HER BILLION-DOLLAR SECRET

Chapter 3: He Remembered My Order

Ava Hart had survived Jakarta's most ruthless social seasons, her mother's impossible expectations, and nineteen hours of economy class turbulence.

She was not going to let a barista destroy her.

Get it together, she told herself as she pushed open the door of Cedar & Co. — Cedarville's most talked-about coffee shop, according to every review she had obsessively read at eleven o'clock the night before. It's just coffee. You're just a teacher. This is just a Monday.

Then she saw him and forgot every single word in the English language.

He was behind the counter, moving with the kind of easy confidence that suggested he had never been uncomfortable a day in his life. Broad shoulders that strained the fabric of his black uniform shirt. Arms that belonged on a statue in a museum somewhere. Caramel skin and dark hair and a jaw that could have been carved by someone who took their time.

And tattoos.

Oh no, Ava thought. Tattoos.

She had a thing about tattoos. She had always pretended she didn't — it wasn't exactly Hartono family approved — but standing here in the doorway of a Montana coffee shop at seven forty-five in the morning, she could not lie to herself.

The man was absolutely, catastrophically beautiful.

You are a professional, she reminded herself sternly. You have a teaching license. You have a French press at home. You do not need this.

She joined the line and stared very hard at the chalkboard menu above the counter as though her life depended on memorizing every single item on it.

Vanilla latte with oat milk, she decided. Simple. Normal. Very regular-person-who-is-definitely-not-secretly-an-Indonesian-heiress.

The line moved. She shuffled forward. She was almost at the counter now and she could see him more clearly — the way he laughed at something a customer said, head tilting back slightly, completely unguarded. The way his hands moved over the espresso machine like he knew exactly what he was doing and wasn't in any particular hurry about it.

His hands.

Ava looked away.

Do not look at his hands.

The woman ahead of her in line was taking her time — chatting with him, laughing at something he said — and Ava used the extra minute to do what she always did in unfamiliar social situations: observe.

He was good with people. Genuinely good, not performatively good — there was a difference, and she had spent enough of her life surrounded by the performative kind to recognize the real thing immediately. He remembered the woman's name. He asked about something specific — her daughter, maybe, or a dog — and listened to the answer like it actually mattered to him.

Interesting, she thought, before she could stop herself.

Then it was her turn and he turned to face her and smiled and Ava's brain, which had a postgraduate degree and had passed a United States teaching licensure examination, went completely and utterly blank.

"Hey there." His voice was low and warm, the kind of voice that belonged next to a fireplace. "What can I get you?"

"Hi," Ava said. Or tried to say. What came out was something slightly smaller than a word. She cleared her throat. "Um. One vanilla latte. With oat milk. Please."

Real smooth, Ava.

He was already typing it in, fingers moving over the screen, and then he looked up and their eyes met and —

Oh.

It was the kind of eye contact that had no business happening before eight in the morning. Deep brown eyes that held hers for exactly one beat longer than was strictly necessary for a coffee transaction. The corner of his mouth curved up slowly, like he had all the time in the world, and he bit his lower lip in a way that should have been illegal in at least fourteen states.

Ava felt heat climb up her neck so fast she was amazed she didn't combust on the spot.

She looked down at the counter.

Look at the counter. The counter is safe. The counter does not have brown eyes and tattoos and—

"Name?"

"Ava," she managed.

He wrote it on the cup without looking away from her face. "Nice name," he said simply.

She nearly died.

"Thanks," she whispered, and shuffled sideways to wait for her order with all the dignity she could scrape together, which was not very much.

She stared at a poster on the wall advertising seasonal drinks and had a very firm internal conversation with herself.

He does that with everyone, she reasoned. Look at this place — it's packed. Every woman in Cedarville probably comes here specifically because of him. This is just good customer service. This is just his face. This is just—

Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket.

She pulled it out automatically — teacher habit, always checking — and saw the notification before she could stop herself.

Hartono Group — Message from P. Hartono: Ava, please call when you can. Your mother is asking questions I don't know how to answer. — Dad.

She stared at it for exactly two seconds.

Then she locked the screen and put the phone back in her pocket and looked up and found the warm, ordinary interior of Cedar & Co. exactly as she had left it — the seasonal drinks poster, the sound of the espresso machine, the smell of something pastry-adjacent that she had not budgeted for but was reconsidering.

"Vanilla latte, oat milk — Ava?"

Her name in his voice did something completely unreasonable to her heartbeat.

She grabbed the cup, mumbled something that may or may not have been a coherent thank you, and walked out of Cedar & Co. into the cold Montana morning air at a pace that was definitely not running but was absolutely not casual either.

Outside, she pressed the warm cup against her cheek and exhaled.

Her father's message sat in her pocket like something with weight.

Thomas, she thought instead, firmly, deliberately — remembering the name tag on his chest that she had absolutely not stared at. His name is Thomas. Focus on that.

Then she walked to school and tried very hard to think about lesson plans.

She failed completely. But at least she was failing about the right thing.

Tuesday morning she told herself she was going to Cedar & Co. because the coffee was good.

Wednesday morning she told herself the same thing.

Thursday morning she stopped telling herself anything and just went.

Same smile. Same impossible arms. Same coffee, perfectly made every single time. He always seemed to be in the middle of something — steaming milk, calling out orders, wiping down the counter — but somehow always looked up at exactly the right moment, like he had some internal radar calibrated specifically to make her week difficult.

By Thursday afternoon she had set up her entire classroom and color-coded her lesson plans and reorganized her bookshelf twice and she was fairly certain Thomas the barista was at least partially responsible for all of it.

Motivation, she told herself firmly. He is just motivation.

She had also, by Thursday afternoon, not replied to her father's message.

She would. Just — not yet. Not while everything here still felt this clean.

Friday morning, Ava stood in front of her bathroom mirror and had a conversation with herself that she would later deny ever having.

She did not dress up for the coffee shop.

She simply happened to put on the dark jeans that fit her particularly well, and the cream-colored top that did nice things for her collarbone, and her good coat, and a little more effort with her hair than usual. That was just — Friday. That was just self-respect. That was just—

Oh, who are you kidding, said a voice in her head that sounded uncomfortably like Annita.

She grabbed her bag and went.

Cedar & Co. was busy as always, the morning rush in full swing, the smell of espresso and warm pastry hitting her the moment she pushed open the door. She joined the line. She was calm. She was composed. She was a professional educator and a grown woman and she was completely, totally—

Thomas looked up from the espresso machine and saw her.

He went very still for exactly half a second.

Then his eyes moved over her — slowly, just once, the way you look at something you want to remember — and he swallowed and looked back down at what he was doing.

Ava felt that half second in every single nerve ending she possessed.

Okay, she thought faintly. Okay.

When she reached the counter he was already smiling — that particular smile she had spent the entire week trying not to think about — and before she could open her mouth he reached for a cup and said:

"One vanilla latte with oat milk, right — Ava?"

The world stopped.

He remembered her order.

He remembered her name.

She stared at him. He looked back at her with those completely unfair brown eyes, pen poised over the cup, one eyebrow raised just slightly like he knew exactly what he had just done to her and was enjoying every second of it.

"Right," she breathed.

He smiled — slow and warm and absolutely devastating — and wrote her name on the cup.

He remembered, she thought, moving to the side to wait. Her heart was doing something completely inappropriate. Out of everyone who comes in here every single morning, he remembered my order and my name.

Maybe he does this with everyone, said the sensible part of her brain. Maybe this is just how he keeps customers coming back. Maybe that's why this place is always packed—

But she felt special.

Not Hartono special — not the particular visibility that came with a family name, not the attention that arrived before she had said a single word because of who her parents were. This was different. This was a man who had looked at her — at Ava, just Ava, a woman who had ordered a vanilla latte and said her name — and decided she was worth remembering.

She had not known, until this moment, how much she had needed that.

She was walking out of the school gates that afternoon, bag on her shoulder, when she saw him.

Thomas. Outside Cedar & Co., jacket on, clearly just finished his shift, hands in his pockets, squinting slightly against the afternoon sun.

The universe, Ava thought wildly, had absolutely no right.

She froze on the pavement.

Keep walking, said her brain. Just keep walking, look normal, you are a normal person doing normal things—

He hadn't seen her yet. She could still escape. She could turn left, take the long way home, pretend this moment had never—

He looked up.

Their eyes met across the street.

And Ava Hart, heiress to the Hartono dynasty, licensed educator, woman who had crossed an ocean to start over and was still carrying an unanswered message from her father in her coat pocket, felt her heart slam against her ribs like it was trying to get out.

Oh, she thought. Oh no.

She was in so much trouble.

And for the first time in a very long time, that felt like the most wonderful problem she had ever had.