HER BILLION-DOLLAR SECRET

Chapter 6: One Cup Away From Falling

Ava spent twenty minutes in front of her mirror on Monday morning telling herself she was not dressing up for anyone.

She was simply — making an effort. It was a Monday. Mondays deserved effort. There was absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look nice on a Monday morning when you were a professional educator who took pride in her appearance and it had nothing — nothing — to do with the fact that she would be walking past Cedar & Co. on her way to school.

She chose the dark jeans again. The cream top. Her good coat. A little mascara. Her hair down.

This is just self-respect, she told herself firmly.

She grabbed her bag and walked out into the Cedarville morning feeling like someone who had absolutely everything under control.

The weekend was behind her now.

The drive back from Whitefish in bare feet. The silk sheets she hadn't asked for. Edward Lim's practiced smile on a screen, talking about his penthouse renovation to a woman he had never once asked a real question. Her mother's hand on hers — he is a good man, Ava — and the way the words had landed like something heavy she was supposed to carry.

All of it — behind her.

This was Monday. This was Cedarville. This was her life, the one she had chosen with both hands, and she was walking toward it with her coffee cup empty and her heart deliberately, resolutely light.

She pushed open the door of Cedar & Co.

The warmth hit her first — espresso and warm pastry and that particular coziness that she had come to think of as the smell of a good morning. The café was busy, the usual Monday rush filling every table, the sounds of the milk steamer and background music layering over each other in a way that felt, inexplicably, like home.

She moved toward the counter, head down, and then looked up—

Thomas was already looking at her.

Not the way he looked at customers. Not the efficient, pleasant, professional glance of someone taking the next order. He was just — looking. Calm and unhurried and completely unashamed about it, the way he seemed to do most things.

Ava felt the back of her neck go warm.

She reached the counter.

"One vanilla latte—" she started.

"—with oat milk." He was already reaching for the cup, already writing her name, already smiling. "I've got you."

I've got you.

Three words that had absolutely no business making her feel the way they made her feel at seven forty-five on a Monday morning.

"You remembered," she said.

"Every time." He said it simply, no drama, no performance. Just fact. Then — "You're one of the regulars now. The café loves your presence."

"The café," she repeated.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "The café," he confirmed, and turned to make her drink.

Ava moved to her usual table by the window and sat down and looked out at the street and told herself to stop smiling. She failed completely.

He brought the coffee to her again.

She was starting to understand that this was a Thomas thing — that he did this specifically for her — and she did not know what to do with that information so she simply accepted the cup and said thank you and tried not to notice how good he smelled standing that close.

"You look amazing on a Monday morning," he said, setting the cup down. "That's a rare talent."

Ava laughed — genuinely, unexpectedly. "I look like I survived the weekend."

"You look like the weekend worked in your favor." He tilted his head slightly. "Good reset?"

"The best kind," she said, which was a lie so convincing she almost believed it herself. "Quiet. Simple. Exactly what I needed."

Thomas nodded, and something in his expression shifted — warm and quietly attentive, the way he got when he was actually listening and not just waiting for his turn to speak. "You work a lot," he said. "Teaching all day, then the shop. You don't seem like someone who slows down easily."

"I like being busy," Ava said. "It keeps things—" she paused, choosing the word carefully — "clear."

He looked at her for a moment like he understood exactly what she meant and maybe more than she had intended him to.

"Clear," he repeated softly. "Yeah. I get that."

The morning light was coming through the window at an angle that made everything look golden and unhurried, and for approximately thirty seconds Ava forgot about Jakarta and Whitefish Lake and silk sheets and Edward Lim's penthouse renovation and simply existed in this small warm café in Montana with a good cup of coffee and a man who looked at her like she was worth looking at.

Then her phone buzzed with a school reminder and the thirty seconds ended.

She gathered her things, wrapped both hands around her cup to take it with her. "I should go," she said. "Thank you for the coffee. And the conversation."

"Every time," he said again.

She was halfway to the door when his voice came after her — easy, unhurried, like it was the most natural thing in the world:

"Hey — Ava."

She turned.

He was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, that quiet smile doing something completely unreasonable to her composure. "Maybe you can spare me some time one evening," he said. "Let me take you to dinner."

The café, she was fairly certain, continued to exist around her. People ordered coffee. The milk steamer hissed. Monday morning carried on as usual.

Inside Ava's chest, something stopped entirely.

"Like — a date?" she heard herself say.

Thomas held her gaze. "Yeah," he said simply. "Why not?"

Why not.

Two words. Casual. Confident. Completely devastating.

Ava looked at him — this man with his tattoos and his easy smile and his habit of remembering things she never asked him to remember — and thought of approximately one hundred reasons why not. Her family. Her secret. Her name. Josephine. Whitefish Lake. Edward Lim and his practiced smile and his penthouse and his merger.

"Okay," she said.

Thomas smiled — slow and warm and real. "Okay," he repeated.

She walked out of Cedar & Co. into the Monday morning air and made it exactly half a block before she stopped and pressed her free hand against her sternum like she was checking to make sure everything was still in the right place.

It wasn't. Not entirely. But it felt — good. Dangerously, wonderfully, irresponsibly good.

School was wonderful.

She didn't know how else to describe it — her students were engaged, her lessons ran smoothly, a boy named Charlie who had barely spoken in the first week raised his hand three times and answered every question correctly and Ava felt the particular joy of that that never got old no matter how many years she taught.

She smiled through morning classes and lunch and afternoon prep and most of the walk home.

Then the thought arrived, quiet and uninvited:

Edward Lim.

She stopped walking.

He would be in the States next month. Her mother had said so with the particular satisfaction of someone placing a chess piece. One month. And somehow, standing on a Cedarville sidewalk in the late afternoon with a takeaway coffee cup in her hand and the memory of Thomas's smile fresh in her mind, one month felt both very far away and dangerously close.

I'll deal with it, she told herself. Later. Not today.

She started walking again.

What she couldn't explain — what she had no language for yet, in any of the three languages she spoke — was why Thomas made her feel the way he did. It wasn't just his face, though that was frankly unfair. It wasn't just the tattoos or the arms or the way he bit his lip when he smiled.

It was the way he looked at her.

Like she was just Ava. Not Ava Hartono. Not the Hartono heiress. Not a name on a family tree or a face at a banquet or a strategic alliance waiting to happen.

Just — her.

Simple. Enough. Seen.

That's what I wanted when I left, she thought, unlocking her apartment door. That's what I crossed an ocean for.

She dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and stood in her small kitchen making dinner for one in a studio apartment in Montana — and felt, despite everything, like the luckiest person alive.

Dinner with Thomas, she thought.

She couldn't wait.