Page 9 of Brewing Up My Fresh Start (Twin Waves #2)

“Is it always this chaotic?” he asks, but his focus is fixed on my face with an intensity that makes maintaining pleasant composure feel like physical labor.

“The fall gets busier,” I admit, settling behind my desk and immediately regretting it when he takes the chair across from me. Now we’re close enough that I can see the shadow of stubble along his jaw, can feel the dangerous pull of attraction disguised as community development.

He spreads his research across my desk, and I’m struck by the intimacy of it—these pages he printed in the small hours because of what I said, because of me.

“This is exceptional work,” I say, examining his articles while trying to ignore how his proximity makes my pulse race. “Incredibly thorough research. You clearly invested significant effort in understanding the agricultural challenges.”

“I spent the night trying to figure out what makes you so passionate about this place,” he says quietly, and the admission hits like lightning through my composure.

I look up to find him watching me with an expression that’s part challenge, part confession, and entirely dangerous to my equilibrium.

“Twin Waves is home,” I say simply, though my voice wavers. “It’s worth protecting.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asks, leaning forward slightly. “Protecting Twin Waves?”

The question carries weight that has nothing to do with municipal planning. Heat builds in my cheeks as his eyes hold mine with uncomfortable intensity.

“Of course. Community preservation is?—”

“Michelle.” My name rumbles out of him, low and sharp, cutting through my chatter like a blade. “Stop.”

“What?” My voice shrinks, stripped of its brightness.

“Stop hiding behind… all that.” He gestures vaguely, like he can’t bring himself to say the word pleasantness .

The words slam into me. My smile falters before I can glue it back into place. “I’m not hiding. I’m being?—”

“Professional,” he finishes, the word flat. Then softer—almost reluctant—“Is that what you call the way you keep looking at me?”

My heart stutters. “I look at all community partners with the same level of appropriate?—”

“Appropriate what?” His brow lifts, his voice rough. “Because the way you go breathless every time I walk through that door doesn’t read very… appropriate.”

Heat crawls up my neck. He’s been watching. Cataloguing. Noticing things I didn’t even admit to myself.

“That’s—I don’t—” The sunshine slips.

“You felt it yesterday.” His tone is quiet but unshakable, like he’s stating a fact. “When we argued preservation versus development. The air changed.”

“We were talking about zoning,” I whisper.

“We were circling each other,” he corrects. His jaw tightens. “Like two people too stubborn to admit what’s happening.”

“Don’t.” My voice cracks, raw.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make this complicated.”

Silence stretches. His eyes pin me, unreadable. Then, rougher than before: “It’s already complicated. Has been since you walked into that first meeting, all sunshine and certainty, making me rethink things I didn’t want to rethink.”

The confession knocks the air out of me. My composure scatters like spilled sugar.

“Grayson—”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” His voice drops, unsteady now. “Tell me I’m imagining the way you light up and then hide behind that fake smile the second you see me.”

I should retreat, armor back up. Instead, I lean closer, pulled into his orbit.

“You’re impossible to work with,” I breathe.

“And you’re so relentlessly cheerful it’s borderline criminal.”

“You argue with every idea I have.”

“Your ideas make me want to break rules I shouldn’t even be thinking about.”

The honesty steals my breath. We’re too close now, heat sparking between us.

“This is such a terrible idea,” I whisper.

“The worst,” he agrees gruffly—but he doesn’t move back. Neither do I.

A knock on the door explodes through the moment like a grenade.

“Michelle?” Caroline’s voice carries through the wood with cheerful destruction. “Amber and Brett are researching wedding venues, and Grandma Hensley is asking if you’re planning to attend tonight’s town council session!”

I jerk back, the spell shattered, reality crashing over me like arctic water.

“Tell them I’ll be right out!” I call, but my voice is shaky and unconvincing.

“And she wants to know if Mr. Reed will be there too!” comes Grandma Hensley’s pointed addition.

Grayson lets out a laugh—low, rough, and so unexpected it sends my pulse skittering. He pushes to his feet, straightening his shirt with sharp, efficient movements. “Figures,” he mutters, almost to himself.

“Figures what?” I ask, hating how breathless I sound.

At the door, he glances back, eyes locking on mine with unsettling intensity. His jaw ticks once before he says, voice low and unpolished, “You’re not what you look like.” A beat. “Too much fire under all that shine.”

And then he’s gone, leaving the faint trace of his cologne—and me staring after him, heart racing, with the awful, exhilarating suspicion that my so-called composure isn’t armor at all. It’s tinder.

B y six o’clock, I’m climbing the narrow wooden stairs to my apartment, each creaking step a reminder that this building has survived longer than I have—unlike my carefully maintained equilibrium, which Grayson demolished in under an hour.

My apartment opens into a space that’s equal parts sanctuary and evidence of my romantic delusions.

The living room showcases Jo’s rescued furniture: a deep blue velvet sofa found abandoned behind the ferry terminal, a coffee table that started life as a ship’s hatch cover, and bookshelves converted from old ship ladders.

Those shelves hold my completely reasonable collection of four hundred romance novels, every single one ending with a lady getting adored by a man who initially seemed impossible to love.

I’m contemplating this uncomfortable parallel when my phone buzzes.

Jessica: Emergency. Your place. Bringing wine.

She’s pounding up my stairs before I can respond, bursting through my door with wine and a predatory expression.

She also waves a manila envelope like a warrant. “Caroline said Penelope dropped this on your counter after the meeting.” A sticky note clings to the flap in elegant loops: Deadlines gallop. —P. “ Something happened with Grayson Reed,” she announces without preamble. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

“Nothing happened,” I say automatically, though my pulse quickens just hearing his name. “Professional meeting about community development.”

Jessica stares at me with incredulity, then gestures at my romance novel shrine. “You’re surrounded by stories about brooding developers and sunshine heroines, and you expect me to believe your private meeting resulted in discussing drainage systems?”

“Those are entertainment,” I protest weakly.

“Entertainment with highlighting and sticky notes marking every scene where the hero admits he’s been fighting attraction since page one.” She pours wine. “Caroline live-tweeted your morning romantic warfare.”

My stomach drops. “She what?”

“ Michelle emerged from the steam cloud looking like she survived flirtatious combat while Grayson watches with predatory satisfaction, ” Jessica reads from her phone. “ Tension thick enough to require industrial ventilation. ”

Heat floods my cheeks. “She did not?—”

“She did. Forty-three likes and Mrs. Hensley started a betting pool—fifty dollars on a HEA by Halloween.”

I collapse onto my rescued sofa, surrounded by hundreds of romance heroes who suddenly feel like they’re judging my denial.

“He’s impossible to work with,” I manage. “Arrogant. Completely inflexible.”

Jessica plucks a dog-eared novel from my shelf and flips to a highlighted passage. “ She told herself his arrogance was insufferable, but when he looked at her with those dark eyes that seemed to see through her carefully constructed walls, her pulse raced with longing she refused to name. ”

I stare at her in horror.

“Your margin note here says, and I quote: Yes. The way he sees through her defenses is so hot. ” She fixes me with a knowing look. “Research notes?”

I grab the book and slam it shut. “Character analysis.”

“You’ve created a shrine to happily-ever-after filled with stories about impossible men who challenge sunshine heroines until they burn brighter than they ever imagined possible.

” Jessica settles beside me with wine. “And when presented with your very own impossible man who clearly wants to tear down every professional boundary between you, your response is soil composition?”

“His research was thorough,” I whisper.

Jessica laughs—pure delight mixed with exasperation. “Men don’t research coastal agriculture at two AM for professional obstacles. They research it for women they’re trying to understand, impress, or date.”

I glance around my apartment, really seeing it: the romance collection organized by subgenre, the reading nook with perfect lighting, the vintage clothes chosen to make me feel like a heroine.

“Oh,” I breathe. “I really am living in a romance novel.”

“Enemies-to-lovers with small-town matchmakers,” Jessica confirms happily. “You’ve got betting pools, live commentary, and a brooding developer who spent all night researching your passionate interests.”

I lean against my mint green vintage refrigerator. “Even if there were attraction—which there isn’t—it would be impossible. He’s sophisticated, successful. Probably dates women who wear designer everything.”

“You’re gorgeous, brilliant, and built a thriving business from nothing,” Jessica counters firmly. “Jerry Hutchins walked into a glass door because you smiled at him when you were wearing that yellow dress.”

“He has depth perception issues.”

“He has Michelle Lawson issues. Don’t underestimate your power.”

Jessica refills our glasses with a satisfied smirk. “Based on Caroline’s intelligence, this is about to get very interesting.”

Outside, the waves crash onto the beach as tourists pack up for the night. But inside, surrounded by hundreds of happily-ever-afters and Jessica’s knowing smile, I suspect my carefully controlled life is about to become beautifully, terrifyingly complicated.

And despite every rational thought, the part of me that’s spent years reading about impossible men who turn out to be exactly what their heroines need is terrified to discover I might be looking forward to it.