Then I stop.
Then I read it again.
Five million dollars. Cash.
No contingencies. No delays. No negotiations. A clean, immediate sale of Cup & Cake and the property.
I feel a strange, distant disbelief, like someone has accidentally mailed me a letter meant for a different life.
Ashton walks in, notices the letter in my hand, and angles her head, trying to read it. “What’s that?”
I hold it up. “A developer wants to buy the bakery...the land.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, what?”
I hand it to her. She scans it once. Then again. Then her mouth falls open.
“Ella. This is… this is five million dollars.”
“Yes.”
“In cash.”
“Yes.”
She looks at me like I’ve just told her I found a suitcase full of money in the alley. “That’s… that’s a really good offer. That’s agreatoffer. You’re going to take this, right?”
I don’t even have to think.
I look at her. “No.”
She blinks. “No?”
“No.”
“Ella,” she says carefully, like she’s talking to someone who might be in shock. “That is life-changing money.”
“I know.”
“You could buy a house. Two houses. You could?—”
“You want me to sell my dad’s bakery?” The words come out quieter than I expect. But they land hard.
Ashton stops. She looks at the letter again. Then at me. Then she closes her eyes for a second. “Right,” she says. “Yeah. I’m sorry. That was… stupid. I wasn’t thinking.”
She hands it back. “Got it. No. Of course not.”
I fold the paper once. Then again. Then set it on the counter like it might bite.
They don’t know what they’re asking for.
People always assume Cup & Cake was my dream.
It wasn’t. It was his.
My dad’s.
When I was little, he baked the way some parents told stories. Not because he had to. Because it was the one place heseemed to know exactly what to do with his hands and his heart at the same time. The kitchen was always warm, always smelled like sugar and vanilla, and felt like safety.
