Page 16 of Faking it with my Bad Boy Crush

"It's 2:47 in the morning," I answered.

"And you're awake, which means you're overthinking this." Marcus's voice was brisk, efficient—the voice that had convincedme to co-found the firm five years ago. "Look, I get it. Going back to your hometown, facing your past, it's emotional. But don't let that interfere with the job."

"The job involves destroying a business that's been here for over fifty years."

"The job involves facilitating a fair market transaction. If the business can't survive without our client's investment, then it was already failing." Marcus sighed. "Ethan, you're a brilliant attorney. But sometimes you think too much. This is a straightforward acquisition. Make it happen."

"We created the problems that are making the acquisition necessary," I said quietly. "We've been manufacturing vulnerabilities through legal pressure and strategic complications. That's not facilitating a transaction. That's predatory behavior."

"It's leverage. It's what every firm does in this space." His voice hardened. "Look, if you're not up for this, just say so. But the investment group is paying premium rates for your expertise. If you walk away, you're not just losing this deal—you're losing the client relationship. And probably your partnership stake."

There it was. The ultimatum wrapped in concern.

"I need to think about this.”

"Think fast. They want Honey & Hearth's building secured by the end of the month. Make it happen, Caldwell, or we'll find someone who will." Marcus hung up.

I set down my phone carefully, as if it might explode.

End of the month. Three weeks to force Maya Romano to sell her family's legacy or lose everything anyway through manufactured legal pressure.

Three weeks to become exactly the kind of man my father had been.

Or three weeks to figure out how to be the kind of man Manuel Romano had believed I could become. The one Mom seemed to think I was.

I opened my laptop again, but this time I wasn't looking at acquisition strategies. I was looking at the legal documentation for the property dispute. The falsified surveys. The coordinated complaints. The timeline of pressure designed to break Maya's resistance.

I thought about Maya's face in that community meeting—fierce and in control, calling me out in front of everyone, seeing exactly who I'd become and finding me wanting.

I thought about my mother working three jobs, refusing to let her son become someone who hurt people for profit.

I thought about Manuel Romano saying,"Your father's choices are not your fault. But your choices are."

This was my choice. Right now. In this moment.

Continue down the path I'd been on—successful, profitable, hollow.

Or find a different way. Build instead of destroy. Protect instead of exploit.

Manuel Romano gave you a second chance,Richard's voice echoed in my memory.Now his granddaughter is fighting to preserve what he built. Who are you going to be?

I pulled up the property dispute documentation and started reading. Really reading, not just skimming for strategic opportunities. Looking for the truth of what had been done, who had been hurt, what could be fixed.

If I was going to walk away from this deal—and I was increasingly certain I had to—then I needed to understand exactly what damage had been done. And whether there was a way to fix it.

Because maybe, just maybe, the best way to honor Manuel Romano's second chance wasn’t to close this deal.

It was to help Maya Romano keep her bakery.

Even if it cost me everything.

Chapter six

An Unlikely Offer

Maya

The knock at the back door made me freeze.