The purr of an engine, low and predatory, sliced through the companionable Saturday morning silence. It was a sound that didn’t belong in Northwood, a town where the loudest noises were the clang of the bell on the diner door and the rumble of pickup trucks.
I was on a ladder, painstakingly scraping a stubborn patch of old varnish from a high bookshelf, a smudge of dust on my cheek. Below me, Liam was meticulously measuring a length of reclaimed oak for the new checkout counter. The air was thick with the scent of sawdust, old paper, and the coffee we’d been sharing from a single thermos. In the three weeks since we’d called our truce, this had become our rhythm—a silent understanding built on shared labor and a mutual, unspoken reverence for the space we were resurrecting.
Then came the sound of that engine, followed by the soft, expensive crunch of tires on gravel.
Liam’s hands stilled. He looked up at me, his brow furrowed in a question I didn’t want to answer. I glanced out the tall, grimy front window and saw it: a silver Jaguar, gleaming under the morning sun like a misplaced jewel.
My heart sank into my work boots. “He’s here.”
Liam’s jaw tightened, a subtle shift of muscle I was becoming far too adept at reading. He didn’t ask who ‘he’ was. He just nodded, wiped his hands on his jeans, and went back to his work, his movements suddenly more rigid, more deliberate. The easy peace of the morning shattered.
The front door, still awaiting its final coat of paint, swung open. And there stood Bennett.
He was a masterpiece of urban sophistication, from the sharp cut of his charcoal Armani suit to the polished gleam of his Italian leather shoes. His cologne—a subtle, expensive blend of oud and bergamot—wafted in, battling the homey scent of sawdust and losing. He took in the scene—the drop cloths, the stacks of lumber, me on a ladder in paint-spattered overalls—and his perfectly sculpted lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Chloe, darling.” His voice was as smooth and cool as the car he drove. “What a… charmingly rustic scene.”
I climbed down the ladder, my cheeks burning. “Bennett. I thought you weren’t getting in until this afternoon.”
“I caught an earlier flight. Wanted to surprise you.” He stepped carefully over a power cord, his gaze sweeping over Liam, who was now running a plank through the table saw, the whine of the blade a defiant roar in the suddenly tense space. Bennett raised his voice over the noise. “And this must be the local help.”
The saw screamed and then died. Silence descended, thick and heavy.
Liam turned, his expression unreadable. He gave Bennett a slow, deliberate look, taking in the suit, the watch, the effortless arrogance. “Liam,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I’m a partner. Not the help.”
A flicker of surprise crossed Bennett’s face before he masked it with amusement. “Of course. My mistake.” He turned back to me, dismissing Liam as if he were a piece of the construction debris. “Quite the sentimental project you’ve taken on, Chloe. I have to admire your… tenacity.”
The word hung in the air, weighted with condescension. Tenacity, not passion. Project, not dream.
“It’s more than a project, Bennett,” I said, my voice tight.
“I’m sure it is.” He slid a cool hand around my waist, pulling me into a side hug that was more possessive than affectionate. He smelled of money and the city, a scent that suddenly felt alien and suffocating. “Why don’t you show me around your little venture? Then we can get you cleaned up and go for a proper dinner. I made reservations at that acclaimed farm-to-table place an hour out of town.”
I looked over Bennett’s shoulder at Liam. He was watching us, his face a granite mask, but his eyes held a storm of something I couldn’t decipher—pity, maybe, or anger. He gave a short, almost imperceptible shake of his head before turning back to his work, the set of his shoulders a clear and final wall between us. The camaraderie we’d built felt like it was dissolving into the dust motes dancing in the sunlight.
***
Later that evening, in my small apartment above the store, the contrast became a physical ache. Bennett had insisted on ordering a case of a ridiculously expensive French Bordeaux to be delivered, and now he was swirling a glass, his back to me as he looked out the window at Northwood’s sleepy town square.
“I just don’t understand the financials, Chloe,” he said, his tone that of a patient CEO explaining a failed merger. “The overhead, the limited customer base… what’s the exit strategy here?”
“The exit strategy is I die of old age and they bury me out back under the willow tree,” I retorted, pulling a corkscrew from a drawer with more force than necessary.
He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “Always so dramatic. I’m serious. This town is a relic. You’re building a monument to a forgotten medium in a forgotten place. It’s noble, I suppose, but it’s not a life.”
“It’s my life,” I said, my voice rising. “And I like this town. The people are real.”
“They’re ‘real’ because they haven’t had a new idea since 1995,” he countered smoothly. “Come back to Chicago with me. I can get you an interview at the gallery downtown. A real job, with benefits and a future. We can get a proper place together. Leave this… hobby behind.”
The fight drained out of me, replaced by a profound weariness. He didn’t see it. He couldn’t. To him, this bookstore was a line item, an investment with a poor return. He didn’t see the way Mrs. Gable’s eyes lit up when I told her we were saving it. He didn’t feel the history in the worn floorboards or see the ghosts of children hiding in the nooks. He didn’t understand the simple, bone-deep satisfaction of building something with your own two hands, next to someone who understood its soul because it was part of his, too.
“I’m not leaving, Bennett.”
He sighed and set his wine glass down. He crossed the room in three long strides, taking my face in his hands. His touch was soft, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones. “You’re beautiful when you’re passionate, you know that? Stubborn as hell, but beautiful.”
He leaned in and kissed me. It was a good kiss. Technically perfect. It was deep and searching, his hands moving from my face to my waist, pulling me against the hard lines of his body. It was the kind of kiss that should have made my knees weak, that should have erased the day’s tension and doubt.
He led me to the bedroom, his movements fluid and confident. Every touch, every caress, felt… practiced. He knew how to unbutton my shirt with an efficient flick of his fingers. He knew where to press his lips to my neck to elicit a shiver. He whispered all the right words against my skin, praise and promises that sounded like lines from a script he’d memorized.
It was a performance of intimacy, a flawless choreography of passion. And as I lay beneath him, the expensive silk of my own sheets feeling foreign against my skin, I felt like a spectator at my own seduction. My body responded on cue, a well-trained animal, but my mind was miles away.
I found myself thinking of rough, calloused hands passing me a greasy slice of pepperoni pizza. Of a shared, tired smile across a dusty room. Of the comfortable silence of two people working towards the same goal, no explanation needed. I thought of the raw, authentic connection I’d felt with Liam, a connection forged in sawdust and sweat, and this sophisticated act felt like a pale, hollow imitation.
When Bennett rolled off me, his breathing even, a self-satisfied smile on his face, he pulled me to his chest. “See?” he murmured into my hair. “This is what we’re missing. This is real.”
He was asleep within minutes.
But I lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, feeling an emptiness so vast it threatened to swallow me whole. The warmth of his body next to mine offered no comfort. The encounter had been a transaction, polished and seamless, but it had left my heart overdrawn. The passion had been a ghost, a perfect illusion that vanished the moment the lights went out, leaving me colder and more alone than I had been before he arrived.
The contrast was no longer a quiet hum in the back of my mind. It was a screaming, painful klaxon.
In the first light of dawn, I slipped out of bed and padded to the living room window. Below, in the square, a familiar blue truck pulled into its usual spot. Liam got out, a large coffee in one hand and a bagel in a paper bag in the other. He didn’t look up at my window. Instead, his gaze went straight to the bookstore. He stood there for a long moment, just looking at it, his expression a mixture of pride and weariness and a deep, abiding affection that was as real and solid as the oak he was shaping.
He belonged here. He was part of this place, part of its past and its future.
And Bennett, asleep in my bed, was a tourist. A handsome, charming, successful tourist who wanted to pack me in his luggage and take me back to a life that gleamed on the surface but felt like nothing underneath.
Looking at Liam, then thinking of the man in my bedroom, the truth hit me with the force of a physical blow, stark and undeniable. I had spent years chasing a polished, sophisticated version of love, only to find that the most real connection I’d felt in a decade was with the one man I was supposed to hate, over a cardboard box of cheap pizza in the ruins of our shared history.