Page 65 of The Wrong Man

My heart lurches into my throat. Three locks clicking open, one after another. The sound of the door swinging inward, then closed. Footsteps in the hallway.

I stay frozen with my hand on a bag of flour, trying to look natural. Trying to look like someone who was definitely not just casing the joint for escape routes.

Do people still say casing the joint? That feels like something from an old gangster movie. Aunt Moira loved those. She’d watch them on Sunday afternoons with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, and I’d sit beside her pretending to do homework while secretly getting invested in the plot.

Dylan. Focus.

Dante appears in the kitchen doorway, and I nearly drop the flour.

He’s carrying bags. Multiple bags, from what looks like several different shops. His arms are full of them, rustling and bulging with mysterious contents. And he’s slightly out of breath, like he’s been hurrying, which has put a faint flush across his cheekbones that makes him look almost...

No. I’m not going there.

Except my brain has already gone there, hasn’t it? Several times. I’ve already noticed how unfairly attractive he is, with his dark hair and olive skin and those cheekbones that could cut glass. He’s tall too. Properly tall, the kind of tall that makes me feel small in a way that should be threatening but somehow isn’t.

If he walked into the bakery, I’d probably fumble his change. Give him an extra fiver by accident because I was too busy staring at his jaw to count properly. Sean would tease me about it for weeks.

This is not a helpful observation, Dylan.

“You’re up,” he says. Not accusatory. Just observational.

“I was going to bake something,” I blurt. “Maybe Welsh cakes? Or a quiche? I wasn’t sure what we had, so I was checking, and I thought, why not be productive, you know? Since I’m here and the kitchen is here and the ingredients are here, well, some ingredients, not all ingredients, which is why I was checking, and...”

I’m rambling. Again. Sweet Jesus, why can’t I ever just say one normal sentence like a normal person?

Dante sets the bags on the counter. Something in his expression shifts, going soft around the edges in a way that makes my stomach do a strange little flip.

“I bought some things,” he says.

“I can see that.”

Brilliant observation, Dylan. Truly stunning detective work.

He starts unpacking the bags, and I watch with growing confusion as item after item emerges. Lemons. Vanilla pods. Almond flour. Powdered sugar. A bottle of rosewater. Pistachio nuts.

His hands are deft as he works, long fingers handling each item with care. I’ve noticed his hands before, obviously. Hard not to, given what they’re capable of. But right now they just look like nice hands. Strong. Capable. The kind of hands that would be good at...

Stop it. Stop it right now.

“I wasn’t sure what brand you preferred,” Dante says, pulling out three different types of butter. “So I got several.”

I stare at the array of ingredients spreading across the counter. It’s not random. It’s not a general grocery run. These are specific things. Specialist things. Things you’d need to make...

“Macarons,” I whisper.

Dante pauses with a bag of egg whites in his hand. “You mentioned you’d never tried making them properly. That you’d attempted once and it was a disaster. Something about hollow shells?”

I did mention that. What feels like ages ago. In passing. A throwaway comment while we were eating the scones, something about how I’d mastered most baking but macarons still eluded me. I hadn’t thought he was even listening.

“You remembered,” I say, and my voice comes out strange. Thin and wobbly.

“Of course I remembered.”

He says it like it’s obvious. Like remembering a casual comment about failed macarons is the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s not wildly thoughtful and unexpectedly sweet and completely at odds with everything I know about this man.

This man who tortured me. Who kept me in the dark. Who made me watch things that will forever haunt my nightmares.

This man who turned his chair to face the wall because I asked him not to watch me.