The hotel kitchen smells like butter and chocolate and questionable life decisions.
I've somehow charmed my way into borrowing an oven here too—the sous chef took one look at my enthusiastic rambling about "culinary therapy" and waved me toward the industrial equipment with a resigned expression.
While the cookies cool on the counter—still slightly uneven, edges ranging from "golden brown" to "aggressively caramelized"—I video-call Gemma.
She answers on the second ring, already suspicious.
"You're baking again," she says flatly. "You only bake when you're processing emotions. What happened? Did the hot CEO do something? Do I need to book a flight and commit violence?"
"No violence necessary, everything's fine. Better than fine, actually." I poke at a cookie that's still too hot, burning my finger immediately because I have zero impulse control. "Things have been... different lately."
"Different how?" Gemma leans closer to her camera, eyes narrowing. "Different good or different 'I'm about to make a terrible decision' different? Because with you, it's usually the second one."
"Different good! He actually talks to me now, Gem. Like, real conversations. Not just monosyllables and dismissive glances."
I can't help the smile spreading across my face, even though I know how ridiculous I probably look.
"He even taught me chess at two in the morning. I mean… It wasn’t two in the morning when we started, but anyway. We sat in the hotel lounge playing chess and talking about life and it was... nice. Really nice."
"Chess," Gemma repeats, like I've just told her we performed a blood ritual. "At two AM."
"And he walked me through New York the other day. I almost got hit by like three different vehicles and every time, he just put his hand on my head and steered me to safety. Like I was something worth protecting."
I'm gushing. I know I'm gushing and I can't seem to stop.
"He has this whole thing where he guides me through crowds with his palm on my hair, and it should feel patronizing but it doesn't. It feels... safe. I feel safe with him."
Gemma is quiet for a long moment, too quiet. The kind of quiet that means she's about to ask something I don't want to answer.
"So what are you actually doing here, Flo?"
I blink. "What do you mean? I told you—it's an arrangement. Fake engagement, remember? Very professional, very transactional. Six months and done. Clean break."
"Uh-huh. And the cookies you're baking right now? The ones you're clearly planning to bring to his room? Those are also very professional and transactional?"
"They're thank-you cookies," I insist, aware that my voice has gone slightly too high. "For being nice to me. For the chess lessons. For not letting me become a New York City cautionary tale about jaywalking. It's just being friendly, Gem. Just... maintaining the working relationship."
"The working relationship where he holds your head like you're precious and teaches you chess at midnight and walks you through cities like you're the only person who matters…"
Gemma's silence stretches, heavy with skepticism, but when she speaks again, her voice is gentler.
"Floris. Honey-boo. I’m perfectly aware that your love-language is cooking for someone. And you know what this sounds like, right?"
"It sounds like two adults maintaining a mutually beneficial arrangement," I say firmly. "Nothing more, nothing less. We set the rules, boundaries. Very clear expectations about what this is and isn't."
More silence. Deeply skeptical silence that somehow communicates volumes.
"I have to go," I say quickly. "Cookies are ready. Very important cookie delivery to complete. I'll call you later, okay? Love you!"
I hang up before she can respond, then stare at the cookie container in my hands. The truth I couldn't say out loud settles in my chest like a stone—warm and heavy and terrifying.
I like how things are going. I like that he's kind to me now. I like the chess games and the city walks and the way his hand feels on my head.
I want to keep making an effort.
I want to keep building whatever this is becoming.
Which is dangerous. Which is probably stupid. Which is absolutely going to end in disaster because this is an arrangement and arrangements have expiration dates and I'm breaking every rule we established.
But I pick up the cookies anyway, because apparently I have zero self-preservation instincts, and the warmth in my chest is louder than the warning bells in my head.
My heart beats faster than it should as I walk down the corridor toward his suite, rehearsing casual things to say.
Just brought cookies. Thought you might want a snack.
Very normal, very friendly, definitely not catching feelings over here for my boss.
His door is already open. Not all the way—just a crack, like someone didn't pull it fully closed. I raise my hand to knock, mouth already forming his name, and then I see them.
Charlotte, the fiancee number whatever who left weeks ago. Who I thought was gone forever. Who Maverick told me wouldn't be coming back.
Who is now straddling him on the couch.
Her designer dress hiked up around her thighs, grinding against him like a cat in heat. Her perfectly manicured hands are fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, and his hands… are on her hips, fingers flexing against soft flesh inches under the hem.
And she's kissing him.
Very passionately and very open-mouthed, tongue and teeth and all.
The cookie container slips suddenly from my fingers and hits the floor with a plastic clatter that echoes like a gunshot.
My chest cracks open. Everything inside me—the warmth, the hope, the dangerous feelings I wasn't supposed to develop—spills out onto the expensive carpet and dies there.
Maverick's eyes snap open, finding mine over Charlotte's shoulder. Shock or something worse flashes across his face as he pulls back sharply, hands shoving her off his lap.
"Floris—"
Charlotte stumbles, catches herself, then turns to take in the scene with the precision of a predator assessing prey.
Me, frozen in the doorway in my casual clothes. The cookie container on the floor between us, lid popped open, cookies scattered like evidence at a crime scene. My face, which I'm sure is doing something humiliating.
"How sweet." Her lip curls into a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "The help brought snacks."
I can't breathe. The air has left the room, the building, possibly the entire planet. Everything suddenly hurts in a way I wasn't prepared for. In a way I have no right to feel because this is an arrangement and I'm the idiot who forgot that.
"I'm sorry," I hear myself say, voice barely a whisper. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll just… I should go. Sorry. I'm so sorry."
And then I'm running, literally. The hallway blurs, the elevator is too far, takes forever, why did they put the elevator so far away from his suite?
I jab the button. Once, twice, three times, like that will make it come faster.
My vision is blurring and I refuse to cry here. Refuse to let the tears fall until I'm safely behind a locked door where no one can see how stupid I've been.
"Floris." Maverick's voice echoes down the corridor. "Floris, wait."
The elevator finally dings, the doors slide open and I throw myself inside, slaming the button for my floor with shaking fingers.
"Floris!" He's closer now.
I can see him at the end of the hallway, still calling my name, moving toward me with an urgency that means nothing because I saw what I saw and nothing he says will change it.
The doors begin to close. Slowly. Agonizingly slowly.
Our eyes meet through the narrowing gap and then the doors seal shut between us.
Finally, I'm alone with the wreckage of feelings I never should have let myself feel.