Our Sweet Bitter Contract

Naomi

The little brass bell above the door chimes, a cheerful sound that slices through the quiet of my closing-time routine. I don’t look up. My hands are deep in a cloud of flour, shaping the last sourdough boule of the day. The scent of yeast and warm sugar hangs in the air, my own personal heaven.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” I say, my voice muffled by the concentration it takes to get the tension just right. A perfect loaf is a small, controllable victory in a world full of variables.

“Hello, Naomi.”

The voice isn’t a customer’s. It’s a ghost’s. It’s the voice I hear in dreams, the one that belonged to a boy with sun-streaked hair and a promise on his lips. My hands freeze in the dough. My heart seizes, a painful, violent clench in my chest. Slowly, I lift my head.

He stands just inside the door, a silhouette against the fading afternoon light. But this is no boy. The man is tall, broad-shouldered, and encased in a suit so black it seems to drink the light from the room. His hair is shorter, darker, and his jaw is set with a hardness I’ve never seen before. The easy smile is gone, replaced by a cool, unreadable mask. Six years have chiseled him into a stranger.

“Jacob?” The name is a breath, a prayer, a curse. It feels foreign on my tongue after so long.

He takes a step forward, his expensive leather shoes silent on my worn wooden floor. “It’s Renner now. Jacob Renner.”

His eyes, the same impossible blue I remember, sweep over my bakery. They take in the mismatched chairs, the chalkboard menu with my looping cursive, the cooling racks filled with croissants and scones. His expression is one of detached assessment, like a developer surveying a property before demolition.

“What are you doing here?” My voice is stronger now, fueled by a sudden surge of white-hot anger that burns away the shock. “How did you even find me?”

“I have resources,” he says, his tone clipped and devoid of warmth. “Finding a small bakery in a quiet town wasn’t difficult.”

“You’ve been gone six years,” I say, wiping my floured hands on my apron, a useless, trembling gesture. “Six years, Jacob. No call. No letter. Nothing. I thought you were dead.”

“Circumstances changed.” He stops at the counter, placing a sleek black briefcase on the glass that separates us. It clicks open with a sound that feels obscene in the cozy quiet of my shop. “I’m not here to reminisce.”

“Then why are you here? To see the mess you left behind?” The bitterness tastes like ash in my mouth.

He doesn’t flinch. He just looks at me with those cold, calculating eyes. “I’m here for my son.”

The world tilts. The floor drops out from under me. I grip the edge of the wooden counter to keep from collapsing. “What did you just say?”

“Leo,” he says, and the sound of my son’s name from his lips is a violation. “He’s five years old. His birthday is October twelfth. He has my eyes. And he is my son.”

“He is my son,” I whisper, the words fierce, protective. “Mine. You have no right.”

He reaches into his briefcase and slides a thick file across the counter. It’s bound in expensive leather. My name is embossed on the front in gold foil. “I have every right. Open it.”

My hands shake so badly I can barely unclip the clasp. Inside, the first page is a copy of Leo’s birth certificate. Father’s name: blank. The second is a detailed report from a private investigator, complete with pictures of me pushing Leo on the swings at the park, of us sharing an ice cream cone. My stomach churns. I’ve been watched. Hunted. The last document is a DNA analysis. A ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent probability of paternity.

“How?” I choke out, staring at the clinical, damning numbers.

“The cup he left at the park playground yesterday. Again, resources, Naomi.”

I slam the file shut. “You son of a bitch. You have no idea what you walked away from. You don’t get to show up six years later and do this.”

“I do,” he says, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. “And I will. Which brings me to the reason I’m here. I’m giving you a choice.”

“A choice?” I laugh, a hysterical, broken sound. “You don’t get to give me anything.”

“Listen very carefully,” he continues, ignoring my outburst as if I were a child having a tantrum. “There are two paths forward from this moment. In the first, you will marry me by the end of this week. We will provide a stable, two-parent home for our son. He will have my name. He will have everything.”

I stare at him, speechless. The audacity, the sheer, cold-blooded arrogance of it steals the air from my lungs. “And the second option?” I finally manage to ask, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

His expression darkens. “In the second option, I deploy the full weight of Renner Incorporated’s legal division to sue you for sole and exclusive custody of Leo. They are the best lawyers money can buy. They have never lost a case. You, on the other hand,” he gestures dismissively around my bakery, “run a charming but barely profitable business. You live in a small apartment above that business. A judge will look at my resources, my ability to provide for him, and they will look at yours. I will win, Naomi. I guarantee it. You will see your son on weekends, if you’re lucky.”

Every word is a hammer blow, cracking the foundations of the life I have so carefully built for my son and me. This isn’t Jacob. This is a monster wearing his face.

“You would do that?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. “You would take a child from his mother?”

“I would take my child from a situation I deem unstable and insufficient,” he corrects me, his voice like ice. “To give him the life he deserves.”

“Mommy?”

A small voice cuts through the tension. I turn, and my heart breaks all over again. Leo stands in the doorway to the back room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He’s clutching a crayon drawing, his little face a mixture of confusion and curiosity. He has Jacob’s eyes. Looking from one to the other is like looking at a reflection in a shattered mirror.

Jacob’s gaze locks onto him. For the first time, his cold composure cracks. I see a flicker of something in his expression, something raw and unguarded. It looks like hunger. It looks like possession. He sees a legacy, an heir, a thing to be acquired.

“Who’s that man?” Leo asks, pointing a chubby finger at Jacob.

“He’s just a customer, sweetie,” I lie, my voice trembling. “Go back and play. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Leo hesitates, his eyes wide as he stares at the imposing stranger. Then he nods and disappears back into the kitchen.

The silence he leaves behind is heavy, suffocating. Jacob’s eyes are back on me, the momentary flicker of emotion gone, the mask firmly back in place.

“He’s perfect,” Jacob says, the words low and final. “My decision is made.”

“This isn’t a business deal, Jacob! This is my life. This is our son’s life!”

“It is absolutely a business deal,” he counters smoothly. “The most important one of my life. This arrangement will, of course, require some adjustments on my part. I’ll need to dissolve my current engagement. It’s for the best. Lily was never suited to be a mother.”

He says the name, Lily, with such casual dismissal it’s chilling. He’s talking about ending an engagement to another woman as if it’s a line item on a budget, an inconvenient contract to be terminated. I am just the next contract to be signed.

“You’re engaged?” The question is stupid, irrelevant, but it escapes me anyway.

“Not for long,” he says, his focus entirely on his plan. “Once we are married, you will sell this place. It’s a nice little hobby, but you won’t have time for it anymore. Your focus will be on raising my heir.”

A hobby. He just called my passion, my livelihood, the thing I poured my broken heart into, a hobby. The insult is so profound, so dismissive, it momentarily eclipses the terror. A tiny, defiant spark ignites in the wreckage of my soul. One day, I think, I will make him eat those words.

“You can’t just buy a family, Jacob.”

“I can,” he says with absolute certainty. “I’m buying my son’s future. You are simply part of the price.” He closes his briefcase and picks it up, the meeting clearly over.

“I hate you,” I say, the words raw and true.

“Your feelings are irrelevant to the outcome,” he replies, turning to leave. He pauses at the door. “You have twenty-four hours to give my lawyer your answer. But we both know there is only one answer you can give. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Naomi. For Leo’s sake.”

The brass bell chimes as he walks out, its cheerful sound a final, mocking punctuation to the destruction of my world. I stand frozen, staring at the empty doorway, the scent of his expensive cologne lingering in the air, a poison corrupting the sweet smell of my bakery.

I look down at my hands, still coated in a thin layer of flour and dried dough. My entire life is here, in this room. My work, my independence, my safety.

“Mommy, are you crying?”

Leo is back, his drawing of two stick figures, a woman and a boy holding hands under a smiling sun, clutched in his fist. I sink to my knees and pull him into a hug, burying my face in his soft hair, breathing in his little-boy smell of crayons and milk.

He is my world. And the ghost from my past has just returned to burn it to the ground.