Page 51 of Faking it with my Bad Boy Crush

I'd figured it out too late.

Chapter sixteen

The Cost of Wanting More

Maya

The celebration at the island's coffee shop was loud, joyful, and everything I'd hoped for. Emily Russell bought a round of pastries for everyone. The grocery store owners toasted with cappuccinos. Tessa gave a dramatic reading of her notes from the courtroom, complete with theatrical gestures and spot-on impressions of the opposing lawyers.

"And then Ethan just drops the email chain like a bomb," Tessa said, her voice rising with excitement. "You should have seen their faces! Victoria Curtis looked like she'd swallowed a lemon. The judge was ready to hold them all in contempt. It was beautiful."

Everyone laughed, clapped, congratulated me on the victory.

But I kept looking at the door, waiting for Ethan to walk through it.

He'd texted twenty minutes ago saying he needed air, that he'd be there soon. But something about that message felt off. Too casual, too carefully worded.

"He's probably just processing," Tessa said quietly, appearing at my elbow with a fresh latte. "Big courtroom victory, lots of adrenaline, needs to decompress."

"Maybe." But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Richard Sterling sat at a corner table, nursing black coffee and reviewing something on his tablet. I excused myself from the celebration and slid into the seat across from him.

"That was incredible," I said. "What Ethan did in there. The way he presented the case, exposed the fraud, protected the bakery. I've never seen anything like it."

"Neither have I." Richard's expression was troubled. "What Ethan did today—disclosing those internal communications—that was brilliant legal strategy. It was also potentially disbarring."

My stomach dropped. "What?"

"The emails he showed the judge, the ones proving the investment group manufactured your legal problems? He took those when he was still employed by the firm, before you were officially his client. That's theft of confidential information, Maya. The crime-fraud exception he argued doesn't protect him because the timing is wrong."

"But he was exposing fraud—"

"After the fact. With documents he shouldn't have had access to once he left the firm." Richard's voice was gentle but firm. "Marcus Campbell is going to file an ethics complaint.Probably already has. And the state bar doesn't care about good intentions. They care about following procedure."

I felt like I'd been punched. "He knew this would happen. He knew using those emails could cost him his license, and he did it anyway."

"To save your bakery. Yes." Richard studied me carefully. "That's what people do when they care about something more than their own career. They make sacrifices."

"But his law license—that's everything. His entire future, his livelihood, his identity. He threw it all away for a case that isn't even—" I stopped, the words catching in my throat. "I'm not worth that. I'm not worth him destroying his entire career."

"Aren't you?" Richard's gaze was steady. "Or maybe the question is: does Ethan think you are?"

I couldn't answer that. Couldn't process the implications of what Richard was telling me.

Ethan had sacrificed everything. Not because of the fake dating arrangement, not because of some misguided sense of guilt, but because he genuinely believed my bakery—my legacy, my choice, my future—was worth protecting at any cost.

Even the cost of his own career.

"I need to find him," I said, standing abruptly.

"He's probably at the waterfront," Richard said. "That's where I'd go."

I found Ethan exactly where Richard predicted—sitting on a bench overlooking the harbor, his posture defeated in a way I'd never seen before. Not the confident lawyer who commanded courtrooms. Not the careful professional who kept everything controlled and measured.

Just a man who'd given up everything and was trying to figure out what came next.

"Hey," I said, sitting beside him without asking permission.