Sweet Deception

The lawyer's office smelled like old coffee and older paper, which felt about right, given that I hadn't set foot in Harborne in fifteen years and the first thing pulling me back was a dead man's paperwork. "Your father left very specific instructions," the lawyer said, sliding a folder across the desk like it might bite me. His name tag said Pruitt. He had the careful, apologetic face of a man who'd read this will several times already and knew exactly how badly this meeting was about to go. "My father and I weren't close," I said. "I'm only here because your office called four times." "Yes, well." Pruitt cleared his throat. "He left you his half of the Harborne Street property. The bakery building." That got my attention, mostly because it made no sense. "He sold that building years ago. I watched him sign the papers before I left." "He sold half of it." Pruitt's mouth twitched, something close to sympathy. "The other half has belonged to the Monroe family since before you were born." The air left my lungs in one slow, disbelieving exhale. "You're telling me my father spent his final years as co-owner of a building with the Monroes, and never once mentioned it." "There's more." Pruitt opened the folder like a man defusing something explosive. "The will stipulates that in order for either party to buy out the other and gain full ownership, both halves of the building must operate as a single, unified business for one full year first. A trial partnership, so to speak. If, at the end of that year, both parties still wish to separate, the buyout proceeds as normal." "And if I refuse?" "Then your father's half reverts to the Monroe family entirely, and you inherit nothing." Pruitt's eyes held something almost like pity. "He was very specific that you be given the choice, Ms. Hart. He seemed to believe you'd eventually want to come home." I thought about every reason I'd left Harborne at eighteen and never looked back—the suffocating smallness of a town built around one street and one rivalry, a father who cared more about beating the Monroes at the summer festival than he ever cared about me, and a boy who'd made my entire childhood a decade-long competition I never agreed to enter. "Does the other half's owner know about this yet?" Pruitt's expression answered before he did. "I believe Mr. Monroe is waiting in the lobby." Of course he was. Jace Monroe looked, infuriatingly, exactly like a more grown-up version of the boy who'd spent our entire childhood finding new ways to humiliate me at the Harborne Summer Festival. Taller. Broader through the shoulders in a way that suggested years of hauling flour sacks rather than gym memberships. Same stubborn jaw. Same eyes that used to light up every single time he beat me at something, which, infuriatingly, had been often. "Mila Hart." He said my name slowly, like he was testing whether it still tasted the way he remembered. "I heard a rumor you might actually show up." "I heard a rumor you never left." I crossed my arms, falling back into the old rhythm with alarming ease. "Guess some things don't change." "Guess not." Something flickered behind his eyes—not quite a smile, not quite the old competitive gleam, something more complicated underneath both. "I take it Pruitt explained the situation." "He explained that our dead fathers apparently cooked up some kind of twisted reunion scheme from beyond the grave." I kept my voice flat, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing how thoroughly this had knocked me sideways. "A year. Sharing a kitchen. With you." "Believe me, Hart, I'm not thrilled either." But something in the way he said it didn't quite match the words—a beat too long, a look that held a fraction too much interest for a man claiming reluctance. "Though I should mention, my half of that building's been doing just fine without the Hart name attached to it. I'm not sure what you bring to the table besides a very convenient inheritance." There it was. Fifteen years gone, and he still couldn't resist a dig. "I bring the half of the building you apparently can't get full ownership of without me," I said sweetly. "Funny how that works." Something that might have been a laugh escaped him, quickly smothered. "One year, Hart. Starting Monday. I open at five a.m.—hope you remember how that works, or if California softened you up too much for early mornings." "I'll be there at four forty-five," I said, "just to watch you scramble to catch up." His grin, when it finally broke loose, was the exact same one I remembered from a hundred childhood defeats—infuriating, confident, and entirely too charming for a man I'd spent half my life despising. "Looking forward to it," Jace said, and the way he said it made the words feel like a promise instead of a warning, which was somehow far more unsettling than any rivalry I remembered.