My Husband Bought His Mistress Our Downstairs Apartment novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Scones for the Husband

Linnea moves in above Bree's bakery, records Dexter's fake apology in a packed shop, and sees Paloma move into her kitchen in her robe.

"I told him to tell you himself," Quinton said. "I asked in the spring. I asked again at Christmas."

"And he said?"

"That he would handle it."

"That isn't an apology."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

He didn't say anything else.

I waited for the rest, and there wasn't any.

I went into the bedroom and pulled a duffel bag from the closet.

Quinton stayed in the kitchen with the cake on the floor around his shoes.

I packed jeans, my laptop, my mother's recipe box, and the good linen towel from Vermont.

When I came out he was still standing there.

"There's a suite on the top floor," he said. "Mine. You can have it."

"No."

"A car, then. A hotel."

"I'm going to Bree's."

He nodded once.

"Sunday dinner is at my stepmother's," he said. "She'll want you there."

"Why?"

"Because Dexter will be there, and he'll have a story."

I zipped the bag.

"Then I'll bring mine," I said.

I walked out and left him in my kitchen.

Bree Kallio ran a bakery in Brooklyn and lived in the two rooms above it.

When I buzzed at seven, she opened the door in a flour-streaked apron with her red curls tied up in a bandana.

She looked at my face, then at the duffel bag.

"Oh, honey," she said. "Is it the husband or the cake?"

"Both."

"I'll get the coffee."

By nine, I had told her everything.

She listened with a rolling pin in her hand.

"A thousand roses," she said. "For the mistress. With your building's address on the order."

"Yes."

"I want to commit a very specific kind of crime."

"You can't. You have a lunch rush."

"Fair." She pushed a croissant at me. "Sit. Eat. You can sleep on the couch until you decide what you're doing."

I slept for four hours on her couch, between sacks of flour.

When I woke, the shop bell was ringing downstairs.

I came down the back steps and stopped at the swinging door.

Through the gap I could see the counter.

Dexter stood at it holding a bouquet of white tulips.

It was the lunch rush, and the shop was full.

"I just want to see my wife," he said to Bree.

He said it loudly, with his sad, handsome face turned toward the customers.

"She hasn't been herself lately," he said. "She's under a lot of stress. I'm worried."

A woman at the register looked at him with sympathy.

I took out my phone and started recording.

Then I pushed through the door.

"Lin." His whole face softened. "Thank God. Come home. We'll talk about all of it."

"Which part?" I said.

"The misunderstanding."

"The thousand roses?"

"It was a gift for a coworker who's had a hard year."

"Whose card said you are my everything?"

A man in line coughed into his coffee.

Dexter's smile didn't move.

"You're upset," he said gently. "I understand. But you can't just throw our marriage away over a mix-up."

"You bought her an apartment."

"As an investment."

"In our building. Under mine."

"Lin, please. You're making a scene."

"You said your mistress was having an anxiety attack," I said. "You told me to come to the hospital and handle the paperwork."

The shop had gone quiet.

"Paloma is a vulnerable young woman," he said. "She's under my care."

"Under your care."

"I'm responsible for her."

The woman at the register stopped looking sympathetic.

Bree came around the counter with a tray of yesterday's scones.

"Sir," she said. "We're closing."

"It's one o'clock."

"We're closing for you."

She tipped the tray against his chest.

Scones went down his shirt and bounced off the white tulips and rolled across the floor.

The customers did not applaud, but a few of them wanted to.

Dexter looked at the crumbs on his suit.

"This is a hostile environment," he said.

"It's a bakery," said Bree. "Get out."

He left.

He dropped the tulips in the trash can by the door on his way.

Bree turned to me with her hands on her hips.

"I regret nothing," she said.

"I have it all on video."

"Of course you do."

My phone buzzed in my hand.

It was Odette Barrow, my mother-in-law, who had never once called my own phone.

"Linnea," she said. Her voice carried the way it always did, clear and a little imperious. "Dexter has explained."

"I'm sure he has."

"I would like to hear it from you. Sunday, seven o'clock. Come alone."

"I'll be there."

"Good. Wear something decent."

She hung up.

I stood in the bakery with a croissant in one hand and my phone in the other.

Then the phone buzzed again.

It was a text from a number I didn't know, with a screenshot of a story posted ten minutes ago.

It showed my kitchen.

The tile had been cleaned. The cake was gone.

Paloma Serrano stood at my counter in my white robe, holding my coffee mug and smiling into the camera.

Under it she had written: Home.

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