Chapter 1 June Morning
Ariella was wiping down the counter for the fourth time, just to have something to do with her hands, when the bell above the door chimed.
She looked up.
The boy standing in the doorway made her forget how to breathe.
He was tall! Too tall for the low ceiling, ducking slightly as he entered with dark hair that fell across his forehead and eyes the color of a winter sky. Gray. Storm-gray. The kind of gray that looked like it was holding back something terrible. He wore all black despite the June heat, and he looked at the bakery the way you’d look at a car accident.
Like he didn’t want to see but couldn’t look away.
Ariella knew who he was.
Everyone knew who he was.
Aiden Frost.
She’d seen his face in the papers, at charity events, on the society pages her grandmother used to read. Always in the background, always slightly out of focus, like he was trying to disappear. The boy who had everything. The boy whose father was in the hospital. The boy whose family was about to destroy hers.
He didn’t look at her at first. Just studied the bakery. The empty tables, the faded paint, the crack in the front window they’d been meaning to fix for two years. His expression was unreadable.
Finally, his eyes landed on her.
And for just a second, less than a second she saw something raw in his face. Something that looked almost like recognition. Like grief.
Like he understood.
Then it was gone, hidden behind a mask of careful blankness.
“Ariella Hayes?” His voice was quiet. Almost gentle.
She gripped the rag in her hands. “Who’s asking?”
“My father wants to see you.” He said it like an apology. “Today. Right now.”
Ariella felt something cold slide down her spine. “Your father. Richard Frost.”
“Yes.”
“The man who’s kicking us out.”
Aiden flinched. Actually flinched. “It’s not..” He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. “He’ll explain. But we need to go now.”
“I’m working.”
His eyes swept the empty bakery. For a moment, something flickered across his face. Not pity, but something worse. Understanding.
“Please,” he said quietly. “If you don’t come with me right now, you’re going to lose a lot more than this bakery.”
The words hung between them.
Ariella stared at him. At this boy who looked like he hadn’t slept in days. At his expensive coat and his hollow eyes and the way his hands were shaking, just slightly, like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
Aiden’s jaw tightened. He looked like he wanted to say something, something true and terrible. But then his face went blank again.
“Come with me,” he said. “Please.”
It was the plea that broke her.
Not because it was polite. But because it sounded like it cost him something to say it. Like he knew what it meant to beg.
Ariella looked at the clock. 8:47 a.m.
Looked at the empty bakery.
Looked at the bread cooling on the racks, perfect loaves that no one would buy.
She thought about her mother upstairs, trying to sleep. About the email on the phone. About Ethan’s hoodie, soft against her skin, the last piece of him she had left.
She thought about how tired she was.
How tired they both looked.
She untied her apron.
“If this is some kind of sick game…” she started.
“It’s not a game.” Aiden’s voice cracked, just slightly. “I wish it were.”
He turned and walked out.
Ariella followed him into the June morning, into the waiting black car with windows so dark she couldn’t see inside, into whatever nightmare the Frost family had waiting for her.
She didn’t know it yet, but in that car, in that moment, both their lives had just shattered.
And neither of them would ever be the same.