Page 51 of Hero's Prize

Saying the words three times in one remark did not reassure her.

“All I’m saying is that it would be completely understandable if you were struggling after what happened.”

“And like I said, I’ve been doing my stunts with no problem. I’m fine. It’s not like you really know me, so why don’t you just let it go.”

It was like an actual slap in the face. “I overstepped. I apologize.”

She blinked back tears as she walked to the mixer farthest from his. He was right; she didn’t truly know him, did she?

And the connection she thought she felt with him was—and always had been—something she created in her mind. It wasn’t real, and she still needed to stop pretending that it ever would be.

She focused on the task in front of her as silence fell over thebakery, the only sound being the whirr of the mixers. The batters were almost done. The baking would be completed in the morning by the opening staff. She’d planned to do one more recipe tonight but now decided not to.

She just wanted to go home.

“Butterscotch…”

She shook her head and held up a hand to stop him without turning around. “Like I said, I overstepped.”

She poured the batter from the mixing bowl into the storage container and walked it into the fridge. When she came out, Colton had done the same and was washing out his bowl. She added her utensils to the pile of dirty dishes. “They’ll do that in the morning. Don’t worry about it.”

He kept scrubbing the bowl.

“Did you hear me? I have staff who comes in specifically to clean what I do at night.”

“Okay.”

He still didn’t stop washing. As a matter of fact, he was scrubbing even harder now.

“Colton, you just said okay.”

“I meant okay, you’re right. I’ve been struggling pretty badly, and yeah, panic attacks have been a big part of it.”

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Colton had no idea why he just said that. Actually, he knew exactly why he’d said it. Because he couldn’t stand the look that had crossed Ella’s face when he’d shut her down a couple of minutes ago. Couldn’t stand to hear the hurt in her voice and know that he’d been the one who’d caused it.

How the hell had she noticed in such a tiny bit of time what his entire team—people he worked with day in and day out—hadn’t noticed in weeks?

Still, he didn’t want to talk about it. He set the bowl to the side and walked back over to the other mixers. He was almost done with the final batch he was working on.

“Colton…”

He held out a hand to stop her. “I know what I said, but I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“But—”

“It’s not you. It’s just not something I have anything to say about right now.”

“Yeah, but?—”

He didn’t want to hurt her again, but he didn’t want to chat about his emotions either. “Seriously, Ella. Just let it go.”

She let out a sigh. “All I was going to say was that you need to combine the wet ingredients together before adding them to the dry ingredients. I’m not sure if that’s in the instructions or not.”

“Shit.” He ran his forearm across his brow as he looked over at her. “I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.”

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