Andrew didn't leave. He leaned against the edge of the glass counter, arms folded, watching Bella work as he had nowhere else to be, as if his time wasn't worth millions per hour. As if his phone hadn't buzzed five times in the last minute with calls he had no intention of returning.
He couldn't stop looking at her.
There was something about the way she stood, confident, graceful, entirely in control. The dimples that flashed when she smiled at the customer, her low, calm, and alluring voice.
She wasn't trying to impress anyone.
And that alone always amazes him.
She handed the customer a delicate necklace with dainty rubies and gold beads. The woman gasped softly and smiled. Bella nodded, said something polite, and handed her a card.
Andrew didn't hear a word of it. He was just staring at her lips. His eyes never left her face.
When the woman finally left, thanking Bella on her way out, the bell above the door chimed again, and silence returned.
Just them.
Andrew moved. Slowly. Purposefully.
Bella turned, and before she could say a word, he stepped close, gripped her chin with a firm but careful hand, and tilted her face up.
Her breath hitched.
"Andrew," she started, voice caught between a warning and a whisper.
But he didn't listen.
He kissed her.
Not like a friend. Not like a man who understood boundaries. But like a man who didn't care.
And worse, she kissed him back.
Her lips were soft, full, tasting like peppermint gloss. For a moment, they weren't friends with rules. For a moment, they were like couples.
His hand slid to her waist, tugging her closer, and she let him.
For three seconds too long.
And then,
She pulled back, eyes sharp now.
"Andrew," she said under her breath, "this is my workplace. You don't get to do that here. Not ever again."
He didn't answer. His eyes still burned with the need to do it again.
But she wasn't finished.
"This isn't your penthouse. You don't walk in and kiss me like I'm your girl."
Before he could speak, the bell above the door jingled again.
A new customer walked in tall, dressed in black jeans and a fitted charcoal button-down, with a confident smile that spread quickly as soon as he spotted her.
"Bella," the man said, grinning. "Finally meeting you in person."
Bella turned immediately, her smile warm, dimples flashing.
"You must be a designer from Toronto?" she asked.
"Yep. And I'm Luke," he added with a flirtatious smirk. "Similar name, just like your brand, right? Strange coincidence, huh?"
Andrew said nothing.
He didn't move.
But his jaw clenched.
The man shook Bella's hand, holding it just a second longer than necessary.
Andrew still didn't react. Not outwardly. I wasn't trained like that.
But his blood simmered. His pulse throbbed.
He watched as Bella lightly giggled and complimented the stranger's silver ring. He watched the man as he spoke softly over a case of new gemstone samples, and Bella nodded her head, listening to him attentively.
She didn't look back at Andrew once.
He pretended not to care. He shifted his weight, adjusted his suit jacket, and even glanced at the clock hanging above the shelves. Yet, every part of him was aware of the smile she offered the stranger, aware of how easily her laughter flowed when it wasn't for him.
Time stretched, Minutes blurred into hours, and his patience was at the edge. He should have left earlier. He had an important business meeting waiting at his company, a meeting that could very well determine the direction of the next quarter. His schedule was so tight today. His assistant had reminded him twice already through short messages on his phone. And yet, he stayed. He lingered in that shop longer than he should have, caught between duty and the quiet torture of watching Bella give her warmth so freely.
At last, he could no longer ignore the weight of responsibility pressing on him. With a slow breath, he straightened his posture. His hand brushed against the corner of the glass counter as he gave Bella one final look. She was still smiling, still talking, her delicate fingers pointing toward the few rings on the shelves.
Something unspoken clenched inside him, but he locked it away, deep beneath his calm exterior. Not now. Not here.
With that, he turned toward the door. The small bell chimed softly as he pushed it open. Outside, the world reminded him of who he was, not a man standing in a shop, silently envying a stranger, but a leader, a businessman with an empire to oversee. His car waited at the curb, and with each step away from Bella's shop, he forced his thoughts to align with the meeting ahead.
He slid into his car and drove off to his company.
The ride to his company was quiet, almost too calm. The city blurred past his window, neon signs, hurried pedestrians, the endless thrum of traffic. Yet none of it reached him. His mind was still back in that shop, tangled in the sound of Bella's laughter and the way she tilted her head while admiring something that wasn't his to give her.
He clenched his jaw, fingers curling into a loose fist on his knee. It was irrational, he told himself. Bella had the right to smile, to laugh, to speak to whomever she pleased. She wasn't bound to him. Not by words. Not by promises.
Not by anything. And still… The thought of her giving away those soft smiles that he craved made the air in the car feel heavier until he got to his company.
The towering glass building of his company loomed before him, sharp and commanding, a reflection of his own reputation. Inside these walls, he was untouchable. Powerful. Respected. No stranger's ring, no careless laugh could ever undermine the empire he had built with his own hands.
And yet… as he walked into the marble lobby, flanked by employees offering polite greetings that afternoon, he carried the weight of Bella's image with him like an invisible wound.
The meeting began promptly in the boardroom. Figures and charts filled the large screen, executives spoke in careful tones, and strategies were laid out with precision. He listened, responded, even led with the sharpness that was expected of him. To anyone else, he was the same man, collected, calculated, in complete control.
But beneath the mask, his thoughts drifted. Every time the room fell silent after one of his remarks, he heard Bella's laugh instead. Every time a glass of water was set before him, he remembered how she had leaned forward towards the stranger, her lips curving around words of admiration that weren't for him.
When the meeting finally adjourned, the others left with relieved faces, their notes and laptops tucked under their arms. He stayed behind, standing by the tall windows that overlooked the city. The sky was a dull shade of gray.
He let out a long breath, one he hadn't realized he was holding. What was Bella to him, truly? A friend? A companion? Or something far more dangerous, something he is scared to admit?
His phone buzzed in his pocket, snapping him back. He pulled it out, half-expecting to see a message from his assistant. But no. The name glowing on the screen was hers. Bella.
A single word. A single name. And suddenly, he let his guard down.
For a moment, he only stared at the screen. Her name pulsed softly in his hand. He hesitated not because he didn't want to hear her voice, but because he wanted it too much.
Finally, he swiped to answer.
"Bella." His voice came out low, restrained, the kind of tone he used in meetings when he wanted to sound composed. But inside, he was anything but.
"Oh, you picked up!" she said, her voice bright, almost playful. He could hear the faint clatter of her shop in the background, a drawer opening, the gentle hum of music.
"I just wanted to check if you… left already. You seemed a little quiet earlier."
He pressed his lips together. That was the word she had chosen. If only she knew the storm she had left in him.
"I had to leave," he said simply. "A meeting."
There was a pause. He could almost picture her tilting her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the way she always did when she was thinking. "Right. Important business." Her tone was teasing, but soft. Then, after a beat: "You didn't even say goodbye."
That hit him harder than he expected. He closed his eyes, gripping the phone tighter. "Would you have noticed, Bella? You seemed… busy."
She laughed lightly, unaware of the weight behind his words. "Oh, you mean with the customer? He had such an interesting ring. You should have seen it up close; it was carved with tiny patterns. I love little details like that."
Her words were innocent. Harmless. But to him, it wasn't.
"I saw," he muttered, almost more to himself than to her.
Another pause. This time, her voice softened. "Are you… upset with me?"
He turned from the window, pacing slowly across the room, the echo of his shoes filling the empty boardroom. He didn't know how to answer her. He didn't want to sound possessive, yet he couldn't lie either.
"No," he said finally, though his chest ached with restraint. "I'm just… distracted."
"Distracted," she repeated, her voice laced with curiosity. "By work? Or…"
She let the sentence trail off, leaving him in silence thick enough to feel. He could almost hear her smile through the phone, that knowing, playful curve of her lips she used when she wanted to draw something out of him.
He exhaled slowly, his composure thinning. "Bella." His voice dropped lower, rougher, carrying everything he couldn't bring himself to say outright.
"Yes, Andrew?" she whispered.
For a long heartbeat, he said nothing. The words hovered on the edge of his tongue, how her laughter haunted him, how he hated watching her give pieces of herself away so freely, how he wanted her attention only for himself. But he swallowed it all, forcing the storm back into silence.
"I'll see you soon," he said instead, before hanging up.
The screen went dark in his hand, but her voice lingered in his head, impossible to forget.