Chapter 1

After Marlin Henson became an inspector, the first place he went to check on the sly was the restaurant my parents ran.

He walked into the back kitchen with a mask over his face and tore into my parents without mercy.

"No personal belongings allowed in a work area. Ever."

"Hygiene's below standard. Food with no open-date labels. Trash cans left uncovered. The whole place is filthy and disorganized."

I stepped in to explain that the restaurant had just opened, that there hadn't been time to sort everything out yet.

Marlin pulled off his mask, his voice flat and cold.

"Maya Pruitt, you know me. I'm never soft when it comes to work."

I thought it was just a warning, once and done.

I never imagined that by that afternoon my parents' restaurant would be shut down by the corporation.

Ordered closed for corrections, with no end date.

Three days later, the drink shop belonging to Marlin's childhood friend Chelsea Shaw opened.

He looked at the kitchen floor you couldn't set a foot on.

The roaches running wild across the counters.

And he just quietly grabbed a mop and started cleaning.

Not one harsh word.

I asked Marlin why he was treating the two so differently.

He set down the rag in his hand and answered like it was nothing.

"It's not exactly a matter of principle. You just look the other way, and it's fine."

All at once it hit me that my heart had never once been treated with care.

When I raised my head, Marlin had already gone back to the kitchen.

I took out my phone and sent my mom a message.

"We're giving up on this place. Let's move to another city and start over."

1

Nearby, I could hear the shop's staff talking.

"Did you hear? This shop of Chelsea's, Marlin put up the money, a whole five hundred grand. He really doesn't hold back on cash."

"They're childhood sweethearts, no wonder he dotes on her like that. The kitchen's that dirty, any other inspector would've closed it down ages ago."

My body froze where I stood.

I'd had no idea the five hundred thousand that vanished from my card had been spent on Chelsea Shaw.

Afterward he'd explained it away, said he had an investment that suddenly needed the money.

He'd pay me back once it turned a profit.

While I stood there dazed.

Marlin had already tied on an apron and stepped up to the front counter.

"Everyone who comes in today drinks free. Bubble tea's on me."

He was smiling, warm as anything, like he'd long forgotten the real reason he'd come to the shop.

The customers at the door surged forward and pinned me into the corner.

A girl edged up, fawning.

"Boss, you're so generous. When you and the boss lady get married, will you treat us to three days of free bubble tea?"

Chelsea kept her head down, crushing ice, and when she looked up again her face had gone red past all recognition.

She pressed her lips together and glanced at Marlin beside her.

Then, without the slightest regard for the fact that I was standing right there, she said with a smile,

"Forget three days. Five's fine."

Marlin didn't correct her, didn't so much as register me, his actual girlfriend.

He just played along with the customers.

And I thought of the day my parents' shop was sealed up.

They'd stood clutching their household things, staring helplessly at the sign above the storefront.

My dad had sighed and asked me,

"Could you talk to Marlin, get him to shorten the correction period a little?"

I'd thought, we'd been together five years, surely that much goodwill was owed to us.

But his answer came like a poisoned needle driven straight into my heart.

"Dream on. I only go by company rules. You think I'd break them?"

Even now, remembering it, my heart still ached dully.

The crowd thinned out, and Chelsea walked over to me with a cup of bubble tea.

"You're lucky, riding on Marlin's good graces. You get to drink one I made with my own hands."

She dragged over a stool and sat down without a care.

"I hear your parents' shop got ordered to fix everything up? Couldn't even you put in a word with Marlin, being his girlfriend?"

Her words were nothing but naked mockery aimed at me.

She figured my place in Marlin's heart counted for nothing.

And it wasn't just her figuring it. I'd seen it myself.

It seemed like I was the one who'd wedged myself into their relationship, the third person.

That cup of bubble tea sat there a long time. I never opened it.

Marlin came out of the kitchen, a faint frown gathering.

"Chelsea made that herself. Why won't you drink it? You can't give her even that much face?"

He knew I never drank bubble tea.

That was why, for the past five years, what I'd had most was the fresh fruit juice he squeezed for me himself.

Chelsea was the one who loved bubble tea. And he'd actually mixed the two of us up.

I stood, letting out all the resentment I'd stored up these past days.

"Why can't you show my parents a little mercy? These past few days they've been so upset they can't even get a sip of water down."

A chill settled over Marlin's eyes.

"I'm just handling company business by the book."

By the book. And with those words he ground five years of us flat under his heel.

I swallowed hard and gave a cold laugh.

"Then what about Chelsea? Her shop's in even worse shape than my family's, and you can just look the other way. So why don't you report her to the corporation and make her fix it?"

He pulled me into the corner by the restroom, holding back his anger as he stared at me.

"Chelsea's a girl on her own. Starting a business is hard for her. Why do you have to keep clawing at this one thing?"

"Your family's shop had real problems to begin with. Ordering it fixed was the right call."

All of a sudden I went calm, no strength left to argue.

As if, in this moment, the person facing off against me wasn't the boyfriend I'd spent five years with.

But an enemy squaring up against me.

When had things between us become this?

"Marlin Henson, that five hundred thousand you borrowed. Pay it back as soon as you can."

"I'd rather throw that money down the drain than have it spent on someone like you."