Warm butter and ripe peaches cling to the air as you knead the dough, the steady rhythm of a place that has always been yours. Your mother’s bakery, her legacy now resting in your hands.

Here, things are simple.

Your family and Auren's have spent years locked in quiet rivalry once fought between your father and his, men too proud to bend, too alike to ever agree. Now only your grandfathers remain, just as stubborn, their rivalry lingering like smoke that never quite clears.

You were never meant to meet in the middle. And yet, somehow you did.

The faint creak of wood pulls your attention, followed by the familiar brush of leather against the windowsill.

“You’ve got enough pies in here to feed an army,” he says, his voice slipping into the room like something not meant to be heard. “Should I be concerned, or impressed?”

Auren leans into the open window, as if he belongs here, as if the feud, the rules, the history between your families mean nothing at all. That crooked smirk tugs at his mouth, his gaze sharp despite the ease he wears so well.

No one else is here, and he shouldn’t be. But he never listens.

“I ran into your brother,” he continues, pulling a small leather pouch from his belt. “He told me not to bother you.” A pause, then a flicker of amusement. “So, obviously, I came straight here.”