Ro sells her empire in silence, disappearing into a Denver bakery no one knows she’s overqualified for. She’s a Michelin Star culinary exile—sharp, mythic, fearless—and she wants nothing except to hide in plain sight in a city where no one knows her face.
Seven is a James Beard–crowned pastry savant, the kind of man whose precision tastes like devotion. He doesn’t chase. He doesn’t bend. He’s married. And he doesn’t have room in his kitchen—or his life—for a storm like Ro.
But obsession has a way of rising in the dark.
What begins as controlled becomes impossible, and what should’ve been a simple job becomes the kind of affair that leaves a taste you can’t wash out.
Some loves are unforgettable.
Theirs is unforgivable.
Bitter Notes
A beat from Bitter Notes
It happens on a Tuesday.
The kind of morning that shouldn’t feel like anything.
Cold air, loud mixers, ovens already sweating.
I’m tired—the kind of tired that settles in your bones until it becomes its own background noise.
And then there’s her.
Ro.
She’s at the far table, elbows deep in brioche, flour everywhere.
I think she’s arguing with the dough.
“Ugh. Not again! How dare you!” she shouts at it—then laughs.
At bread.
A little defeated.
But she keeps going.
She bites her bottom lip, and her nose wrinkles in this quick, involuntary way that I’ve already replayed too many times in my head.
It hits harder than it should.
I stop pretending to check the proofer temperature.
I just watch her.
She doesn’t move like anyone I’ve ever known.
She’s not cautious, not reverent.
She handles everything like it’s a piece of her—bold, certain, alive.
She doesn’t measure.
She listens.
She weighs with her hands, not a scale.
She trusts her instincts like they’re gospel.
And the crazy part is—she’s always right.
Most people walk into a bakery and see ingredients.
Technique.
Routine.
She sees possibility.
Like she’s allergic to limitations.
Every time I tell her something can’t be done, she grins like it’s a challenge written just for her.
And she wins. Every damn time.
I should be irritated. I should care that she breaks rules, that she refuses to clock in on time, that she hums off-key and leaves fingerprints in the flour bins. But I don’t.
Because when she’s here, the room feels alive again.
When she laughs, the ovens feel less like machines and more like something breathing.
When she hums, I catch myself matching her rhythm without meaning to.
When she leaves, the silence feels… wrong.
I built my life on precision. On control. On never letting anything—or anyone—interfere with the work.
And yet, this morning, watching her yell at dough like it’s a living thing, I realize I’ve lost every bit of control I ever had.
Because… I can’t stop staring.
I can’t leave her at the door.
I take her with me everywhere I go. Something I can’t get back.
I’m in trouble.
Because I can’t stop staring.
Because I can’t leave her at the door when she walks out.
She comes with me.
Into the quiet.
Into the corners of my mind I don’t let anyone touch.
She’s in my marrow already—
the ache in my knees after eighteen hours on my feet,
the hunger I can’t shake.
I don’t say a word.
I just stand there, arms crossed, pretending to care about a timer that isn’t even running.
She laughs again—flour on her chin, hair falling out of its knot, eyes bright like she knows something the rest of us never learned.
I tell myself to stop staring.
I don’t.
God help me…
I’m gone.