After He Gave My Wedding Away, I Built My Empire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Forty-Nine Percent

Cassandra vows to repay her father's debt to Rowena's face. Colin brings roses to the loading bay and tells her half her company is already in his trust.

"No," I told my mother.

She flinched, and I hadn't raised my voice.

"Rowena didn't pay that debt as a gift, Mom. She paid it so someone could hold it."

"She is not that kind of woman."

"She gave my wedding aisle away on the same day she sent me flowers."

My mother looked at the forty people on the sidewalk, at the phones, at Hattie's van full of boxes.

"Your father cried in the chapel," she said. "He thought you were finally safe."

That hurt more than the padlock.

"I'll pay it back," I said.

"With what? Candles?"

"With candles. Eighty-one thousand dollars, every cent, and I'll hand it to Rowena myself, in front of people."

"You can't."

"Watch me."

She stood very still, and then she walked back to her car without telling me goodbye.

I had never seen her do that.

By nine that night the loading bay on Dock Street smelled like cardboard and cold wax.

The bay had a concrete floor, a roll-up door, a steel sink and eight folding tables the pourers had dragged in from somewhere.

Hattie had put on scrubs for her shift and then stayed anyway, sitting on an upturned crate and eating a gas-station sandwich.

I was still in the dress.

I had stopped noticing it until I knelt down to move a box and a seam gave way down my ribs.

"You can take it off, you know," Hattie said.

"I'm afraid if I do I'll start crying."

"You can do both."

"Later."

She held out half the sandwich, and I took it.

Headlights swung across the roll-up door.

Colin got out of his car holding grocery-store roses and a paper bag of takeout from the Thai place we both loved.

He had changed out of his tux.

He looked well rested.

Hattie stood up so fast the crate tipped.

"Don't," she said.

"I'm here to talk to my fiancée," Colin said.

"I'm not your fiancée," I said.

"Okay." He lifted his hands, gentle and patient. "Cassie, that was a lot today. I get it. I should have warned you."

"You said ten minutes."

"It was a tribute. Rowena has had a bad nine years. I wanted her to have one day."

"On my day."

"It was a photo, Cassie. A photo and an aisle. Nobody was getting married." He set the roses on a table. "You are the one who made it a scene."

I looked at him.

Colin had a way of saying a hard thing so softly that I always apologized first.

I was still holding my half of the sandwich.

I put it down.

"You gave my shop to your landlord this morning," I said.

"I surrendered a lease in my own name. It was a tax thing, and we'll get you a better space on the Row. You'll have a bigger one." He smiled. "Rowena already said so."

"I don't want anything Rowena says."

"Cassie." He moved closer, and I stepped back into the table. "Forty-nine percent of Broughton & Daughter is in our trust already. You signed it two weeks ago. I'm the trustee."

The bay went quiet.

I had signed that paper at his kitchen island between two sips of wine.

He had called it a wedding formality, and the paper had been two pages long.

"That was for the marriage," I said.

"It's for the family. And we're still family." His voice stayed kind. "Come to Sunday dinner at Rowena's. Say you're sorry, and I'll vote the shares however you like."

"And if I don't?"

His phone lit up in his hand.

I saw the name Rowena on the screen before he turned it away.

He stood a little straighter and stepped out through the roll-up door into the dark.

"Yes," I heard him say. "No. She's fine. I've got it."

Hattie stared at me with her mouth open.

"He stands up for her phone," I said.

"Cassie."

"He always did."

Colin came back in with the phone in his pocket and his smile in place.

"Sunday," he said. "Seven."

Behind him, in the doorway to the warehouse office, Caleb Merrow was standing with his arms crossed.

I didn't know how long he had been there.

"Mr. Thackeray," he said. "The bay is closed to visitors after eight."

Colin looked at him and then at me.

"Forty-nine percent," he said to me, quietly, and left.

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