The Don Played Broke to Test Me, So I Left With His Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: One White Rose

Cesare tries to buy every flower in Tillie's shop and Joanna refuses the sale; Bruna arrives with a basket and an apology.

I went back to the apartment and packed in twenty minutes.

I took the thirty-eight thousand four hundred dollars, my mother's recipe box, and the empty bottle from the kitchen drawer.

I wrapped the bottle in a dish towel and zipped it into my bag.

Then I stood in the doorway and looked at the stove where the soup pot still sat.

I washed the pot and left it on the rack.

I would not leave a dirty dish for Bruna to find.

At nine I walked into the flower shop with a duffel bag over my shoulder.

Tillie was cutting stems at the back counter, and she dropped the shears when she saw me.

"You're alive," she said. "I called you nine times. Where did that car take you?"

"To a very nice house."

"Joanna."

"Cesare is the head of a mafia family," I said. "The debt was fake. He tested me for eight months."

Tillie stared at me.

"You're joking."

"I wish I were."

She came around the counter and put both arms around me, and she smelled like wet leaves and carnations.

I had not cried in front of the capos or in front of Cesare.

I cried now, into my boss's apron, for about a minute.

Then I wiped my face and picked up the shears.

"I need the day, Til. Work, I mean. I need to do something with my hands."

"You need to sit down."

"I need to do something with my hands."

She sighed and handed me a bucket of tulips.

At ten the bell on the door rang.

I knew who it was before I turned around.

Cesare had changed out of the camel coat into a plain gray jacket.

He looked like the man who had come home from the docks every night for eight months.

I hated that I could still tell the difference.

"Welcome to the shop," I said. "What can I get you?"

"Jo."

"Roses are twelve dollars a bunch. Tulips are nine."

"I'd like all of them."

Tillie stopped cutting.

"All of what?" I asked.

"Every flower in the shop. The roses, the tulips, the lilies, the ones in the cooler."

"We're not for sale."

"I'll pay triple."

"Not to you."

His hands opened and closed at his sides.

I remembered those hands on my shoulders on bad nights, with the grease scrubbed out of the lines of the knuckles.

I put that thought away.

"It's a shop," he said. "I'm a customer."

"You're a man who watched me count out tips for eight months and let me do it."

A woman at the register turned around and stared at us.

"Ma'am, do you need help?" she asked me.

"No," I said. "He's leaving."

Cesare looked at her, then at me.

He did not raise his voice.

He had never raised his voice, not once in the year I had known him.

That had been the one thing I'd trusted.

"I made a mistake," he said. "I'm not going to explain it to a room full of people."

"Then don't explain it."

"I'm going to fix it."

"You can't fix it. You can pay for things you break, and you're done paying."

His mouth closed.

For a moment I thought he would argue.

Then he took a single white rose out of the bucket by the door, laid a twenty on the counter, and left without change.

I watched his car pull away from the curb.

It was the same black car that had come for me the day before, and a man in the passenger seat watched my window as it drove off.

"Is that your man?" Tillie asked.

"He's not my man."

"He bought one rose."

"He bought one rose because I wouldn't sell him the rest."

"I think that's the most romantic thing I've ever seen."

"Tillie."

"I'm saying it's a good rose." She pulled the twenty off the counter. "Also you're moving in with me. I've got the couch. I'm not asking."

I opened my mouth to argue, and my stomach turned over with morning sickness.

I put my hand there anyway, though it was still flat and there was nothing to feel.

I was twelve weeks along, and I was already the only one who would protect this baby.

I was still standing with my hand over my stomach when the bell rang again.

A woman came in with a covered basket on her arm and a soft, tired smile.

She wore pearl earrings and a navy coat.

"Joanna," Bruna said. "Thank God you're safe. I'm so sorry."

She put the basket on the counter and took both of my hands in hers.

Her hands were warm.

"I came to apologize," she said. "For all of it."

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