Page 21 of Trusting Mr. Sterling
“Statistically improbable.”
“Beyond improbable. We’re talking lottery-winning, lightning-striking levels of impossible.”
Gabriel’s mouth curved. “Do you come here often?”
“Tuesdays. When I need cookbook inspiration. You?”
“Once a month. Business section. Usually Fridays.”
“So you’re here on a Tuesday because?”
“My meeting got canceled. I thought I’d use the time productively.”
He stepped closer to read the spine of the cookbook in her hand, and his shoulder brushed hers. They both went still. Hisbreath caught in the inch of air between them, and neither of them moved.
“It’s research,” she said. Her voice came out rough. “Most of it won’t make the final menu.”
“But some of it will.”
“If I’m lucky.”
She should step back and create space. Stop standing in a narrow aisle pressed against Gabriel Sterling like she was seventeen and hiding between the stacks at Ashford’s library. She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
“I should keep looking,” Tessa said.
“Yes.” He still didn’t move.
She tipped her face up to his. His eyes were already there, and they dropped to her mouth and stayed there long enough for her stomach to drop. Gabriel Sterling was looking at her the way he used to, and every cell in her body remembered.
She made herself step sideways. Cold rushed into the inch where his shoulder had been, and the absence felt like a small grief.
Gabriel pulled in a breath. “This is?—”
“Don’t say it.”
“I was going to say complicated.”
“That’s worse.”
His mouth twitched. “Fair.”
“Do you want to get coffee?”
She should say no. She should maintain a professional distance. “Yes.”
They walked down the narrow stairs together, paid for their books at separate registers, and met outside on Broadway.
They found a small coffee shop with three tables near the window and sat across from each other with their cups betweenthem. The table was so small their knees bumped underneath. Tessa pulled back. Gabriel did, too. There was nowhere to go.
“Talk to me about your business,” he said.
“Which part?”
“Any part. The hard part. The funny part. I want to know how you built it.”
She wrapped her hands around her cup. “I started with a used food truck and a notebook full of standing orders from the women on my culinary school’s block in the city. But before that, I was nineteen, my mom was in the hospital, and I could either keep crying about insurance or sell cookies door to door. Crying wasn’t paying the bills. So I sold cookies.”
