Eric stood just inside the door. He was alone, jacket on, hair neatly combed, moving with the deliberate stride of someone who had rehearsed this moment. He didn’t glance around. His eyes locked on our booth, and he started walking straight toward us.
The fragile warmth in my chest plummeted. Something cold and familiar uncoiled in my gut—the same sick dread I had carried every time he had lingered too long in the shop, every time I caught him watching me. I had told myself I could handle it. I had told myself it wasn’t that bad. Now, watching him cross the room with that calm, entitled certainty, I felt the lie crack open.
Eliza turned to look, and her expression hardened. Piper set her glass down carefully. Lucy’s hand found my forearm under the table and squeezed hard. Across the room, Paige had already clocked him and was moving. Behind the bar, Jasper had gone completely still, watching Eric approach.
Eric reached our booth before either of them could intercept.
He stopped at the end of the table, hands loose at his sides, and looked down at me with cold certainty. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. About what you really need.”
I kept my voice even, though my pulse hammered in my ears. “I’ve asked you to leave me alone. That’s what I need.”
He ignored me completely, voice smooth and condescending. “You’re wasting yourself in that little bookshop. Day after day, making tea, stacking books, going home to those cats, as if that’s some kind of life. I’ve been watching you. You smile like it’senough, but we both know it’s not. You’re playing small. You deserve more than quiet and safe. You need someone who’s actually going to push you. Someone who won’t accept your timid littleno’sbecause they know you don’t really mean them.”
His words landed like stones in still water, each one stirring up years of doubt I thought I had buried. The bar had gone quiet around us. I could feel the weight of eyes turning our way, but all I could hear was the echo of every time I had stayed silent, every time I had smiled politely instead of pushing back.
Lucy’s grip on my arm tightened. Paige was close now, just behind Eric’s shoulder. Jasper had left the bar and was approaching fast from the other side.
Eric leaned in and closed his hand around my wrist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Come on. Let me show you. Dance with me. Stop pretending your quiet life is what you want.”
He pulled—hard.
My chair scraped loudly against the floor as he started hauling me up. I hadn’t decided to stand—he was forcing me to. The pain in my wrist flared, and something deep inside me finally shattered.
I wasn’t afraid anymore, and I knew if I wanted peace, I was going to have to fight for it. A raw, blistering rage I had swallowed for years, for decades, rose so fast it burned my throat.
I shoved him with every ounce of strength I possessed, palm flat against his chest, my whole body behind it. He wasn’t expecting it. He stumbled back a step, his grip loosening enough for me to rip my wrist free.
“Don’t you ever touch me again,” I said, voice loud and shaking with months of pent-up fury.
The bar had gone dead silent.
Eric stared at me, stunned.
I didn’t look away. The words poured out of me, trembling but unstoppable. “I like my bookshop. I like my tea. I like my cats. I like my quiet evenings and my knitting and my life exactly the way it is. None of that makes me broken, boring, or in need of rescue. You keep telling me I don’t know what I want. Let me make this perfectly clear so there’s no confusion: I do not wantyou. I have never wanted you. Every time I’ve said no, it was real. I meant it. And if you can’t hear a woman say no and accept it the first time, without pushing or trying to get around it, that’s not a small issue or a misunderstanding. It’s a serious goddamn problem. And it matters.” My hands were shaking violently now, but my voice stayed strong, cracking only at the edges. “I’m not timid. I’m not confused. I know exactly who I am and what I want, and it willneverbe you. Do you understand me?”
He opened his mouth.
“Yes or no?”
The silence stretched, unbearable.
“Yes,” he finally muttered.
“Good. Now get out of my sister’s bar. Stay away from my bookshop. Stay away from the Coffee Cabin. If I see you within a hundred feet of me again, I will call Paige, and she will make sure you regret it.”
From behind him, Paige’s voice cut through, cold and clear: “I will absolutely make you regret it.”
Eric’s face twisted into something ugly. “You think yelling at me in front of your sisters changes anything? You’re still the same sad, boring woman you’ve always been. Tomorrow you’ll be back in that dusty shop pretending this little outburst meant something. Enjoy your new personality while it lasts—it won’t.”
He reached out again, hand moving toward my arm.
Everything happened at once and in slow motion simultaneously—the way time moves when something you have been dreading finally arrives.
Jasper moved.
He stepped up beside me in one smooth motion, putting himself between Eric and me with the calm efficiency of a man who had decided exactly what he was going to do. I felt the shift in the air around me—the sudden solidity of him there, the warmth of his arm brushing mine.
Eric’s hand shot forward and shoved hard against Jasper’s chest.
