Page 35 of Tempting Mr. Knightly

The bakery was quiet between rushes. Afternoon sunlight moved across the table in slow stripes. A woman with a stroller ordered at the counter, and Bree handled it with the easy competence Lucy had trained into her over two years of afternoon shifts.

The rhythm of the bakery continued around them, indifferent to the negotiation happening at the window table, and Lucy was grateful for it because the rhythm was hers. Sitting inside it while Knox proposed to fund her work was the only thing keeping her grounded.

“I need to think about it,” she said.

“Take your time.”

“I will. Don’t rush me.”

“I never rush anyone. I present options and wait.”

“You present options and observe. There’s a difference.”

“A fair distinction.”

Jane arrived at four fifteen. She came through the front door carrying a backpack covered in enamel pins, twenty-three years old and breezily confident, like she’d never met a social situation she couldn’t dismantle.

Without a word to Lucy, she looked past her. “You must be Knox.” She dropped her bag on a chair and studied him. Jane had grown up watching Lucy build walls, and her face was openly curious about the one man who’d found a way around them. “You’re taller than I expected.” She tilted her head, appraising. “Devney said you were tall, but she also said Ronan was normal.”

Knox stood and offered his hand. “Jane. It’s good to meet you.”

“Likewise.” She held up her phone. “Marco texted me that you brought coffee for the whole staff. That’s either sweet or strategic.” She sat down without being invited. “Which one?”

“Both.”

Jane grinned. Lucy watched the exchange with tense hands and the low-grade awareness that something was being decided.

“Jane is studying social work at NYU,” Lucy said, because steering the conversation felt safer than letting it run. “Her thesis is on commercial displacement, what happens to immigrant family businesses when developers consolidate a block. She’s been pulling building records since spring.”

“I know she’s at NYU for social work,” Knox said. “You mentioned that part.”

“When?”

“The night at the bakery. You said Jane was in grad school, studying social work, and that she’d inherited your father’s stubbornness and your mother’s ability to read a room in three seconds.”

Lucy stared at him. She’d said those things at two in the morning, between batches of ganache, in a kitchen where the conversation had wandered past every guardrail she normally maintained. She hadn’t expected him to remember it.

Jane leaned toward Lucy. “He remembered what you said about me at two in the morning. I’m going to need you to acknowledge that.”

“I’m acknowledging nothing.”

“You’re acknowledging it internally. I can tell.” Jane turned to Knox. “What do you do when you’re not memorizing my sister’s late-night monologues?”

“I run the financial operations of an investment firm.”

“So you’re a money guy.”

“Among other things.”

“Lucy doesn’t like money guys.”

“I’m aware.”

“She also doesn’t bring money guys to the bakery after hours and teach them about ganache.”

“Jane.” Lucy’s voice had the thin, controlled quality of a woman who loved her sister and wanted to throw a croissant at her head.

“I’m observing. It’s a professional skill.” Jane picked up one of Knox’s coffee labels and examined it. “One hundred and fifty degrees. You measured her coffee temperature.” She looked at Knox, then at Lucy. “I’m done observing. You two are ridiculous.”