Page 232 of Don’t Say Mafia

CHAPTER 10

EDEN

The bell over the door jingled again.

I didn’t look up right away. I was mid-pour, trying to angle the pitcher just right so I didn’t scald myself with the steam curling around my fingers.

“Good morning, Eden.”

I jerked, and the pitcher tipped too far. A stream of near-boiling coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and straight onto my hand. “Shit⁠—”

The heat hit a split second later.

I dropped the pitcher with a metallic clatter and yanked my hand back, coffee splashing across the counter and dripping onto the floor. My skin flared red almost instantly.

A sharp breath tore out of me as the sting bloomed across my skin. I blinked hard, fighting the reflex to curse again, and grabbed a rag with my uninjured hand, pressing it against the burn while the heat throbbed under the surface.

There was a sudden groan of wood, followed by the thud of shoes hitting the floor as someone vaulted the counter. Before I could even process it, strong fingers wrapped around my wrist, and the rag was pulled away.

“Eden,” Jagger murmured anxiously, his eyes dark with something that bordered on panic. He cradled my hand between both of his like it was made of glass, turning it carefully to examine the damage.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said roughly, all trace of his normal teasing tone gone. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I should’ve waited until you’d turned around. I’m sorry.” His thumb hovered just shy of the reddened skin, not quite touching it.

“I’m fi . . .” I started automatically.

The words stalled halfway out.

Jagger lifted his gaze from my hand to my face, and everything inside me went still. We were close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body, close enough that the rest of the room seemed to recede, like the world had narrowed down to the space his hands occupied around mine. His grip was careful and protective . . . but it wasn’t the burn making my pulse jump anymore.

It was him.

The way his fingers wrapped around mine like he wasn’t planning on letting go. The way his jaw tightened like he was furious at himself. The way he looked at me, like I mattered in a way that felt irreversible.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The shop noise faded into a distant blur. It felt as though we were standing inside something private and real and . . . entirely inappropriate. I realized, with a sudden rush of panic, that his touch was doing far more to me than the burn ever could.

I yanked my hand back as I remembered where I was. “I’m f-fine,” I stuttered again, the words tripping over themselves. My throat tightened without warning, and I hated that my eyes stung. I pressed the rag back against my palm harder than necessary, focusing on the bite of pain because it was easier than focusing on the way my chest felt like it was splitting open.

Never once in my marriage had I felt anything like that, not even when things were good.

I didn’t feel it when Ryan touched me or kissed me . . . I didn’t even feel it when he told me he loved me.

I tried to remember if I had ever experienced that breathless, dizzying awareness with my husband. Even on the rare nights he’d walked me to the bus stop, even when he’d tried to be attentive, there had never been that fierce, instinctive protectiveness. I had believed Ryan saw me. I had believed that because we came from the same broken place, we understood each other in a way no one else could.

But I was starting to understand that we had just been surviving side by side. Not seeing. Not choosing. Just clinging.

And the cruelest part wasn’t that I hadn’t felt this before. It was that I had felt it now.

For one suspended, reckless moment, I had known what it was like to be looked at like I was the most important thing in someone’s life. To be held as if someone would break the world before they let it break me.

And I already knew I couldn’t experience that again.

There is a particular kind of ache in discovering something you never knew you were missing, only to realize it was never meant to be yours. It’s like being handed warmth in the middle of winter and being told you can’t keep it.

Now I had a measure for what was possible, and I would have to go back to living without it.

“You need to get out from behind the counter,” I said suddenly, my voice wavering at the edges. “You’re going to get me in trouble.” The pain I was feeling must have been obvious, because he actually flinched.

Only then did I become aware of the silence around us. The way conversations had stalled. The way customers were staring openly. Mara was by the pastry case, frozen in place. We had just made a huge scene.