The Seventh Time novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Warehouse

Broderick walks into the Horan warehouse before forty workers and offers to take it all back if she returns by Friday; she says no, Delphine twists the knife in public, and Pete admits he knew.

Broderick Ashworth came to the Horan warehouse at eight on Sunday morning, in a camel coat, with Delphine carrying his coffee.

I had slept three hours on Tara's couch with a cat on my feet.

Now I stood on the loading floor of my father's building, in the cold that never leaves it, with my brother beside me and forty workers pretending to check their clipboards.

The Flats warehouse had been Horan Cold Storage since 1971.

It held frozen peaches, ice cream, three grocery chains' Thanksgiving turkeys, and every paycheck on this floor.

Broderick walked in as if he owned the air.

He did own the note on it.

"Romy," he said. "Peter. Good morning."

Nobody called my brother Peter.

"Mr. Ashworth," Pete said. His jaw was set so hard I could see the muscle.

"I'll be brief, since it's cold in here." Broderick set his coffee on a pallet. "The note is a formality. A misunderstanding between families. If Romy comes to dinner on Friday, as she always does, I'll tear it up on the spot."

He said it loud enough for the dock crew.

He wanted them to hear what I was costing them.

The oldest forklift driver on the floor lowered her clipboard and looked at me.

I felt forty pairs of eyes on the back of my neck.

"Mr. Ashworth," I said. "I'm not coming on Friday."

"You'll reconsider."

"I won't."

"My dear." He tilted his head the way he had at the gala. "You've reconsidered six times. Each time you were more sensible than the last."

"I was in love with your son."

"You still are."

That was the trouble with Broderick.

He never raised his voice, and everything he said was just true enough to hurt.

I could have lied.

I looked at the dock crew and said the plain thing.

"I still love him. I'm not going back to him."

Somebody on the floor drew a breath.

Broderick studied me, his jaw tightening.

Then Delphine stepped forward, smiling.

"Romy, sweetheart, may I?"

"No."

"It's only that this is so awkward." She lowered her voice, but not enough. "Killian hasn't been at his own penthouse since September. I'm sure you've wondered why."

The dock went very still.

"Ask him whose toothbrush is in his bathroom," she said. "Ask him why he doesn't answer you after midnight."

There it was, in front of everybody.

I had known it since the brooch, but knowing it and hearing it said out loud in my father's building are different things.

My face went hot, then cold, and I held onto the clipboard rail until my knuckles ached.

"Thank you for confirming it," I said. "I was hoping to hear it from someone who didn't have the decency to be embarrassed."

Delphine's smile finally slipped.

"I'm not embarrassed," she said. "I'll be wearing his ring by Thanksgiving."

Broderick put a hand on her sleeve.

"That's enough, Delphine."

"Is it?" I said. "Does Killian know about the ring?"

Neither of them answered.

The old forklift driver said, from her seat, in a flat Cleveland voice that carried the whole length of the building, "Well, that's a hell of a thing."

Someone laughed and turned it into a cough.

Broderick straightened his cuffs.

"You have until the thirtieth, Romy," he said. "I would hate to see forty people lose a Christmas."

He took his coffee and walked out with Delphine behind him, the brooch winking on her coat.

The big door rolled shut.

For a moment the only sound was the compressors.

Then the old driver slid down off her forklift and pulled me into a hug that smelled like cold air and peppermint gum.

"You tell that man where to go, kiddo," she said into my hair. "We got your back."

"I don't have a plan," I said.

"You've got a lot of cold storage," she said. "That's a plan to start with."

The crew went back to work in small groups, talking low.

Pete steered me into his office, a glass box at the end of the dock with a space heater and a pile of invoices.

He shut the door and stood with his back against it.

He didn't sit.

Pete was the kind of man who always sat.

"Romy," he said. "I need to tell you something, and I need you not to hit me before I'm finished."

"What?"

"Six times," he said. "Every time Killian broke it. Broderick told me the date a week ahead."

The space heater ticked.

"I knew before you did," my brother said. "And I took his money."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend