Page 22 of The Dark Stranger
But he didn’t know the scope of it.
Didn’t know the reach.
Didn’t know that king was the word whispered behind closed doors.
He only knew one thing—
By bringing Jenna into Becca’s world, he’d done something irreversible.
And Becca?
Becca locked up the shop that evening thinking she’d just dealt with another entitled girl. Another affair. Another mess that wasn’t hers to clean up.
She didn’t know she’d been noticed.
She didn’t know her name had already stuck.
And she didn’t know—
Some mistakes couldn’t be taken back.
The rest of the day unraveled after that.
Becca moved through it on autopilot—smiling when required, steady hands when they needed to be—but inside, irritation simmered. Her day had been fine. Normal. Predictable. And then Izzy showed up with her. Uninvited.Unnecessary.
It ruined everything.
By the time she closed the shop, the quiet felt too loud.
She locked the door and exhaled, rubbing her temples before getting into her car. She told herself not to think about it, but her mind kept circling the same question:
Why?
Izzy had never been a talker. He was the kind of man who moved without explaining, acted without clarifying. Cold like that. All action. No accountability. So why now? Why show up out of nowhere? And why bring the very woman he cheated with into her space?
What was the point?
The drive to the market was short, but her thoughts raced the entire way. As she pulled into a parking spot, irritation clung to her like static. She shut the engine off just as her phone buzzed.
Normally, she would’ve ignored it.
Lately, every notification felt like another problem waiting to be dealt with.
She glanced down anyway.
An email.
From the real estate agent—the one who had helped her secure the shop.
Her stomach tightened before she even opened it.
She read the message once.
Then again.
Izzy had made an offer.
Not just an offer—an aggressive one. More than what she’d originally offered. Enough to turn heads. Enough to raise questions.
