Chapter 4
Caleb froze solid.
Five seconds passed. Then he spun around and yanked open the fridge door.
"I — let me see what we've got for breakfast! Just sit down, don't push yourself trying to remember anything!"
I watched him flee into the kitchen. He's lying. I'm sure of it now.
I spent the rest of the day watching him, careful not to make it obvious.
He claimed we'd lived together for three years, but every time he handed me a glass of water, his fingers never touched mine.
That afternoon he made an excuse to check the shop and reminded me on his way out that there was food in the fridge I liked.
The second the lock clicked, I tore through the apartment. Out-of-print titles I'd mentioned wanting to read. Brand-new dresses in the closet, all exactly my size.
At dinner I dropped the question without warning. "Where did we go on our first date?"
He stalled. Hedged. Couldn't land on a single place.
Too many cracks in this story.
At two in the morning I was still awake, staring at the ceiling.
Caleb had taken the couch, claiming I needed the rest.
That kind of careful, deliberate distance didn't feel like people who'd shared three years together. It felt like a performance.
I got up for water and found the kitchen light still on. Caleb stood at the espresso machine, his back to me, shoulders tight.
"Teach me latte art?" I came up beside him quietly. "Maybe it'll shake something loose."
He hesitated, then nodded.
"Hold it like this." He stepped behind me, reaching around to guide my hands without quite touching them — hovering. "Relax your wrist."
He was too close. I shifted back an inch on purpose, pressing my shoulder blades against his chest.
His breath caught. "The — the foam density has to be just right—"
Beep. The timer went off.
He jumped back like he'd been burned. "You practice! I'll grab a towel—"
But he didn't make it out of the kitchen.
I turned and looked straight at him — his ears red to the tips — and said it plainly. "Caleb. If we've really been together for three years, why are you scared to touch me?"
He stopped in the shadow of the hallway, back still to me. A long moment passed.
"You're hurt," he said quietly. "I don't want to make it worse. Go get some sleep."
Back in the bedroom, I lay there and couldn't settle. I was almost drifting when voices from the living room pulled me back sharp.
Caleb was on the phone. The apartment was dead quiet, and even with his voice pitched low, every word reached me.
"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. Every time I look at her, I feel like the worst person alive."
Keep this up.
I held my breath and slipped out of bed, moving silently to the door.
"She can't find out the truth. If she remembers — if she finds out what my family did to hers — she'll hate me. She'll have every right to."
My heart seized. What his family did to mine?
"Never mind. I'll handle it myself. Once her memory comes back, I'll disappear." A short, hollow laugh. "I don't deserve her. I never did. She's been the light in my life since we were kids. But right now... just let me take care of her for a few more days."
The call ended.
Through the gap in the door I could see him — sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, both hands pressed over his face. His broad shoulders shook. No sound came out.
I stepped back into the dark and didn't sleep until morning.
The soft sounds from the living room came just after dawn. Caleb's footsteps were careful and slow, like he was trying not to wake me.
"I'm going to grab breakfast," he said from the other side of the door. "Sleep a little longer."
"Okay." I made my voice soft and foggy, like I'd barely surfaced.
The deadbolt turned. I was up before the echo faded.
In daylight, the apartment told a different story.
Italian leather on the couch. A custom chandelier. And behind the bar, the espresso machine I'd clocked immediately — a La Marzocco Linea PB. Thirty thousand dollars if it was a cent.
No regular barista owned one of those.
I went straight to the study and pushed the door open.
The desk was neat, folders lined up with the kind of precision that looks like habit.
I flipped open the top one, and the gold logo stopped me cold.
Vance Family Coffee Imports.
The largest specialty coffee importer on the West Coast. A stranglehold on Seattle's supply chain — a dozen roasting facilities, maybe more.
I kept going, my pulse climbing.
A few folders down, an employment contract slid out — from the roasting plant where my father had worked for years.
The signature on the authorizing line read: Caleb Vance.
My father had been working for Caleb's family this whole time.
I flipped faster.
Donation records. Equipment invoices. And then a thick stack of photographs — every latte art competition I'd entered, every single one, with wire transfer receipts clipped to each page.
The anonymous sponsor who had funded my competition career for years.
It had been him. All of it.
My legs gave out. I dropped into the desk chair.
The sound of a key in the front lock snapped me back.
I shoved the folders into place, bolted out of the study, threw myself onto the living room couch, and pulled a blanket over myself in roughly three seconds.
Caleb came through the door carrying a brown paper bag. "Sophie? You're up?"
"Just woke up." I pushed my hair back, going for casual. "I was wandering around a little — trying to find something familiar."
His face shifted in an instant. His eyes cut straight to the study door and the look on his face was panic underneath a thin coat of calm. "Did you... find anything?"
I knew everything now. Every card he was holding.
I looked up at him from the couch and asked it simply. "Caleb, what does your family do?"
"Just business."
He wouldn't meet my eyes. He turned away, setting the bag down on the kitchen island, reaching for the coffee grinder. "Nothing worth getting into. What do you feel like drinking?"
I got up and followed him.
"Caleb."
The hand holding the beans went still.
"I want to know the truth."
