One Kiss, the Billionaire's Bride novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Lobby

Rosalind sides with Dwight in front of the hotel staff, Holbrook wires the whole loan on the spot, and Bryony sends her mother home before Cordelia summons them both to dinner.

"There she is," Dwight Moody said, loud enough to turn heads at the front desk.

Bryony's mother did not look at her.

She looked at the floor, and then at Holbrook Draper's shoes, and then at her own hands.

"Bryony, sweetheart," Rosalind said. "Dwight is upset. Let's all go somewhere quiet and be sensible."

"We can be sensible here," Bryony said.

A dozen hotel staff had stopped to watch, with luggage carts and clipboards and polite blank faces.

Dwight stepped closer.

"I carry your mother's loan," he said. "I sat across from you for an hour. You owe me an apology, girl."

"I owe you nothing."

"You owe me a Thursday."

"Dwight," Rosalind said, in her soft voice. "Please."

She was pleading with him, not with Bryony.

Bryony felt that land somewhere under her ribs.

"Mom," she said. "He told me I'd quit my job. He told me I'd have a son by Christmas next year."

"He's old-fashioned."

"He looked at me like a car he was buying."

"He's a good provider, sweetheart. I only want you taken care of."

"Mr. Draper can take care of himself," Rosalind added, and gave Holbrook a small bright smile. "I'm sure he's very nice."

Holbrook had not told her his name.

Bryony noticed it, and then Dwight started shouting again and she let it go.

"Nice? He's a stranger!" Dwight said. "She kissed a stranger in front of me!"

"She kissed her fiancé," Holbrook said.

"For how long?"

"Long enough that you stopped talking."

A woman at the desk covered her mouth, and a bellhop turned around very fast to stare at the wall.

Dwight's face went dark red.

"Your mother signed a note. Three hundred eighty thousand, due Thursday. You think a hotel boy is going to cover that?"

"Hotel boy," Holbrook said.

He took out his phone.

"I own the hotel," he said. "I own forty-one others."

He tapped the screen twice.

"Mr. Moody, give me your account number."

Dwight laughed.

"You're joking."

"Now, please."

Nobody in the lobby moved.

Dwight said the number through his teeth, and Holbrook typed it in with his thumb.

Then he turned the phone around so the whole room could see the screen.

It showed three hundred eighty thousand dollars, and a green bar that said SENT.

Dwight's phone buzzed in his coat.

He pulled it out and read it.

He read it again.

His mouth was open, and nothing came out.

"That clears the principal," Holbrook said. "Send me the interest figure by morning, and I'll clear that too. After that, you don't call Ms. Ridley, you don't call her mother, and you don't come within a block of that bakery."

"You can't do that."

"It's done."

Rosalind made a small sound.

"That's very generous, Mr. Draper," she said. "But the bakery..."

"The loan is gone, Mom," Bryony said.

"Yes, but Dwight and I had an understanding."

"You had an understanding. I didn't."

Rosalind blinked fast.

Dwight had backed up two steps, and he was staring at Bryony's mother with his jaw working.

"Rosalind, I want to hear you say it," he said. "Tell your daughter what else you signed."

Rosalind's face closed.

"Dwight, don't."

"Ask your mother what else she signed," Dwight said to Bryony, with a bitter, ugly grin. "Ask her what I was really buying."

Then he walked out through the revolving door, and the revolving door sent him round twice before it let him go.

Someone at the desk started to laugh and stopped.

Bryony turned to her mother.

"What did he mean?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. He's angry."

"Mom."

"Dwight talks."

"Mom. What did you sign?"

"Nothing, sweetheart. A formality. It was nothing."

Bryony waited.

She waited for her mother to say it plainly, once, in front of everyone.

Rosalind smiled and picked at her sleeve.

"Come home with me," she said. "I'll make tea. We'll talk about the wedding like a family."

"There's no we," Bryony said.

It surprised her how steady it came out.

"You sat me at that table with a man who called me wide enough to breed. You told me to let him talk. You told me not to leave before four."

"I wanted you safe."

"You wanted the loan paid."

"Well," Rosalind said, in a very small voice. "It is paid now."

Bryony took a breath.

"Go home, Mom. I'll call you when I want to hear what you signed."

"Bryony..."

"Go home."

Rosalind stood there another moment, with her careful smile and her wet eyes, and then she turned and went out through the same revolving door.

Bryony watched her go until her knees began to shake.

Holbrook put one hand flat at her back, where he had put it in the lounge.

"You're all right," he said, low, for only her.

"I'm not."

"No," he agreed. "But you did that standing up."

A man in a dark uniform had come up beside them, with his cap in his hand.

"Mr. Draper," he said. "Your grandmother is on the line. She wants you both at the house for dinner tonight."

Holbrook went still.

"Both of us?"

"She said she saw the whole thing on the lobby feed," the driver said. "She'd like to meet the bride."

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