She pressed her lips together and shrugged.
That wasn’t good enough. Somehow he felt a strong need to do more than joke about this. “You actually thought I was a cutthroat landlord who would stop at nothing to get what I wanted.” He couldn’t help pressing the issue because…because he wasn’t that. And for some reason it was important that she knew it.
She fidgeted by smoothing down her apron. She was also blushing, which made him feel a little better. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I mean, in my defense, you always have been very goal directed. And Bea said—”
“There’s a big difference between goal directed and cutthroat,” he said. “I’m not the villain you think I am.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” she said with a half smile. “But maybe I’m not who you think I am, either.” She’d put her hands up on top of the bakery case. Nice hands. Hardworking hands. After work, she always put lotion on them that smelled like roses. She kept a million jars and tubes on her sink top. She was on the messy side, often tossing her clothing over chairs and on the closet floor. Yet their kitchen was always neat as a pin. She left romance novels in stacks lying open in various places around the house, especially in their living room. And she loved plants.
And wait. Did she just say she was afraid of knowing he wasn’t a bad guy? Interesting. “How do I think wrong about you?” he asked, trying to stay on track. And forgetting why he’d come in here in the first place.
“I think you feel that I’m uptight. Not a risk-taker.” She gestured around the faded bakery. “Stuck here.”
He leaned a little closer, his gaze holding hers, and dropped his voice so her mother and Vivienne, whom he supposed were in the back, couldn’t hear. “I think we’ve both taken a pretty big risk.”
Her eyes were blue like the sky on this perfect June day. For a moment, he was at a loss trying to describe their color. Sapphire? No, too dark. Nassau Blue like his ’vette? Closer.
“And I’m working as hard as I can to make that risk pay off.” She straightened out and fidgeted with her apron ties, breaking his gaze. “Do you mind if I ask you another question?”
“Sure. Anything.”
“Are you still seeing Svana?”
“No,” he said, looking her square in the eye. “Not for months.”
She nodded as she busied herself adding more bread into the bakery case.
She seemed like she was trying to figure out if she could trust him. He had to admit, she was harsh on herself, using words like uptight and stuck.And he was coming to find that she was like one of those fancy cakes she was always trying to perfect. Every time he talked with her, he found she had more and more layers. Complicated. And far more interesting than he liked to admit.
“Can I get you a sandwich?” she asked, moving on to safer subjects. “I make a killer hummus and veggie on rustic loaf.”
Before he could answer, Tessa’s mom walked out of the back room.
“Leo,” Joanna said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Thanks for coming by. Can I show you what I need moved in the back room?”
“You came to help my mother?” Tessa asked.
He answered that by lifting a brow as if to say, What’s wrong with that? Did she still think that he was going to make good on his threat about charging her interest? Which he’d just said because he was desperate, anyway.
“I’ll just keep him a minute or two,” Joanna said, taking his arm and purposefully steering him to the back.
He followed her through the oven room to a small room full of boxes. It also contained extra bread racks and giant sacks of flour. Not to mention a battered old table and two large, very solid-looking doors made of dark wood leaning against the wall.
“These are the original front doors to the bakery,” Tessa’s mother said. “They weigh a ton. Could you maybe haul them out? They’re so heavy, I thought you might bring your friend Jack and move them out for us.”
“Sure, no problem.” Leo walked over to examine the doors. They were paneled and made of solid wood, probably walnut. Stained a dark color and clearly weather-battered. But they had a nice grain. “Nice craftsmanship,” he said.
“They’re over a hundred years old—a part of the bakery’s history. It’s a shame we can’t use them anywhere.”
“They are beautiful,” Leo said, running his hand along the surface. “Or at least, with some TLC, they could be again.”
“Tessa asked me to clear out this room so that she could store some baking things back here. She’s asked me again for a shelf for her pastries, but between you and me…” She looked around surreptitiously and closed the door. “I think it would be better for her if she started her own business. Our bakery is a traditional boulangerie—it’s never carried sweets in its entire history, and one shelf certainly isn’t going to make her any money.”
Leo’s neck was prickling. Because Tessa’s mom was fidgeting her hands in the exact same way Tessa did when she was nervous. And he got an uncomfortable sense that she’d brought him back here for more than just moving old doors. “Have you talked to her about this?”
He did not want to discuss this behind Tessa’s back. They were partners in this effort, and he wasn’t about to make any decisions without her.
“Well, I was actually hoping to talk to you for a moment.”
Oh no.
“I don’t know what she’s told you, but when we lost her dad,” Joanna continued, “Tessa held us together. All of us. And in doing that, she missed her chance.”
“You should talk to her about this, Joanna. I think she feels—”
Before he could back politely away, Joanna thrust a piece of paper at him. “I want to sell you and your father the business.”
Stunned, he let the paper drift to the floor. “What? Why?” No. Absolutely not. He did not want this. He held his hands up and backed away a step. He really did not want to take part in something that did not involve Tessa. Something serious and important.
And why on earth would her mom be trying to sell him their bakery?
Joanna picked up the paper and insisted he take it. “I know your father wants to have the ability one day to bake his own bread for the restaurant. And he’d probably like to put in a wood-fired oven for pizza, too. This would be the perfect space. I would just ask that you’d keep me on as an employee until I could make another plan.”
“There’s really no need—”
“Tessa’s going to get accepted into pastry school.” She clutched a religious medal on a gold chain around her neck. “And when she gets in, I don’t want there to be anything holding her back.”