HER BILLION-DOLLAR SECRET

Chapter 4: I Came For Coffee, Not Feelings

Ava told herself it was about the coffee.

Not about the café specifically. Not about who might or might not be standing behind the espresso machine on a Saturday morning. Just — the coffee. She deserved a nice Saturday. She deserved to sit somewhere cozy with a good book and a proper latte and not think about anything complicated for at least two hours.

That was all this was.

She pushed open the door of Cedar & Co. and did a completely casual, totally normal scan of the room that had absolutely nothing to do with looking for anyone in particular and—

There he was.

Standing at the back of the big espresso machine, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, tattoos on full display, laughing at something his colleague said. He hadn't seen her yet. For approximately three seconds Ava had the luxury of just — looking.

This is a problem, she thought. This is a very, very big problem.

She smoothed her expression into something resembling composure and walked to the counter.

"One vanilla latte—" she started.

"—with oat milk?"

Thomas was already reaching for a cup, already writing her name, already smiling at her with those completely unreasonable brown eyes like he had been expecting her.

Ava felt warmth crawl up her throat. "Yes," she managed. "Thank you. I'll — I'll have it for here, actually. Today."

Something shifted in his expression. Just slightly. Just enough.

"For here," he repeated, like he was tasting the words. "Sure."

She could feel his eyes on her back as she walked to her chosen table — the one by the window, the one with the best light, the one she had definitely not been thinking about all week. She settled in, arranged her book on the table, unwound her scarf, and told herself to calm down.

You are a grown woman, she reminded herself. You have a postgraduate degree. You have survived Josephine Hartono at full volume. You can handle sitting in a café.

She opened Little Fires Everywhere to her bookmarked page and read the same paragraph four times without absorbing a single word.

She didn't notice him approach until the coffee appeared at her elbow.

Not called out from the counter. Not slid across the bar. Personally delivered, by Thomas himself, who set the cup down with the quiet confidence of someone who did exactly what he wanted and didn't feel the need to explain it.

Ava looked up.

He nodded at the book in her hands. "Little Fires Everywhere," he said. "Good choice."

She blinked. "You know it?"

"I read it." He said it simply, no performance, no attempt to impress. Just fact. "Twice, actually."

Can he be less perfect? Ava thought wildly. Can he just — not? Can he just make the coffee and stand there and be decorative and stop having a personality?

"What did you think of it?" she heard herself ask.

He considered the question seriously, which somehow made it worse. "I think Celeste Ng understands something most people don't want to admit," he said. "That the things we keep secret aren't always bad things. Sometimes we hide what we love most because we're afraid of what happens when other people get their hands on it."

Ava stared at him.

Then he added, almost as an afterthought — "Although personally? I don't like secrets. I think they always cost more than people expect."

The words landed in the middle of her chest like a stone dropped into still water.

I don't like secrets.

Her fingers tightened imperceptibly on the spine of the book. Her face — she hoped, she prayed — remained perfectly neutral. Inside, her brain was doing something that could only be described as screaming.

What does he mean? she thought. Does he know? How could he know? He can't know. He doesn't know. He's just talking about the book. He's just — he's just a man who reads and has opinions and apparently has no intention of making her Saturday morning simple or easy or uncomplicated in any way—

"But that's just me," Thomas added, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "Don't let me interrupt your reading."

And then he kept talking about the book — the themes, the characters, the way the story unraveled slowly like something inevitable — and Ava forgot to be terrified. She forgot to be careful. She forgot to monitor her expressions and measure her words and perform the version of herself she had constructed so carefully over the past months.

She just — listened.

His voice was calm and unhurried and he talked about fictional characters like they mattered, like their choices deserved to be taken seriously, and somewhere between his thoughts on Elena Richardson and the way the afternoon light came through the window and turned everything gold, Ava felt something loosen in her chest that she hadn't even realized was tight.

I could listen to him all day, she thought.

The realization arrived quietly, without fanfare, and that somehow made it more alarming than anything else.

"You've clearly thought about this a lot," she said, when he paused.

He shrugged, but his eyes were warm. "I think about most things a lot."

"Me too," Ava said softly.

And for a moment they just looked at each other — no coffee transaction, no customer and barista, no careful distance — just two people who had accidentally stumbled into a real conversation on a Saturday morning and weren't quite ready to leave it.

Thomas straightened up first. "I'll let you get back to it," he said. "Enjoy the latte."

"Thank you," Ava said. "For — the coffee. And the conversation."

He smiled — different from his customer smile, she noticed. Quieter. More real. "Anytime, Ava."

She watched him walk back behind the counter and then looked down at her book and read the same paragraph five more times.

I don't like secrets, he had said.

She picked up her latte and took a long, slow sip.

Well, she thought. That makes one of us.