Page 77 of New Roots
TWENTY-ONE
STELLA
It was a week later, and Axel was still babying me. At first, it was endearing, and I appreciated it. Now, it was driving me crazy.
Luna and her mother had taken over everything at Scandinavian Sweets for me once we’d left the hospital. They told me that since the next morning was Saturday, they could gather the troops and handle everything for one day, and I was to just rest. Axel and everyone else in the room had agreed, much to my dissent.
“Plus, we’re closed the next two days anyway, so just take the three-day break, enjoy it, and I’ll see you back at work Tuesday,” Luna had all but demanded.
This was why she was my best friend, though a bossy one.
Since Nell had already been training for the role, we moved her into Milo’s position as the late-shift baker while still allowing her to finish her morning classes. Beverly also worked to find a few employee options to cover Nell’s shifts at the counter.
Milo wouldn’t be coming back. Not just because of what he had done to me, but also because once he was arrested, the cops found out he had two previous instances of stalking women.
In both of those cases, he had broken into the women’s homes and stolen trinkets to remember them by. One of thosetrinkets was the victim’s grandmother’s diamond brooch, valued at over five thousand dollars. Anna had informed me that moved his charged from a small misdemeanor up to a felony which carried a higher jail sentence.
Apparently, Axel’s friends Tex and Kitty, whom I’d never met but had heard about, had played integral roles in finding some of that information about Milo.
Two days after the hospital, two officers had visited me at Axel’s place. They informed us that Milo had confessed to starting the fire. He had intentionally shut off the water so the sprinklers wouldn’t activate, hoping the flames would cause as much damage as possible. I shuddered, remembering what the police had told me.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, not really directing the question at any officer in particular.
“It appears he had hoped it would scare you into staying with him,” the officer said. “He planned to come see you that night and convince you to stay with him for your safety. However, he suffered minor injuries when the Molotov cocktail ignited prematurely, leaving him with small burns on his hand.”
“He couldn’t chance showing up at the scene with a burned hand,” Axel said quietly beside me.
When his plan failed, Milo had panicked, and he began devising another one—this time intending to kidnap me. Apparently, if he couldn’t have me, then no one could.
There was a part of me that would always feel like I should have caught something in Milo earlier, but then I remembered Ruthie’s quote. With that level of guilt gone, I moved my attention to Axel and me.
I knew he felt guilty about how his mom had lied and manipulated me, but I told him I had already been skeptical andwasn’t upset with him. I was more upset that his mother would do that to her own children.
He had called them the next day, filling them in on what had gone down with Milo, and they hadn’t even asked if I was okay. They only wanted to know if he was coming home to run the company or not. He told me that was it for him and he was officially cutting them off like his sister had.
Again, I felt bad for him, but I told him I would support whatever decision he wanted to make.
Tammy had covered Axel’s shifts at the bar, and Archer told him to take Monday off and help me with anything I needed. He chose to work from my bakery the rest of the week. When I was in the kitchen, he worked from my office. When I was working the register or the front of the store, he sat at a table in front. Every day while I worked, he typed away on his laptop, chatting away with Kitty and Tex and also running various background checks for Wade and Vince.
Axel slept with me every night and was constantly checking in on me throughout the day, but there was no intimacy.He was around me twenty-four-seven. Never let me out of his sight. But he was also distant.
Whenever I kissed him or tried to set some naked times in motion, he would back away.
“I’ve waited my whole life to find someone like you,” he tried to explain. “I can wait another week until you heal. We’ll get there,älskling. I just want you to take the time you need for your arm to get better.”
I understood that, but sometimes I just wanted to snuggle—naked snuggles were even better.
“The doctor didn’t say I couldn’t have sex,” I reminded him. “He said I just had to be careful for seven days. Today is day seven, in case you didn’t remember.”
I decided to get creative. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
We had been staying at his place. He hadn’t said anything, but I thought he was worried I would have trauma being in my own place. I wasn’t sure, since I hadn’t had that opportunity to try staying at my place yet, but I really liked Axel’s loft, so I didn’t mind.
After we got back to his place today, he had gone down to pick up a package at the front desk and get the mail, and I seized my opportunity.
I quickly went to the kitchen, pulled out my supplies, and got ready.
When he returned, it was to find me in the kitchen with a pair of black joggers on and nothing else. There were, however, some strategically placed dollops of pastry cream on my chest and decolletage area.
