The space between them had always been charged.
Maya felt it every time Knox walked into a room, every time his eyes found hers across the bar, every time his hand brushed against hers. It was like the air itself thickened, like the world narrowed to just the two of them, like everything else faded into the background. She'd never felt anything like it before—not with Derek, not with anyone. It was electric, magnetic, inevitable. She felt it in the way her pulse quickened when he looked at her, in the way her skin tingled when he touched her, in the way her breath caught when he smiled. It was a pull she couldn't resist, a gravity she didn't want to escape. She'd spent her whole life running from things, but from this, she wanted to run toward.
And now, with the shop open and her life fi
