“Stop Calling Me Your Girlfriend!” the Plus-Size Baker Snapped—Then the Mafia Boss Did THIS…

I threw a five-pound bag of flour at Roman Duca after Rhode Island’s most feared man offered to pay me to pretend I was his girlfriend. I expected him to disappear. Instead, he came back with his grieving teenage niece, and somehow my bakery became the one place his money and reputation could not control. Then fake dates turned real, a jealous socialite exposed our arrangement at a charity gala, and somebody planted a dead rat behind my bakery to destroy my business. Roman wanted to handle it his way. I chose cameras, police, a lawyer, and receipts—and everything changed.

PART 1

A fake girlfriend lie traps me with Providence’s feared boss.

“Stop calling me your girlfriend, or get out of my bakery.”

I said it loud enough that every person in Bennett’s Bakery stopped chewing.

Roman Duca did not.

He sat at my corner table in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my first commercial oven, looking irritatingly calm while his aunt Sophia stared between us like she had just won the Powerball.

Three minutes earlier, Sophia had cornered him beside my pastry case and demanded to know why a forty-year-old man with money, security, and half of Providence afraid to say his last name still showed up alone to family dinners.

I had been trying to stop their argument.

So I pointed at myself and joked, “Tell her you’re dating me. Problem solved.”

Roman looked Sophia straight in the eye.

“We’ve been together three months.”

That was how I accidentally became the fake girlfriend of Rhode Island’s most feared man.

“We are not together,” I said.

“Approximately three months,” Roman corrected.

“How do you approximately have a girlfriend?”

“The beginning can be difficult to define.”

“Oh, I can define the ending. It’s now.”

Sophia laughed so hard she had to grab the counter.

I pointed at my front door.

“Take it back or leave.”

Roman folded his hands.

“No.”

That single word made two customers near the window suddenly remember appointments elsewhere.

I noticed.

I also noticed Roman’s two security men outside, one beside a black Escalade and the other pretending to study the chalkboard menu through the glass.

I knew exactly who Roman Duca was.

I just had croissants burning in the oven and no time to be intimidated.

Sophia kissed his cheek.

“Bring Clare Sunday. Six o’clock.”

“There will be no Sunday,” I called.

She was already walking onto the sidewalk, delighted with herself.

Roman stayed.

Mistake number two.

He placed a business card on my counter.

“I have a proposal.”

“No.”

“You haven’t heard it.”

“I’ve heard enough proposals from men who start by lying about sleeping with me.”

His eyebrow moved.

“That has happened before?”

“No. Congratulations. You invented a fresh category of annoying.”

One of his guards coughed into his fist.

Roman glanced toward the window.

The guard became a statue.

“My aunt has tried to arrange introductions for years,” Roman said. “If you continue this for several weeks, she will stop.”

“You want me to fake-date you.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“I would compensate you.”

Everything in me went still.

Women had underestimated me because I was plus-size.

Rich people had underestimated me because my hands smelled like vanilla instead of boardrooms.

“My time has a price,” I said. “My dignity doesn’t.”

“I wasn’t suggesting—”

“You absolutely were.”

He named a number.

I picked up a five-pound bag of flour.

For the first time, Roman looked concerned.

“Clare.”

“Negotiation’s over.”

“Put that down.”

I threw it.

The bag hit his chest and exploded.

White flour covered his jacket, his black shirt, and one polished shoe.

Nobody breathed.

I leaned over the counter.

“Now it’s over.”

Roman brushed flour from his sleeve.

“You are terrible at negotiating.”

“No. You’re terrible at hearing no.”

He left.

I thought that was the end.

At 8:15 the next morning, he came back.

“No,” I said before the bell stopped jingling.

“I haven’t asked anything.”

“I’m saving us time.”

He returned the next day.

And the next.

On the fourth morning, I saw a teenage girl standing behind him.

She had Roman’s dark eyes, but none of his armor.

“Clare,” he said, quieter than usual. “This is my niece, Lily.”

Lily shoved her hands into her hoodie.

“So you’re the famous girlfriend?”

“I am absolutely not.”

She smiled.

Tiny. Quick.

Roman saw it.

I saw him see it.

That was the first crack.

Lily stayed near the counter while I worked the breakfast rush. When she asked how I kept track of orders, I tied a spare apron around her waist and told her she could help label pastry boxes or watch her uncle stand there looking expensive.

She laughed.

A laugh.

Roman froze beside the coffee station.

Later, when Lily went to help my cashier, he said, “She hasn’t done that in months.”

“What?”

“Laughed.”

His eyes stayed on her.

“My sister died last winter. Lily’s mother.”

The bakery suddenly sounded too loud.

Espresso machine.

Metal trays.

A delivery truck backing up outside.

Roman spoke like he was reading a business report because apparently grief was the one language he had never learned.

“I tried counselors. A different school. Trips. Whatever she wanted.”

“Did you ask what she needed from you?”

He didn’t answer.

There it was.

Roman Duca could frighten a room into silence, but he could not ask a grieving sixteen-year-old whether she needed her uncle to sit beside her.

“You’re bad at this,” I said.

“Yes.”

No argument.

No arrogance.

Just yes.

That bothered me more than the money.

Because suddenly he was not the man people whispered about.

He was a man who had failed someone he loved and knew it.

Lily came back twice that week.

By Friday, she was boxing cinnamon rolls and arguing with my assistant manager about whether pumpkin spice should legally exist before October.

Roman watched from the doorway.

He looked almost normal.

That was dangerous.

So I wrote rules.

Three weeks.

No money.

No controlling my business.

No surprise visits to my apartment.

No expensive gifts.

His security stayed outside unless there was a threat.

No deciding what I wore.

No ordering my employees around.

And absolutely no kissing me because an audience expected it.

Roman read the page.

“How are we supposed to convince anyone?”

“Try having a personality.”

Lily snorted from behind the pastry case.

Roman signed nothing because I refused to make it a contract.

“These are rules,” I told him. “Contracts are negotiable.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

I should have known the real danger was not Roman breaking my rules.

It was how he started following them.

PART 2

Family dinners turn our ridiculous arrangement dangerously believable.

Roman arrived for our first fake family dinner carrying flowers large enough to hide a toddler.

I stared at them across the bakery counter.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Men don’t bring flowers like that after doing nothing.”

“They’re for my girlfriend.”

“Fake girlfriend.”

“Then consider them fake flowers.”

I touched a rose.

“They’re real.”

“That was a joke.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“You made one. Should I call a doctor?”

At Sophia’s house on College Hill, dinner smelled like garlic, roast chicken, and money. Family photographs covered the hallway. A flag hung from the porch, and Roman’s black SUV looked absurd beside Sophia’s Subaru.

The weird part was not pretending to date him.

The weird part was watching everyone stop being afraid of him when I was around.

Roman interrupted Lily once.

I tapped his wrist.

“She wasn’t finished.”

Every fork at the table paused.

Roman looked at me, then at Lily.

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

Lily blinked.

So did Sophia.

Then Lily kept talking.

That tiny apology mattered more than the flowers.

Over the next week, Roman started appearing at Bennett’s every morning. He claimed the visits made our relationship believable.

“No relatives are here,” I reminded him.

“Appearances travel.”

“So does nonsense.”

His security men discovered my almond pastries and became regulars. One thanked me warmly.

Roman watched.

“He gets a smile.”

“He says thank you like a human being.”

“I say thank you.”

“You say it like you’re approving a wire transfer.”

One afternoon Roman asked why I had never opened a second location.

“Are you interviewing me?”

“I’m learning about my girlfriend.”

“Fake.”

“I need material.”

“For whom?”

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

I grinned.

“Interesting.”

Then Daniel Hayes walked in from the bookstore next door.

Daniel was kind, divorced, and normal enough to feel exotic after two weeks of Roman.

He leaned on the counter.

“Still free Saturday?”

“Seven works.”

Roman’s face changed.

“Free for what?”

“Dinner.”

“We have an arrangement.”

I folded my arms.

“A fake arrangement.”

“People could see you.”

“Which people?”

“Relevant people.”

“Name one.”

Lily looked up from labeling boxes.

“Uncle Roman, you’re jealous.”

Roman stared at her.

“No.”

Saturday, Roman came into the bakery three times. First for coffee. Then because he had forgotten something he could not name. The third time he stood at my counter seventeen minutes before Daniel arrived, pretending to study the menu he had memorized. I laughed in his face.

I smiled.

For once, the most feared man in Providence looked cornered.

And I had not even asked the dangerous question yet.

PART 3

Lily’s grief forces Roman to finally face his fear.

Daniel’s date was perfectly pleasant, which somehow made Roman unbearable.

The next afternoon Lily came in alone, dropped her backpack beside the register, and started folding pastry boxes.

“My uncle asked what time you got home.”

I nearly crushed a cupcake carton.

“He asked you?”

“He tried to sound casual.”

“How?”

Lily lowered her voice.

“Did Clare return at a reasonable hour?”

I laughed so hard I had to grab the counter.

“He is impossible.”

“He likes you.”

“He likes winning.”

Lily stopped folding.

“That’s not the same thing.”

Something in her face changed.

I waited.

After a minute she said, “After Mom died, everybody kept asking if I was okay. I started saying yes because it made them stop.”

“And Roman?”

“He stopped asking.”

There was no anger in her voice.

That made it worse.

“He thought he was giving me space,” she said. “I thought he didn’t want to hear it.”

That evening Roman arrived to take her home.

I blocked the bakery door.

“You two need to talk.”

“Not here.”

Lily looked at him.

“That’s exactly what you always do.”

Roman went still.

Then Lily said the thing he could not dodge.

“You disappeared too.”

His face emptied.

“I thought you needed space.”

“You never asked.”

The ovens clicked behind us as they cooled.

Outside, tires hissed over wet pavement.

Roman looked toward me once.

I stepped away.

This one was theirs.

“I was afraid,” he finally said.

Lily stared at him.

I had never heard Roman use those words.

Apparently neither had she.

“Your mother was my sister,” he said. “I couldn’t fix what happened. Every time I looked at you, I knew I couldn’t fix you either.”

“You weren’t supposed to fix me.”

“I know.”

Lily wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

“You were supposed to stay.”

Roman moved toward her, slowly this time.

She closed the distance herself.

When he hugged her, his eyes shut.

I turned toward the sink and pretended to care deeply about a coffee stain.

A few minutes later, Lily went outside.

Roman remained.

“Thank you.”

“That sounded almost human.”

Usually he would answer.

He did not.

He was standing too close now, and neither of us had a joke ready.

Then he asked, quietly, “Did you enjoy your date?”

I smiled.

“Very much.”

His jaw tightened.

There it was.

He could admit fear to Lily. Admitting jealousy to me still required more stages of personal development and legal review.

Lily had finally told Roman what she needed.

Now I wanted to know whether he could do the same.

PART 4

Jealousy and quiet flowers make the fake romance real.

The flowers arrived Monday morning with nobody there to impress.

Not Sophia.

Not Lily.

Just a small arrangement of sunflowers and a card that said, For my fake girlfriend.

Roman walked in ten minutes later.

I held up the card.

“Who is supposed to see these?”

“No one.”

“Then why send them?”

He looked briefly annoyed at the flowers, as if they had betrayed him.

“I wanted to.”

Three words.

I set the card down.

“Are you seeing Daniel again?” he asked.

I laughed.

“And there he is.”

“Who?”

“The emotionally unavailable man hiding behind jealousy.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You have asked seventeen questions about a bookstore owner.”

“Some were about the building.”

“That does not help your case.”

That week, our fake relationship became dangerously easy.

At another family dinner, Roman reached for my hand without checking who was watching.

I leaned against his shoulder without remembering why I was supposed to.

Lily argued with him about changing schools.

He listened.

Not perfectly.

He interrupted once, caught my eye, stopped himself, and said, “Keep going.”

Lily almost smiled.

Later, Roman drove me back to the bakery.

He could have left.

Instead, he sat at a table while I finished invoices under the warm light over the register.

Finally I put down my pen.

“Why do you keep coming here?”

“We have an arrangement.”

“Not tonight.”

He glanced around.

The chairs were upside down on the tables. The sidewalk outside was empty.

“Lily likes it here.”

“She isn’t here.”

Silence.

“The flowers weren’t for Sophia,” I said. “You don’t need three coffees a week. Yesterday you argued with me for forty minutes about bookstore profit margins.”

“I had concerns.”

“You have jealousy.”

Roman looked toward the door.

For once, the instinct was obvious.

Escape.

“Why do you keep coming back?” I asked.

He stared at the tabletop.

Then at me.

“I like talking to you.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

His expression hardened.

“I’m glad my humiliation is entertaining.”

“Sorry. You said it like you were confessing to tax fraud.”

“I don’t explain myself often.”

“I noticed.”

He stood.

I thought he was leaving.

Instead, he stopped beside me.

Close.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

My pulse kicked.

“Rule,” I whispered.

“No kissing without permission.”

“Correct.”

He did not move.

Neither did I.

That restraint hit harder than any kiss could have.

“Good night, Clare.”

“Good night, Roman.”

After he left, I stood alone behind my counter, staring at those ridiculous sunflowers.

The lie was becoming a problem.

Because I was starting to want the truth.

PART 5

Evelyn humiliates me publicly, and Roman’s silence breaks us.

Three nights later, Evelyn Russo tried to turn me into a punch line in a ballroom full of donors.

Evelyn looked me up and down as if the dress had personally offended her.

“So this is Clare,” she said.

“That’s usually what people call me.”

Roman’s mouth twitched.

Evelyn noticed.

Later, she lifted a champagne glass and said loudly, “We should congratulate Roman for making this whole thing believable.”

The room quieted.

My stomach dropped.

“The girlfriend,” she continued. “It began as an arrangement, didn’t it?”

Roman’s face changed.

“Evelyn.”

She ignored him.

She mentioned the money he had offered me.

She did not mention I had refused it.

Then she called my bakery “charming” in the tone people use for children selling lemonade.

Finally, her eyes traveled over my body.

“I suppose Cinderella stories are more inclusive now.”

Roman took one step forward.

“Apologize.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Or what?”

The temperature in his voice dropped.

“I can make certain nobody in this room finds humiliating Clare entertaining again.”

A few people stopped smiling immediately.

I touched his arm.

“No.”

He looked at me.

“She humiliated you.”

“Then let me handle it.”

I turned back to Evelyn.

“You offered a story with missing pages. That usually means the full version hurts you.”

Her smile slipped.

Good.

Then I faced Roman.

“Tell them the truth.”

He went still.

“What am I to you?”

The room disappeared.

So did Evelyn.

For one ugly second, all I could hear was the ice shifting in somebody’s glass.

Roman looked at me.

I could see the answer fighting with every instinct that had kept him powerful and untouchable.

But he said nothing.

That silence hurt more than Evelyn’s insult.

I nodded once.

“Right.”

“Clare.”

“No. The arrangement is over.”

“Don’t decide because of her.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why?”

“Because somewhere along the way, this stopped feeling fake to me.”

His expression changed.

I kept going before pride could save me.

“And I have no idea whether it ever stopped being fake to you.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“It actually is.”

I picked up my purse.

“One question, Roman. If nobody were watching, would you still come back tomorrow?”

He froze.

So I walked out alone, past valet lights and black cars, with my heels hurting and my face burning.

I did not cry until I reached my kitchen.

I gave myself exactly ten minutes.

Then I washed my face, locked my phone, and went to bed.

The next morning, I opened the bakery on time.

If Roman wanted me back, silence was no longer enough.

PART 6

Roman returns honestly, just before someone attacks my bakery.

Roman stayed away for two days.

No flowers.

No coffee.

No Escalade idling across the street.

I hated how often I looked at the door.

On the third afternoon, Lily came in alone.

“Before you say anything,” I told her, “I’m not discussing your uncle.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Good.”

“He’s miserable.”

I closed my eyes.

“That is discussing him.”

“It’s reporting an observable condition.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with me.”

“I know.”

She bought a brownie, complained about chemistry homework, and left without asking me to forgive him.

That mattered.

The next morning, Roman walked in at 8:15.

No guards followed him inside.

No gift sat in his hand.

I looked around.

“Who are we convincing today?”

“No one.”

“Family emergency?”

“No.”

“Then you’re lost.”

“I’m not.”

He stood there until I stopped helping him.

“You asked whether I would come back if nobody were watching.”

“I remember.”

“I couldn’t answer because I didn’t want to say something just to keep you.”

My sarcasm disappeared.

Roman looked around the bakery.

“Lily doesn’t need this anymore. Sophia knows the truth. The arrangement is finished.”

“Yes.”

“So this morning, I had no reason to come here.”

My heartbeat changed.

He met my eyes.

“I came anyway.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see you.”

There it was.

Small enough to trust.

I handed him a coffee.

“You can start there.”

Roman came back the next day.

And the next.

Sometimes I was too busy to talk, so he drank his coffee and left.

He stopped treating access to me like something his presence automatically purchased.

That mattered more than flowers.

A week later, I agreed to dinner.

At seven sharp.

Not a private room.

Not a driver.

A neighborhood diner with cracked red booths, bad fries, and a waitress who called Roman “honey” without recognizing him.

He looked absurdly happy.

I was beginning to think we might actually have a chance.

Then my phone buzzed at 11:47 that night.

Motion detected: REAR DELIVERY DOOR.

I lived above the bakery, so I opened the security app.

A man in a baseball cap was crouched beside my back entrance.

He pulled something from a plastic bag.

Then he slid it beneath the bakery’s delivery door.

I zoomed in.

A dead rat.

My stomach turned cold.

The man looked directly at the camera.

He must have seen the little red light.

He ran.

I saved the footage before doing anything else.

Then another notification appeared.

Unknown number.

Enjoy explaining that to the health department.

I did not call Roman.

I called my lawyer.

PART 7

Cameras, police, and deleted texts expose Evelyn’s vicious sabotage.

At 8:03 the next morning, the health inspector arrived.

Of course he did.

I had already printed the camera stills, saved three copies of the video, and forwarded the anonymous message to my attorney, Rachel Kim.

My kitchen was spotless.

The rat was sealed in a plastic evidence bin outside.

The inspector watched the footage twice.

“This was planted.”

“Yep.”

He documented everything and left my bakery open.

Whoever wanted me panicked had miscalculated.

Then Daniel walked over from the bookstore.

“My alley camera caught a car leaving around midnight.”

His footage showed a gray sedan, a license plate, and the same man from my camera.

By noon, Providence police had both files.

By Friday, Detective Morales called.

The man was Connor Pike, a freelance publicist who had worked events with Evelyn Russo.

That alone proved nothing.

His phone did.

Connor had deleted messages.

Cloud backups had not.

Rachel read them to me in her office while rain tapped the windows.

Make the health complaint stick.

Use the rear door.

She needs to understand she does not belong near Roman.

Then the line that made my jaw lock.

People believe disgusting stories about women who look like her. Give them one.

Evelyn had also paid for fake one-star reviews, contacted two wedding clients pretending to be a former employee, and sent cropped screenshots to gossip accounts claiming Roman had hired me as paid company.

She had wanted my business damaged because embarrassing me at the gala had not been enough.

Roman arrived after Rachel called him at my request.

His face became frighteningly still while he read the messages.

“I can handle this.”

“No.”

He looked up.

“She targeted your livelihood.”

“And my livelihood has a lawyer, insurance, cameras, customers, and me.”

“Clare—”

“Do not turn this into a Duca problem.”

His jaw tightened.

I stepped closer.

“If you want to be in my life, learn the difference between protecting me and taking over.”

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he put the papers down.

“What do you need?”

That question mattered.

Not what he planned to do.

Not who he planned to scare.

What I needed.

“Stand beside me,” I said. “Not in front of me.”

Roman nodded.

Rachel filed for a protective order and preservation of Evelyn’s records.

The police opened a criminal tampering investigation.

The charity board scheduled an emergency meeting.

And Evelyn, still convinced Roman would clean up the mess privately, walked into that meeting smiling.

She expected fear, silence, and Roman’s reputation to finish everything.

She had no idea I had brought receipts.

PART 8

Evelyn falls, Roman changes, and I choose him freely.

Evelyn stopped smiling when Rachel connected my laptop to the boardroom screen.

First came the bakery footage.

Then Daniel’s alley camera.

Then Connor’s payment records.

Then the recovered messages.

Nobody interrupted.

“This is being exaggerated because Roman is involved.”

I leaned forward.

“Roman did not collect this evidence. I did.”

Rachel added, “With police assistance and lawful preservation requests.”

The board chair removed Evelyn from the charity committee before lunch.

Connor accepted a plea agreement for tampering and harassment.

She paid restitution for lost orders, my legal costs, and the damage caused by the fake reviews.

She also received a restraining order keeping her away from me, my employees, and Bennett’s Bakery.

I never needed Roman to threaten her.

A month later, at another charity dinner, someone asked Roman whether the rumors about our fake relationship had been true.

He looked at me.

Then he answered the room.

“Yes.”

He continued.

“I asked Clare to pretend. I offered her money. She refused it. Repeatedly.”

Lily laughed.

“The part people misunderstood is that Clare was never trying to enter my world.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

“I was the one who kept walking into hers.”

Afterward, outside beneath the hotel awning, he asked, “Dinner Friday?”

“For appearances?”

“No.”

“For Sophia?”

“Absolutely not.”

“For Lily?”

“She has informed me she no longer requires supervision.”

I smiled.

“And if I say no?”

Roman shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

“Then I’ll be disappointed.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

I made him wait five seconds.

“Friday works.”

Lily kept coming to the bakery, but now she also spent Saturdays with Roman. They argued. They talked. Sometimes they just sat together.

I learned the man everyone feared could stand in my kitchen holding a dish towel, looking deeply betrayed by a burned grilled-cheese sandwich.

One rainy night after closing, he asked the question for real.

“No arrangement. No audience. No family excuse. Clare, will you be my girlfriend?”

I looked at the man who had once announced the answer before asking me.

“Are you prepared for uncertainty?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He laughed.

Then I said yes.

He reached for me and stopped.

Still learning.

“You can kiss me,” I said.

So he did.

The next morning, Roman arrived at 8:15.

I checked the clock.

“You know you don’t need an excuse anymore.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you here?”

He set two coffees on my counter.

“I wanted to see my girlfriend.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“At least you asked this time.”

Roman smiled.

And this time, I let him say it.

THE END