The smell hit him before the door fully opened — vanilla, toasted bread, and the faintest trace of lemon polish. Celeste's house always smelled like something was baking, even when it wasn't.
He didn't knock.
"Shoes off!" she called from the kitchen, the moment his boots crossed the entry rug.
Eric smirked, already halfway through unlacing. "You sound like Mom."
"I take that as a compliment," she said, appearing around the corner, wiping her hands on a blue-checked apron. Her hair was pinned up, soft curls escaping around her face. "Coffee's on. Kids are at school. And no, you're not allowed to swear in front of the cat either."
He followed her into the kitchen — sunlight pooling across the counter, a half-peeled orange on a cutting board, music low in the background. One of those French café playlists she always played on quiet mornings.
"You didn't say you were coming," she added.
"I needed a decent cup of coffee. And you owed me breakfast."
She raised an eyebrow. "You own a bakery."
"And yet your pancakes are better," he said, slipping into the stool across from her.
"That's because mine come with affection and shame if you don't finish them."
She reached for the tin above the sink — dark roast, the one she only used when he visited — and began preparing the French press with practiced ease.
"You want your usual?" she asked.
He gave a low grunt. "As long as you didn't switch to herbal nonsense."
That earned a soft snort. "Please. I'm not that forgiving yet.
Her movements were smooth, familiar. She was the kind of woman who cooked while parenting, balanced the house on her hip, and still remembered how everyone took their coffee.
"You look like you slept in your office," she said, pouring the water with one hand, flipping a pancake with the other.
"I didn't." Eric said, rubbing the back of his neck.
The press hissed. She slid a mug across the counter a minute later. Black. No sugar, no questions.
He glanced around — her cozy chaos of plants, books, forgotten toys in the corner. "You know, for a Harrison, you live like a real person."
"I took the exit ramp," she said with a shrug. "You stayed on the highway."
"For now."
She looked at him. "The audit?"
Eric nodded.
"You okay?"
He leaned back, stretching a little. "Define okay."
She frowned — just a little — and reached across the counter to ruffle his hair, an old habit from childhood. "Don't get dramatic. That's Nicholas's department."
He batted her hand away, but didn't stop smiling.
There was a quiet between them, the kind only siblings knew how to sit in.
She poured syrup over a plate of stacked pancakes. "You've been coming by more lately."
"Don't get used to it."
"I already have," she said, setting the plate in front of him. "Which is why I made extra."
He stabbed into the stack. "Are you bribing me with carbs?"
"No. Just softening the blow. Mom called."
He froze, fork halfway to his mouth. "Let me guess — she wants to know why her third son is breaking boardrooms instead of bread."
"More or less." She sipped her coffee. "She also asked if you're dating anyone. I told her you're emotionally constipated and secretly married to your mixer."
He snorted. "Thanks."
"I do what I can."
Another pause.
Celeste reached for the jam jar and said gently, "You know you don't have to fix everything, right?"
He didn't look at her. Just chewed.
"You think I'm trying to fix it?"
"I think…" She hesitated, then softened. "I think you're trying not to drown in what you didn't fix."
He set the fork down.
Her eyes met his — patient, knowing, older sister eyes.
"You still have me," she said.
"I know."
"And pancakes."
He picked the fork back up. "That helps."
Celeste set her mug down gently. "How is Nicholas?"
"Trying to act unbothered. But I saw the tick in his jaw." He flexed his fingers around the cup. "He's sweating, just not in public."
She tilted her head. "And Rowan?"
Eric's mouth twisted. "Still trying to play mediator. It's like watching someone light scented candles in a burning building."
Celeste stifled a smile, then leaned in slightly. "And you?"
His shoulders lifted in a ghost of a shrug. "I'm not here to make peace. I'm here to make sure no one buries Elise twice."
Her expression softened, and something passed between them — quiet, shared grief stitched into silence.
"You're walking a razor," she said finally. "You know that, right?"
"I'm not walking. I'm cutting."
The clock ticked behind them. Somewhere in the house, the cat knocked over a jar.
Celeste sipped her coffee again, this time slower. "You've made enemies before. But this is different."
"I know."
"They won't just come after your name. They'll try to gut the whole bakery, make it look like corruption in frosting."
Eric gave a humorless smile. "Let them try. I've already survived worse than whispers."
"You've grown sharp, little brother."
He looked up. "I had to."
She reached out, fingers brushing his wrist. "Just don't forget how to be soft, too."
The quiet stretched, like breath before a fall.
Then she added, gently teasing, "I mean — for a man who bakes mille-feuille, your soul's remarkably bitter."
Eric cracked a smile. "It balances the sugar."
Celeste grinned. "Says the man who once made a dessert so sweet it nearly collapsed Grandma."
"That was an accident."
"That was a war crime."
They both laughed — low, real — and the tension thinned for a moment.
Then Celeste leaned back, gaze thoughtful. "So what now?"
Eric pushed the plate slightly forward, appetite suddenly dulled. "Now we wait. Let the auditors follow the smoke."
From the living room, the cat knocked something over. Celeste didn't move.
Eric just sighed. "You really named it Croissant?"
"She's flaky, unpredictable, and sheds on the couch. It fits."
For a moment — just a sliver of one — the heaviness of the audit, the family, the ghosts pressing in from all sides... fell away.
"You've been working too much."
"I always work," he replied, not quite looking at her.
"Hmm," she murmured. "And yet you found time to start an audit that's giving half the family ulcers."
He smirked at that — just barely.
Celeste took another slow sip, then set her mug down with a deliberate clink.
"So... are you seeing someone?"
He glanced at her over the rim of his coffee. "No."
It was too fast. Too flat.
Her eyes narrowed, amused. "You didn't even pretend to think about it. Suspicious."
"I'm not seeing anyone," he repeated, with that same deadpan tone he used when lying without technically lying.
She leaned her chin into her palm, elbow on the table, watching him like a hawk in silk pajamas. "Not even the pretty girl from Zoe's wedding?"
He exhaled — slow and deep — the kind of breath that carried more patience than air.
Of course.
Was he wearing a sign that day?
First it was his mother's disapproving glances. Then Madeline's suspicious charm. And now Celeste — sweet, perceptive Celeste — adding her own spark to the fire.
Did the entire guest list attend just to watch him?
It happens, when you give them nothing to talk about for years...
He cut into the pancake with the edge of his fork, too cleanly. "Which girl?"
Celeste's grin widened. "Mmhm."
"You should date someone."
He scoffed under his breath, reaching for his coffee again. "Thanks, Mom."
"I mean it," she said, ignoring the jab. "You're thirty-four, emotionally constipated, and suspiciously good at making French pastries for women you're not dating."
He shot her a look. "That's slander."
"I'm married with two kids, Eric. Gossip is my cardio. And that's not slander, that's sisterhood." she said sweetly.
He didn't respond.
She took her cup to the sink. But she wasn't done.
She crossed her arms, eyes narrowing in mock suspicion.
"You know," she said, "you do this thing with your mouth."
Eric arched a brow. "Do I want to know where this is going?"
"That little twitch—" she pointed lazily, "—right there. It's your guilty tell. You had it when you stole Dad's cufflinks before prom."
"I borrowed them."
"You borrowed them straight into the ocean."
Eric took a slow breath, unbothered. "He should've thanked me. They were awful."
Celeste laughed, soft and warm. Then:
"I saw that many more times and again just now. That twitch. Which means you're hiding something. Or someone."
He shook his head, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him — just slightly.
Celeste leaned in a bit, chin propped on her hand. "Is she someone I know?"
"There is no she."
"Oh, I don't need names. But you've been… different."
"Define different."
"You've been quiet. Too quiet. That broody, distant kind of quiet that only shows up when your heart's somewhere else."
Eric glanced at her, dry. "Or when I'm running an underground audit and half the board wants my head."
Celeste waved a hand. "No, that you handle like a Harrison. Cold, charming, ruthless. But this?" She tilted her head. "This quiet is different."
He turned away, pretending to examine a fruit bowl. "You're imagining things."
Celeste smiled. "You're deflecting."
"I'm leaving."
"You're in denial."
He walked past her to grab his coat. "I'm immune to interrogation before 10 a.m."
She followed him to the door, arms still crossed like a detective who knew the suspect was bluffing.
"If you're not dating someone," she said, "you're thinking about someone."
Eric paused, hand on the doorknob. That twitch again — the barely-there shift of his jaw.
Celeste caught it.
"Oh my God, you like someone."
"I don't."
"You do."
"I really don't."
"You're blushing."
He turned slightly. "Celeste. For God sake. I don't blush."
She grinned, victorious. "Then why won't you tell me her name?"
"Because there is no name."
He opened the door, stepping into the bright morning light.
Celeste leaned into the doorway, smirking. "Just so you know… I'm going to find out."
Eric didn't look back. But over his shoulder, he said coolly—
"Good luck with that."
Then he was gone.
And Celeste, alone in the hallway, smiled to herself.
Definitely someone.
He reached his car and paused — hand on the door, eyes catching his own reflection in the tinted window.
Why hadn't he told her?
She was the only one who wouldn't twist it, wouldn't use it as a weapon. Celeste was safe. Kind. The person in this family who wouldn't use someone else's name to hurt him.
But Sarah wasn't a name.
Not yet.
She was a beginning that had barely survived the breaking.
And this thing between them — if it even still existed — was too fragile to hold up under questions. Too personal to speak out loud.
Some truths weren't meant for breakfast tables and sibling banter.
They were meant for silence.
He slid into the driver's seat, the leather cool against his back. For a moment, he just sat there — keys in hand, unmoving.
He started the ignition. A low hum. Familiar. Grounding.
His phone buzzed against the center console. He glanced at it.
He expected the bakery.
Maybe Rowan.
Another client. Another audit thread.
But it was a number he hadn't saved, but recognized anyway.
He answered without thinking.
A voice — rushed, thin, brittle around the edges.
He straightened. "What?"
His breath caught halfway to exhale, sitting cold in his throat like unfinished sentences.
A slow, awful silence filled the car.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened, fingers curling so hard on phone, they whitened.
This is what he'd feared.
Not lawsuits. Not inheritance.
But this.
That the darkness trailing him wouldn't just stay in the boardroom, or the villa, or the shadows of his past.
That it would find her.
Because someone always paid.
And it was never him.
He'd tried to stay away.
Tried to pretend she was safe in the softness of her world.
But monsters didn't knock.
They slipped through doors he left open.
He didn't even realize he'd started driving.
Only that he was moving, fast.
And that every red light between him and her was about to become a suggestion.