My Regretful Ex-Husband novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Early Shift

Wren takes the 3 a.m. bake shift at her old bakery and meets Camille, who orders the gala cake because Margaret chose this bakery by name.

Hallie Brandt opened her apartment door at eleven at night in green scrubs and one sock.

She looked at Wren's face, then at the empty hands, then past her at the dark street.

"Where's your car?"

"I left it in the parking structure. I walked the whole way."

"Eight miles? In those shoes?" Hallie pulled her inside. "Sit. Tell me who died."

"Nobody. I'm divorced."

Hallie stared at her.

"Since seven o'clock," Wren said. "He brought the papers home for dinner."

"I'm going to kill him. I know three ways that look like natural causes."

"Hallie."

"Two of them are medical."

Wren sat down on the couch, took the folded page out of her coat pocket, and handed it over.

Hallie read it standing up. Her mouth opened and shut.

"Four weeks," she said. "Wren. Does he know?"

"No."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"He wants Camille. I won't be the reason he stays."

"You will be the reason he pays."

"I don't want his money."

Hallie sat on the coffee table, took both of Wren's cold hands, and said nothing for once.

Then she got up and made up the couch with her own good blanket.

At three the next morning, Wren was standing outside the back door of Daley's Bakery on Fifth Street.

She had worked there for four years before the wedding. The owner had cried the day she left.

The baker opened the door in a floury apron and said, "You look terrible."

"I need a job. Any shift. The earliest one you have."

"Pryce wives don't work, I heard."

"I'm not one anymore."

The baker looked at her for a long moment. Then he put a rolling pin in her hand.

"Laminate the croissant dough. Four turns. Let's see if you remember."

She remembered.

By seven her wrists ached and her hair was full of flour, and she had not felt so steady in a year.

At eight, her phone buzzed. It was Fernwood Care Home.

"Ms. Hollister, I wanted you to know. A payment came in on your mother's account at nine-forty last night. A full month, from the Pryce family office."

Wren put down the dough scraper.

"They closed the account at six."

"Someone reopened it. I can't say who. Please don't be alarmed, she's fine."

"Send it back," Wren said. "I'll pay her fees myself."

"The account doesn't send money back, Ms. Hollister. It only takes it."

Wren hung up. She stood very still among the cooling racks.

She did not want to owe Jonas Pryce a dollar. But she did not have a way to pay Fernwood by Friday, either, and she knew it.

At ten the front bell rang.

"Wren, can you take the counter?" the baker called. "I've got hands in the oven."

She wiped her palms and went out front.

A tall woman in a camel coat was standing at the glass case with her black hair cut sharp at the chin. She looked up and smiled.

"Hi. I need a cake for two hundred people. Is that crazy?"

"It's fine," Wren said. "What's the event?"

"A charity gala. The Pryce Foundation, three weeks from Saturday."

Wren's pen stopped above the order pad.

"Name for the order?" she asked, though she already knew it.

"Camille Dray."

The room tilted a little. Wren put her free hand flat on the counter.

Camille's smile faded. "You've gone green. Sit down."

"I'm fine."

"You're not." Camille reached into her coat pocket and held out a ginger chew in a paper wrapper. "Take it. I had a sister who lived on these for nine months."

Wren took it. It was the kindest thing anyone had done for her all day, and she hated that.

"Thank you," she said.

She put the chew in her mouth and the nausea backed off.

"You're Jonas's," Wren said. "The Camille."

Camille's face went very still.

"Do you know him?"

"I was his wife until last night."

For a second, Camille said nothing at all.

"I didn't know he was married," she said finally. "I haven't spoken to him in five years. I called Margaret Pryce yesterday to say I was back, and she asked me to chair the gala."

"Margaret asked you."

"She was lovely about it." Camille's eyes dropped to Wren's bare left hand. "I'm so sorry. I came here for a cake, not for this."

"It's fine," Wren said. "Two hundred. Three tiers?"

Camille took out a card and set it on the glass.

"Mrs. Pryce chose this bakery herself," she said slowly. "She told me to ask for the pastry cook, and she said it had to be you."

Wren looked at the card, then at the street outside the window.

She had been a Pryce for three years. She had told no one at the bakery where she had gone.

Only Hallie and the baker had known she was here.

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