Page 17 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll

TESSA

T he whispers are louder today.

They move through the village like wildfire licking up dry leaves, bright and fast and impossible to ignore. Bits and pieces drift into my shop with every customer who walks through the door—snatches of gossip tucked between compliments on wreaths and casual mentions of harvest jams.

“They say Thornhold's buying up the east side.”

“Heard it from the bakery girl—her cousin’s neighbor signed over his land just last night.”

“Slick move, that one. Builds us up just to tear it down.”

I keep my smile wide and my voice syrupy sweet, but inside, something’s unraveling, thread by thread.

Because no matter how much I want to believe Drogath would never, could never—there’s too many signs now. Too much silence. Too many almost-confessions and soft eyes that come with sealed lips.

By the time I close the shop, my fingers are shaking as I twist the key in the lock. The bell above the door gives its usual farewell chime, but tonight it sounds different—off. Hollow, like a goodbye I didn’t see coming.

I find him exactly where I expect—leaning against the hood of his truck just outside the inn, arms folded, sleeves rolled up, jaw tight like he's bracing for a storm. Which is fair. Because I am a storm, and I’ve had enough of waiting for the truth to walk in politely.

“You lied to me,” I snap as soon as I’m close enough, not bothering with a hello.

He straightens, a slow, careful motion like he’s approaching a skittish animal. “Tessa?—”

“No, no, no. Don’t use that voice, Drogath. The one where you try to be calm so I calm down. I’m not here to be managed, I’m here to be heard. ” I jab my finger at his chest—not that it does much good against a wall of solid orc muscle, but it makes me feel like I still have control over something.

“I heard it all over town today. People saying you are behind the new development. That you have your name on the purchase papers. And the worst part? I don’t even know if they’re wrong.”

His mouth opens, then closes. Not fast enough.

Not nearly fast enough.

“Gods,” I laugh bitterly, wrapping my arms around my chest to keep the pieces in. “You really aren’t going to deny it, are you?”

“I was trying to stop it,” he says at last, voice low and flat like it’s being pulled out of him through gravel. “I didn’t want to scare you with half-truths.”

“Oh, well, great. Instead you let me walk blindfolded straight into betrayal.” I pace away from him, then whirl back around, heat rising up my throat like smoke.

“You let the town think you were their savior while you were buying up land with one hand and stringing me along with the other. How convenient.”

“I’m not stringing you along,” he growls, but there’s no fire behind it. Just cold control. He’s retreating into that version of himself I hate —the quiet, business-faced shadow that speaks in polished edges and silence.

I shake my head. “You think you’re protecting me, but you’re just controlling the damage. Again. You’re deciding what parts of the truth I’m allowed to see, what parts of my life are still mine. ”

“Tessa, stop.”

“No,” I snap. “You don’t get to shut me down like I’m some underling at a board meeting. I’m not one of your employees. I’m not some land parcel you can protect with red tape and secrecy.”

His face hardens, mouth flattening into that unreadable mask that used to make headlines when he was still stomping through cities and building empires like he could muscle the world into something quiet.

And that’s what shatters me.

Not the silence.

Not the lies.

But the fact that I can see him slipping back into that man—closed-off, unreachable, carved from stone and wrapped in ambition.

“Say something,” I whisper, hating how small I sound. “Say anything. ”

But he doesn’t. Or maybe he can’t.

And that silence? It breaks the last thread holding me together.

I turn and walk away, fast, furious, blinking hard against tears that sting like windburn.

He doesn’t follow.

By the time I get back to Maple & Mallow, it’s dark. I don’t bother with the lights. I don’t take off my coat. I just head straight for the back room, where my tin of tea leaves still waits on the windowsill—like it hasn’t been holding the weight of everything.

I open it.

The two acorns rest there—one from before, smooth and aged, worn soft by years of memory.

And the new one.

Shinier. Carved with more skill. Still unfinished in one corner like he ran out of time or nerve.

I stare at it, heart hammering, and all I can think is you made me believe again.

I loved him again.

I let myself love him again.

And now it feels like I’ve been pulled into some story where I’m just another proof of concept—one more piece in his carefully curated life plan.

I grab the new acorn and hold it tight in my fist.

Then I tear it in two.

The crack is soft, but it echoes like thunder in the quiet room.

I press the splinters into the center of a rosemary bundle, then curl into the floor with the scent of shattered wood and broken trust filling my lungs like smoke.

And I cry.

Ugly, messy, whole-body sobbing that’s like trying to wrench something out of me by force.

Not just grief.

Not just betrayal.

But hope.

Hope that I could have both love and safety. That I could trust him again. That we’d found our way back not by accident, but because we’d changed.

Because I’d hoped.

And hope hurts more than anything.

Later, I light one of the candles from the gala—spiced fig and burnt sugar. It flickers beside me like a ghost of everything that almost was.

And I whisper, “Never again.”

But it feels like a lie.

Because I know if he walked in right now and said the right thing, my heart would still lean toward him like sunflowers chasing light.

That might be the cruelest part of all.