One Night With The Wrong Brother novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Open for Business

Lawrence forgives her in front of her customers, Constance offers a house, Lana refuses, Meghan has changed her locks, and Mitchell says she is staying with him.

I opened the shop at nine the next morning with a box of my own clothes on the counter.

Meghan had left it on the back step before dawn, with a note taped to the lid.

I'm so sorry. Lawrence says it's safer for you and the baby to stay somewhere else. I changed the lock. Please don't hate me. D.

I had stood on the stairs to my own apartment at seven o'clock and watched my key fail to turn.

The apartment was in my name.

I had paid the deposit with my mother's life insurance.

I put the note in the register drawer, under the receipt tape, and I turned the sign to open.

Mitchell was still outside.

He had slept in his truck across the street, folded behind the wheel.

I had told him to go home.

He had said, "No," and left it there.

At ten past nine the bell over the door rang, and I looked up from a bucket of peonies.

Lawrence came in first, in a pale gray suit, carrying a coffee in each hand.

Constance came in behind him in cream, and behind her came a young man with a camera.

"Good morning, darling," Lawrence said, and set my coffee on the counter. "Oh, the shop looks lovely. I wanted you to wake up to people who love you."

An older woman by the lilies had stopped with her hands full of stems.

The photographer lifted his camera.

"Lawrence, take that out of my shop."

"Of course." He didn't move. "Lana, I want to say this once, in front of everyone, so there's nothing left to whisper about."

He turned to the room.

"Last night she told me she made a mistake. One night with a stranger, in the dark, when she was lonely and I was working too hard."

My mouth was open.

I couldn't make a word come out of it.

"I forgive her completely," Lawrence said. "I'm raising this child as mine."

The older woman pressed a hand to her heart. "Oh, that's so generous," she said to nobody.

The camera clicked.

I understood, with a clear, cold shock, exactly what I was looking at.

He had told the story first.

By lunchtime, every person who had ever bought a bouquet from me would know a version of the worst night of my life, and in that version he was a saint.

"I didn't tell you that," I said. "I told you nothing. You made it up on the stairs."

"Sweetheart, you're upset."

"Lana." Constance stepped forward and took both my hands in her cool, dry ones, the way she had at every family brunch. "You're carrying an Ashcroft. Let us look after you. The house on East Seventy-Third is ready. There's a nurse, a car, and a room with a garden."

"A room," I repeated.

"Your own wing." She smiled. "You'll never want for anything again."

I looked down at her hands on mine.

Last night I had heard this woman say "the next Ashcroft" to a roof full of people, and she hadn't looked at me once.

I pulled my hands free.

"No."

The shop went very quiet.

"I'm not moving into your house. I'm not taking your car. And Lawrence, you can tell that man to put his camera away, or I'll put a bucket of water over it."

The photographer lowered the camera an inch.

Lawrence sighed, the sad little sigh he used when a waiter got an order wrong.

"Lana, you should know this building is owned by Ashcroft Real Estate," he said. "Your lease comes up in thirty days. I'd hate for it to become a conversation."

The older woman put her stems down very softly on the lilies and slipped out the door.

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'm worrying about you." He smiled at me across the peonies. "That's all I've ever done."

My eyes stung.

I would not cry in front of the camera.

I would not cry in front of her.

Constance touched his sleeve. "Lawrence, don't push. She's frightened. We'll give her a day."

"A day," Lawrence agreed.

He bent to kiss my forehead.

I stepped back so fast that I knocked a bucket of ranunculus into the floor drain.

That was when the bell rang again.

Mitchell came in with a duffel bag over one shoulder and a paper sack from the bakery next door in his fist.

He had not shaved.

He looked at the water on the floor, and at me, and then at his brother.

Constance made a small sound I'd never heard from her.

It was not a word. It was the noise a person makes when a chair is pulled out from under her.

"Mitchell," Lawrence said, perfectly pleasant. "What a surprise. Good of you to come and check on your sister-in-law."

Mitchell didn't look at him.

He crossed the shop and set the duffel down by my feet.

"Get your things," he said to me quietly. "I have a spare room."

He turned and faced the photographer, the cream suit and the gray one.

"She's staying with me."

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