The scent of old paper and dust, once Chloe’s personal brand of aromatherapy, was now laced with the sharp, clean smell of sawdust and something else—something frustratingly, undeniably Liam. He stood on the opposite side of the large, scarred oak table they’d dragged into the center of the bookstore, his presence taking up far more than his share of the air.
Spread between them were the renovation plans, a battlefield of architectural drawings and Chloe’s meticulously color-coded spreadsheets.
“Laminate flooring is out of the question,” Liam said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. He tapped a thick finger on a quote Chloe had circled in bright, sensible green. “It’s sacrilege.”
“It’s practical, Liam,” she countered, her pen pointing to the bottom line of her budget. “It’s durable, easy to clean, and a fraction of the cost of whatever fantasy you’re cooking up.”
“Fantasy?” He let out a short, incredulous laugh. He unrolled a separate drawing, a detailed sketch in his own hand, and weighted it down with a heavy book. “This isn’t a fantasy, Chloe. This is a restoration. There are original longleaf pine floors under this god-awful linoleum. Boards milled over a hundred years ago. To cover them with plastic pretending to be wood is an insult to the building’s integrity.”
“The building’s integrity doesn’t pay the bills.” Her words were sharp, honed by years of prioritizing survival over sentiment. “We have a budget. A tight one. We need to be open and turning a profit by the end of the quarter. Your ‘restoration’ would take weeks and cost a fortune we don’t have.”
His jaw tightened, a muscle flexing in a way that was distractingly familiar. Ten years ago, that twitch had meant he was holding back a smile. Now, it was a storm warning. “So we gut the soul of the place for a quick buck? That’s your vision? Make it look like every other generic, soulless box on the block?”
The accusation hit a nerve. “My vision is keeping my father’s legacy alive, not bankrupting it on a vanity project! You waltz in here after a decade, smelling of woodsmoke and self-righteousness, and think you can dictate terms?”
“I’m the one with the skills to actually do this, Chloe. You know numbers. I know wood, I know stone, I know what this place wants to be.”
“The bookstore doesn’t want anything,” she snapped, heat rising in her cheeks. “It’s a business. And right now, the business needs drywall to cover this crumbling plaster, not a team of artisans to painstakingly repair it.”
He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “Drywall? You want to cover up a century of history with cheap, chalky board?” He shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the peeling paint and water-stained walls with an almost reverent affection. “You don’t see it, do you? You’ve been here all this time, and you don’t even see it.”
“I see a P&L statement, something you’ve clearly never had to worry about.” The jab was low, a bitter reference to the carefree boy he’d been, the one who’d talked of traveling the world while she’d been chained to this town by duty.
His eyes, the color of dark whiskey, narrowed. “And you see nothing else. Just a column of figures.” He began rolling up his sketch with controlled, angry movements. “Let’s go to the office. I want to show you the original electrical plans. We can’t just paper over the problems, literally or figuratively.”
He turned and strode toward the back without waiting for a reply. Chloe’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird beating its wings. Every exchange with him was a spark hitting dry tinder. Seething, she gathered her spreadsheets and followed him into the cramped, windowless office that had once been her father’s sanctuary.
The space was barely big enough for one person, let alone two. It was a chaotic mess of stacked invoice boxes, old ledgers, and a single metal desk. The air was thick with the smell of old books and Liam. He was already bent over a dusty box, pulling out a tube of yellowed blueprints.
“The wiring in these walls is knob-and-tube,” he said, his back to her. “It’s a fire hazard. We have to open up the walls regardless. While we’re in there, we might as well do it right. Reinforce the plaster, maybe even expose some of the original brick behind the main shelves.”
“Exposing brick is another line item, Liam. Another delay.” She squeezed past him to get to the desk, her hip brushing his thigh. The contact was electric, a jolt that shot straight through her. She flinched away, dropping her folder. Papers scattered across the floor.
“Damn it,” she muttered, kneeling to gather them.
Liam crouched down opposite her, his large frame making the small space feel impossibly smaller. His hands, calloused and capable, easily scooped up half the mess. As they both reached for the last spreadsheet, their fingers brushed.
This time, the shock was undeniable. Chloe snatched her hand back as if burned. She could feel the rough texture of his skin against hers, a ghost of a touch that sent a tremor through her system.
She stood abruptly, her head spinning. “Just… give them to me.”
He rose with her, his movements fluid and unnervingly close. He held the papers out, but his eyes weren’t on them. They were on her, searching, intense.
“This is what you always do,” he said, his voice dangerously soft.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her own voice tight.
“You shut down. You see a problem, a complication, and you throw up a wall and retreat behind the numbers. You did it then, and you’re doing it now.”
The past slammed into her, raw and visceral. The night he’d told her he was leaving, his dreams too big for this small town, for her. She’d built a fortress of logic and practicality around her broken heart, telling him it was for the best, that they were on different paths. It was the only way she’d survived.
“This isn’t about ‘then’,” she breathed, her control fraying. “This is about a business decision.”
“The hell it is!” His voice rose, bouncing off the claustrophobic walls. He took a step forward, and she took a step back, her spine hitting the cool plaster of the wall. “This is about you being so terrified of feeling anything, of taking a single risk, that you’d rather suffocate this place with mediocrity than let it be something beautiful!”
He was right in front of her now, a towering wall of furious masculinity. He braced a hand on the wall next to her head, the thud of his palm against the plaster echoing the frantic beat of her own heart. He was trapping her, caging her in with his body, with his anger, with the suffocating weight of their shared history.
The world narrowed to the space between them. The arguments about budgets and floorboards evaporated, leaving only this raw, terrifying proximity. The air was thick with the scent of him—clean sawdust, a hint of sweat from his work, and the faint, familiar tang of his skin. It was the smell of her teenage dreams and her first, most devastating heartbreak.
Her breath hitched. She was overwhelmed, drowning in him. His chest rose and fell in ragged breaths just inches from hers. His eyes, burning with a decade of unspoken resentment and something else, something hotter and more dangerous, scanned her face. She saw the anger there, but underneath it, she saw the boy she’d loved, now a man whose gaze held a potent, devastating hunger.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure which one of them she was warning.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. A switch flipped. The anger in the air didn’t vanish, but it was consumed by a current of pure, combustible energy. He leaned in, just a fraction of an inch, and her body betrayed her completely. Her own head tilted back, her lips parting on a silent, wanting gasp. The magnetic pull she’d felt in the main store was now a physical force, an undertow dragging her in. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, could almost taste the fury and longing on his lips. One more inch. One more second.
The thought of his mouth on hers, of what would happen if she let this fire ignite, was both a terrifying premonition and a desperate, aching need.
No.
The word was a scream in her mind. With a surge of adrenaline and self-preservation, she planted her hands on his hard chest and shoved.
“Get away from me,” she gasped, the words ragged.
He stumbled back a step, thrown more by the shock than the force. The spell was broken. The space between them was suddenly a chasm, cold and ringing with the echo of what had almost happened. His expression was a storm of confusion, frustration, and a flicker of something that looked like hurt. He stared at his hand still braced against the wall, then slowly lowered it, clenching it into a fist at his side.
“Chloe…” he started, his voice rough.
“Don’t,” she cut him off, wrapping her arms around herself, a futile attempt to hold her splintering composure together. “This is a business arrangement, Liam. We are partners in a renovation. That is all. You will not corner me, you will not touch me, and you will not speak to me about the past. Are we clear?”
He stared at her for a long, silent moment, his jaw working. The heat in his eyes was replaced by a familiar, shuttered coldness. It was the same look he’d given her at the bus station all those years ago.
“Crystal,” he said, his voice clipped and devoid of emotion. He turned, grabbed the blueprints from the desk, and walked out of the office without another word.
Chloe stood frozen, her back pressed against the wall, listening to his footsteps fade. Her heart was a wild thing in her chest, and her lungs burned for air. She lifted a trembling hand to her lips, which still tingled with the phantom promise of his kiss.
The conflict wasn’t about pine floors or plaster walls. It wasn’t just business. She knew that now, with a terrifying certainty. It was about the smoldering wreckage of their past, the undeniable pull of the present, and the dangerous, volatile chemistry that threatened to burn everything—the bookstore, her carefully constructed life—to the ground.