keys when she took off a day or so before. She rapped on the window, so the baker would recognize her and let her in.

The baker was a woman Kallie had never known very well. In a way, it was her own fault. Kallie had been jealous of her for she’d seemed to know Sasha well, and usually had a joke or kind word for him when he came around the bakery. But the baker had never so much as smiled at Kallie when it was just the two of them, and eventually Kallie had given up trying to make friends with the woman.

Now she wondered if this might perhaps be the woman Sasha was screwing. She was certainly beautiful enough. Sasha loved beautiful women.

He’d thought her beautiful.

The baker glanced up and scowled. For a minute, Kallie wasn’t sure she would open the door.

How were they supposed to work like this? It wasn’t professional.

When the woman finally stomped over to let her in, Kallie tried to be cheerful. If she wanted to be treated with respect, maybe she needed to start treating the staff differently than she had been. Regardless of her suspicions, she would take the high ground. “Good morning,” she said, and smiled though it about killed her to do it.

“I have to wash my hands now,” the baker complained, slamming though the swinging door back into the food prep area, and turning on the water in the sink a little more forcefully than necessary.

Kallie decided she wasn’t going to apologize. She was still the boss. “I’ll ask Sasha for my keys back,” she said finally, trying hard to keep her temper, to not put a snarky tone into the words though she wasn’t altogether sure she had succeeded. “That way, I won’t bother you.”

She texted Sasha. He texted back. She stared a long time at his name at the top of her screen. Her stomach warmed, and she caught her breath as she opened the text to read it. Then reality set in. Things were different, and everything felt weird. His text was businesslike, worded in such a way that she could hear his voice in her head as if he were standing right there with her.

“Okay. From now on, unless it’s an emergency text me between nine to nine.”

She didn’t write back. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and to do the next right thing. She went to the back office which was unlocked by a security code, so she didn’t need a key, and prepared a drawer for the morning shift.

She had a strong urge to search the office for clues of the other woman, or maybe even other women. For all she knew, there had been many, ones she hadn’t seen before because she hadn’t looked, or she hadn’t thought to look. But she had only been gone a day, so if there had been signs of another woman in this office, it only made sense that she would have seen something by now. She shook her head, called herself an idiot for the twelfth time that day, and set to work. Once she set the drawer in the till, she helped herself to a yogurt parfait and a grapefruit juice.

“If you need anything, let me know. I’ll be in the back,” she said to the girl who’d come in to run the register, who only nodded in return. The baker never so much as looked up, not that it mattered. Kallie had at least been cheerful to a certain extent. That’s what mattered.

She was very pleased with herself for being so strong, and grateful that she wasn’t weepy. She felt like she was doing good, and was actually in a fairly cheerful moon as she dropped a cherry on top of her parfait just to make it look pretty.

“What would we need you for?” murmured the baker as she bent over her dough.

Maybe she had meant it only for the ears of the delivery guy, who had arrived a few minutes prior. Or she might have been talking to the cook, who stood tying on his apron at the grill.

But Kallie heard it. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t. She took a sip from her juice, praying that her hand wasn’t shaking as she cheerfully replied, “That’s a great question.” She grinned suddenly. “We’re all dispensable, aren’t we?”

She flashed a bright, sweet smile, closing the door of the office behind her. She didn’t feel one bit sorry she was leaving the bakery. It wasn’t something that had ever felt even remotely like something that was hers. She’d never been interested in having a restaurant, for that matter. She’d only gotten into it because of Sasha. Oddly enough, she’d always hated women like that; women who were into something because the guy they liked was into it. Why she’d ever gone along with this whole thing was beyond her now. Had she really been that caught up in the idea of having something that belonged to just the two of them?

But it was Sasha’s fault she lost the business she’d had first, and left her unable to just pick up those same pieces again. Kallie had been too embarrassed to show her face in her old business realm because of all that had happened. But maybe current events might be the blessing in disguise to give her the courage to do that. Maybe it was time she thought about re-opening her agency, come what may.

At five minutes before opening the bakery, Kallie ditched her empties and took her position at the second register. People were already lined up outside in the rising sun. The bakery was a hot spot. Sasha definitely had a good eye for business. Buying the bakery was a good move, even if he had turned it into a front for underhanded dealings.

Just as soon as she thought of him, he walked through the door. He went behind the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. Coffee. Pikesville had a large number of Russian Americans, and many of the places in the older downtown served Turkish coffee, the way Sasha made it.

She didn’t know there was a name for it. He just brought her coffee a couple of times, and it was so delicious she thought he was good at making it. Emotion pinged her. She hadn’t stuck around long enough for him to teach her how to make it.

He didn’t say two words to her. He did stare at her, though. Their eyes connected, and she got to soak up his deep, almost wolf-like gaze for a moment before he took his coffee and left. Kallie figured he was just checking up on her. She was so busy ringing orders through the rush, and there certainly wasn’t time for angst, much less any kind of ridiculous display. If she wanted to break down sobbing, she would just have to wait until the morning rush had ended.

The second she counted back the last penny before the bakery was empty, she slammed the register drawer shut and dashed to the women’s bathroom. It was a single unit, so she had to run the water to give herself some privacy. Whether it was over him, or just the entire atmosphere of the place which had gotten to her, she gave in to the tears she’d been fighting all morning. The baker had been sniping at her all morning. The cook and the other girl on the register had simply ignored her like she wasn’t even there. The delivery driver, though, had been another matter. He’d leered at her more than once, and even included a rude gesture when she’d stumbled upon him in the storeroom where she’d gone to get more bakery boxes. The encounter had left her trembling with rage and humiliation.

So, she cried, and didn’t notice until too late that the plumbing couldn’t accommodate the running water, and the sink overflowed. It was an old place, and they hadn’t renovated the bathroom yet. By the time she realized that water had not only splashed on the floor, but had flowed under the bathroom door, there was already somebody outside, pounding to be let in.

She knew that sound. Only one fist was large enough to rattle the door quite that hard.

A moment later the door burst open. Sasha pushed into the room, filling it with his broad shoulders, with his whole being. She backed up against the sink, soaking her pants, a glimpse in the mirror showing her a wet and blotchy face, made worse by mascara that simply hadn’t been able to stand up to the onslaught of tears.

He uttered something to the delivery guy in Russian, who had trailed behind him, too curious and full of sneers and attitude when he was safely out of Sasha’s line of sight. Surprisingly, he went without a complaint to the broom closet for a mop.

“You okay?” Sasha asked, taking in her appearance with a single glance that let her know that he knew she wasn’t.

She couldn’t look at him. Her face was tear-stained, and she was still on the brink of sobbing again. Never had she felt so destroyed. Why had she allowed herself to fall in love with a man who was so bad for her? She couldn’t speak to answer his question. She could only shrug. She really didn’t feel well. She had already been up for ten hours, and only slept three or four before that.

Without warning, Sasha swept her into his arms and lifted her up and over the water with no problem.

The flight made her stomach drop like she was on a roller coaster. It was so stupidly unnecessary that she almost laughed. Here he was, still showing off his great prowess, as if he still needed to impress her. Her long pony tail flew behind her, swinging against her back as he set her down as though she weighed nothing at all.

Oddly enough, the showy display left her feeling better. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and mopped at her face. “I’m just tired,” she said finally, not knowing what else to say.

The cook and the lunch waitress stared at her as she left the bathroom. Behind her, the delivery guy mopped up the water. Sasha said something else to him in Russian.

Surprisingly, the delivery guy responded in English. “It’s no problem,” he said. She eyed him suspiciously. The delivery guy had been harsh to Kallie all day, and his tone, though not aimed at her, was the nearest to nice she’d ever heard.

“Thank you,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

It was a mistake to speak. Kindness, even not directed at her exactly, had the power to undo everything. She was going to cry again, and this time in front of an audience. It was hot outside, but she could walk back to the town house. She had no place she needed to go. It was somewhere between four and five miles, and the hike might do her good. She pushed past everyone, heading to the office, so she could grab her purse. The sooner out of there, the better.

Sasha followed her.

“I’ll give you a ride,” he said, putting an arm out to stop her.

She hadn’t been expecting it, and stumbled right into him. She gripped his massive bicep for dear life as she righted herself. This isn’t mine to touch anymore. Yet her entire body screamed in electric awareness as she backed away, clutching her purse in front of her like a shield.

“I really would rather walk,” she murmured, ducking under his arm and heading for the door.

He somehow managed to grab her, to turn her so that she faced him. Oddly enough his eyes seemed worried. It was the second time in as many days that he’d been anything other than angry with her. It left her reeling and confused.

He stooped that he might look her in the eye. “You can’t,” he said, as though it should have been obvious. “You’re emotionally fucked up right now. It would be like walking around smashed. Come.”

He held out his hand.

Kallie looked at it a long time. He was right.

There was nothing to do but to take it.