Chapter 5: The Customer

My bakery is a narrow shop on Fillmore with six tables, a front window, and my name painted on the glass in gold.

I opened it two years ago with money I had saved myself.

Dominic never asked me to close it, and I never asked him for a cent.

When I came through the back door at ten, the girl at the counter looked at me with wide eyes.

"He's been here twenty minutes," she whispered. "He bought a loaf and won't leave."

Bruno Pace sat at the table by the window with a cup of coffee and a bag of sourdough in front of him.

He was a heavy man with silver rings on three fingers, and he wore a gray coat that must have cost more than my oven.

He stood when I came out.

I nodded at him to sit, and he waited until I did.

"Mrs. Ventresca. I won't keep you."

"Mr. Pace. What do you want?"

"To say I'm sorry about last night. A thing like that shouldn't happen in front of the men."

"It happened in front of the men because he chose to do it in front of the men."

"True." He smiled kindly. "He's a fool, and his father would have said so. I think it's a shame when a woman has to carry something alone."

"I'm not carrying anything."

Keep reading free with an account. Start After My Heart Died, The Don Begged Crying at My Feet from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.