Page 39 of Brewing Up My Fresh Start (Twin Waves #2)

NINETEEN

MICHELLE

T he coffee cup slips from my fingers, ceramic shattering against the hardwood floor with a sound that echoes through my empty apartment like a gunshot.

The dark liquid spreads across the boards, seeping into every crack and crevice, permanent stains that will remind me of this moment long after I’ve swept up the pieces.

I’m not ready for the kind of relationship that can survive professional complications.

His words loop through my mind on endless repeat, each iteration cutting deeper than the last. Seven years of careful rebuilding, of learning to trust again, of believing that maybe—just maybe—I’d found a man who saw me as more than disposable when things got inconvenient.

I was wrong. Again.

I sink to my knees, picking up ceramic shards with trembling hands while my chest contracts around the familiar ache of betrayal.

Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Another man who built intimacy to serve his own purposes, then discarded me the moment our connection threatened his professional interests.

The clinical language he used to dissect our relationship sits like acid in my throat. As if what we shared was nothing more than a liability to be managed, a risk to be mitigated, a complication to be resolved.

Exactly like David.

My phone buzzes against the coffee table. Jessica’s name lights up the screen, but I can’t face her knowing sympathy right now. Can’t handle the gentle questions about how I’m processing this latest demonstration that my judgment in men remains flawed.

Another buzz. Then another. The concerned cavalry assembles, no doubt alerted by whatever gossip network carries news of personal disasters at light speed through Twin Waves. In a town this size, relationship drama becomes community property before the principals finish having it.

I ignore the phone and focus on cleaning up the mess.

Methodical, careful movements give my hands something to do while my brain attempts to process the fact that I’ve been an idiot twice in one lifetime.

That I actually believed Grayson Reed might be different from every other man who’s ever decided my feelings were secondary to his ambitions.

The apartment feels smaller suddenly, the walls pressing closer as my carefully constructed independence reveals itself as the house of cards it’s always been.

Because that’s the real knife twist here—not just that he chose professional safety over personal risk, but that he made me want things I’d sworn off.

Made me believe partnership could exist without exploitation.

Made me think I’d learned to recognize genuine connection from manipulation disguised as intimacy.

A sharp knock interrupts my spiral into self-recrimination. Then another, more insistent.

“Michelle? I know you’re in there.” Jessica’s voice carries through the door.

“I’m fine,” I call back, my voice cracking on the lie.

“Right. That’s why you ignored six texts and sound like you’ve been gargling glass.”

I consider pretending to be sick, claiming I need solitude to recover from whatever fictional ailment might justify emotional unavailability. But Jessica knows me too well, and my lies have never been particularly convincing under pressure.

The lock turns with a soft click—because of course she still has my spare key from when the dog got into the garbage and I needed backup while cleaning up the disaster.

“Oh, honey.” Jessica’s voice softens when she sees me crouched on the floor, surrounded by ceramic debris and coffee stains that have already started setting into the wood grain. “What happened?”

“Professional complications,” I say, the words bitter as burnt espresso. “Apparently our collaboration created vulnerabilities that needed to be managed.”

Jessica’s expression hardens with the kind of protective fury that makes her dangerous to anyone who hurts people she loves. “He said that to you?”

“Among other things. Turns out mixing business with personal relationships is professionally irresponsible. Who knew?”

I continue collecting pottery shards, grateful for the task that prevents me from having to meet her eyes. Because looking at Jessica means seeing my own heartbreak reflected back, and I’m not ready for that level of emotional honesty yet.

“Michelle, look at me.”

I don’t.

“Sweetie, please look at me.”

Reluctantly, I raise my head. Jessica’s sitting cross-legged on my couch, her dark eyes bright with unshed tears and barely contained rage.

“What exactly did he say?”

So I tell her. The whole devastating conversation.

“He said he wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship that could survive professional complications,” I finish, my voice steady now because numbness has finally kicked in to protect me from the worst of the pain.

“That’s...” Jessica searches for words, her hands clenching into fists. “That’s not what people say when they’re scared. That’s what people say when they’re cutting you loose.”

“Exactly.” The confirmation shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. “Clean, efficient, emotionally sanitized. Very professional.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Please don’t. I need my best friend to visit me in coffee shops, not in prison.”

Jessica doesn’t laugh at my attempt at levity. Instead, she stands up and starts pacing my small living room.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she says finally. “The man who bought every property on Main Street to prevent chain stores from moving in doesn’t suddenly decide that community partnership is too risky.”

“Maybe the chain store prevention was just good business sense. Protecting his investment in local character.”

“Or maybe something else is going on that you don’t know about.”

I shake my head, sweeping the last of the ceramic into my palm. “You sound like me three relationships ago, making excuses for behavior that speaks for itself.”

“I know. But Michelle?—”

“But nothing. He made his choice. Professional interests over personal feelings. Timeline concerns over relationship complications. Everything I swore I’d never let anyone make me feel again.”

My voice breaks on the last words because the truth is devastating: I did this to myself. Ignored every warning sign, dismissed every protective instinct, allowed attraction to override hard-earned wisdom about the dangers of trusting men with both my heart and my business.

“So what happens now?” Jessica asks quietly.

“Now I remember why I spent seven years building walls instead of bridges. Why I chose independence over partnership, safety over risk, protecting what I have over reaching for what I want.”

“And professionally?”

The question I’ve been avoiding. Because Grayson and I developed those grant applications together. Our collaboration created solutions that could save my coffee shop while serving his development goals. Walking away means losing access to everything we built together.

But staying means accepting that I’m disposable when convenient and essential when useful.

“I’ll figure it out on my own. Like I should have done from the beginning.”

Jessica settles beside me on the floor, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“You don’t have to figure everything out today,” she says, her voice gentle now that the initial fury has passed. “You just have to get through today. Tomorrow we can plot revenge or world domination, whatever feels more therapeutic.”

Despite everything, I almost smile. “Revenge sounds exhausting.”

“World domination it is then.”

We sit in comfortable silence while the afternoon light shifts across my apartment, highlighting coffee stains that will require professional cleaning and emotional damage that will require significantly more time and energy to repair.

“Jess?”

“Yeah?”

“I really thought he was different.”

“I know, honey. I did too.”

The admission hits harder than expected because Jessica’s judgment in people is usually excellent. If she thought Grayson was genuine, if she believed our connection was real...

“What does that say about us?” I ask. “That we both read him so wrong?”

“Maybe we didn’t read him wrong. Maybe he’s reading himself wrong.”

“You think he’s lying to himself about his motivations?”

“I think people do stupid things when they’re scared. And Grayson Reed strikes me as a guy who’s very, very scared of needing people.”

The observation settles uncomfortably in my chest because it explains too much. The careful emotional distance. The way he pulled back whenever our collaboration became too intimate. The clinical language he used to end things between us.

But understanding his fear doesn’t excuse the choice he made. Doesn’t change the fact that when forced to choose between professional safety and personal risk, he chose exactly what I expected him to choose.

What every man in my life has chosen when the stakes got high enough.

“Maybe,” I say finally. “But scared people who hurt other people to protect themselves are still people who hurt other people.”

“True.”

My phone buzzes again. Then again. The concerned messages pile up as Twin Waves’ unofficial communication network spreads news of whatever drama people witnessed between Grayson and me.

“We should probably make an appearance downstairs,” Jessica says, reading my expression. “Let people see that you’re functioning before the gossip gets completely out of hand.”

“I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to. Just smile and make coffee and let everyone see that Michelle Lawson is exactly as strong as they’ve always known her to be.”

The suggestion terrifies me because I’m not sure I am that strong anymore.

Seven years of rebuilding my independence, my confidence, my ability to function without relying on anyone else for emotional stability, and Grayson managed to undermine all of it in a few weeks of coffee shop collaboration and heated glances that apparently meant nothing.