Lemon Cake for a Girl Who Wouldn’t Eat

Chapter 03 - Lemon Cake for a Girl Who Wouldn’t Eat

Sofia stopped laughing.

The change was so complete it was almost violent.

She did not cry or flinch. She simply folded herself inward, shoulders rounding, chin lowering, the way children do when adults have made fear familiar.

Matteo stepped in front of her.

“You don’t speak to her.”

Rossi spread his hands.

“I came for coffee.”

“You don’t drink coffee from places you plan to burn.”

I looked at Matteo.

Burn.

The word moved through my bakery with its own weather.

Rossi’s smile thinned. “You always were dramatic.”

“And you always came in through clean doors after other men broke them.”

Alessia touched Sofia’s shoulder. The girl did not pull away, but she did not lean in either.

I hated Rossi immediately.

Not because he was threatening. I had met threatening men. Threatening men wanted you to know what they could do.

Rossi wanted everyone to wonder.

He looked around at the pastry case, the espresso machine, the old brass scale near the window.

“Nice shop,” he said. “A little old.”

“It outlived better-dressed men than you,” I said.

Matteo turned his head just enough for me to see the warning in his eye.

Do not.

Naturally, I continued.

“And it opens at four. You want something, order it or leave.”

Rossi looked delighted.

“Does she know?” he asked Matteo.

“Leave.”

“Does the baker know why your niece hasn’t spoken properly in three months? Does she know why your sister walks behind you like she expects a bullet from the wallpaper?”

Alessia’s face tightened.

Sofia stared at the floor.

Matteo moved so fast I barely saw his hand close around the front of Rossi’s coat.

No gun.

No shouting.

Just two powerful men suddenly sharing the same inch of air.

The customers near the window froze.

“Not here,” Rossi murmured.

“No,” Matteo said. “Not anywhere.”

Rossi’s eyes flicked toward the blue tin.

“You open that, and you open the old settlement. Your father bled to close it.”

“My father bled people for sport.”

“He also kept your family alive.”

The front door opened again.

A woman in a wool cap stepped inside, saw the scene, and immediately stepped back out.

I reached beneath the counter and pressed the silent alarm I had installed after a man tried to rob me with a screwdriver two Christmases ago.

It called the police.

I knew police and men like Matteo had complicated relationships. I did not care. Complicated was better than dead.

Matteo saw my hand move.

So did Rossi.

For one second, Rossi looked genuinely amused.

“You called help?”

“She sells cake,” Matteo said. “She doesn’t know our rules.”

“I know enough rules,” I said. “Rule one, don’t threaten children before breakfast.”

Sofia looked up.

Her eyes found mine.

Something passed between us. Not trust. Trust was too big.

Recognition, maybe.

I had been fifteen when my mother died and adults began talking about me in careful voices that hurt worse than honesty. I knew the humiliation of being treated like a breakable object after already breaking.

Rossi buttoned his coat.

“You have until Friday,” he told Matteo.

“For what?” Alessia asked.

“To put the tin away and announce the engagement Mama arranged.”

I looked at Matteo.

“Engagement?”

He did not look at me.

Rossi smiled again. “Don’t tell me he forgot to mention why he needed a fake girlfriend.”

Alessia whispered, “Rossi.”

He ignored her.

“The Vescari and Moretti families will merge through marriage. A respectable girl from a useful bloodline. Unless Matteo wants people remembering the bakery girl his father loved before he married obedience.”

The room seemed to tilt.

My grandmother.

His father.

Loved.

The word landed where flour had landed before, but it did not make anyone laugh.

Rossi left just before the first patrol car rolled past the window, slow and curious.

Matteo watched the street until Rossi disappeared.

Then he turned to me.

“You shouldn’t have heard that.”

“I hear plenty at this counter.”

“This is not gossip.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

Sofia had moved to the display case again.

She was looking at the lemon cake, but not with hunger.

With longing.

I cut her a slice and set it on a plate.

She did not take it.

“It’s not poisoned,” I said. “Just overbaked on one side.”

Matteo gave me a look.

“What? Honesty builds character.”

Slowly, Sofia sat at the small table by the window.

She took the fork.

A bite.

Then another.

Her eyes closed.

Alessia covered her mouth, but not before I saw it tremble.

“What happened to her mother?” I asked quietly.

Matteo’s gaze remained on Sofia.

“My brother’s wife disappeared three months ago.”

“Your brother?”

“Dead,” Alessia said. “Before she vanished.”

I looked at Sofia.

The girl was eating cake like she had forgotten food could be kind.

“Disappeared how?”

Matteo finally looked at me.

“That depends on who is telling the story.”

“And who do you believe?”

His answer came after a long pause.

“I believe Sofia stopped speaking the day her mother disappeared, and Rossi knows why.”

Sofia’s fork dropped against the plate.

We all turned.

She was staring at the blue tin.

On her cheek, one tear had fallen without permission.

“My mother had the same photograph,” she whispered.

Matteo went still.

“What did you say?”

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Sofia looked at him, terrified by her own voice.

“My mother said if anything happened to her, I should find the woman who keeps the lemon cake.”