The Firefly Cafe (Billionaire Brothers, #1)(14)

“Sorry,” she said awkwardly. “That’s all I really wanted to say, anyway. I’m sorry for how distant I’ve been, when you’ve been nothing but kind to Matt and me. You deserve better.”

An emotion she couldn’t name flattened his handsome mouth into a thin line, but the lines around his eyes smoothed enough to let Penny relax.

Until Dylan replied, in the gentlest tone she’d ever heard him use, “No need to apologize for pushing me away. Even if it weren’t your default setting, it would still be the smart thing to do with me.”

“What?” Penny sputtered, rearing back and nearly tripping into an azalea bush.

“Because I’m leaving soon,” Dylan explained, breaking eye contact to heave the folded ladder onto his shoulder.

Penny shook her head, trying to get her heart rate under control. “Not that. What do you mean, pushing people away is my default setting?”

Wrapping her arms around her torso, Penny held her breath against the urge to run away from the ghost of her past that seemed to finally be catching up with her.

* * *

Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan watched her brace for his answer as if she were expecting a blow, and his stomach rolled at the confirmation of his worst fears.

Debating how much to say, how hard to push, Dylan trudged down the garden path toward the shed, with Penny shadowing him. “I’m sure you have your reasons,” was what he settled on as he nudged open the shed door with one booted foot and deposited the ladder inside.

“My reasons,” Penny echoed flatly. All the life and joy had drained from her pretty face, and without it, she looked older. Old enough to have a sixteen-year-old son and a failed marriage behind her. “What do you know about my reasons?”

There was that tinge of bitterness again, the acid note that only crept into her voice when she was thinking about her ex-husband. Treading carefully, Dylan closed the shed door behind him and leaned against the rough, chipped wood.

“Nothing,” he told her. “And you certainly don’t have to tell me—but I think you ought to tell someone, because secrets eat you up from the inside out. Trust me on that.”

She gave him a weird look, but didn’t remark on the fervent tone. “It’s not a secret because I’m ashamed of what happened.”

Dylan plastered on a supportive smile, even though his knuckles already ached to find her ex-husband and cram his teeth down his throat.

Carefully uncurling his fists, Dylan said honestly, “I can’t imagine you ever doing something you’d need to be ashamed of.”

With a wry smile, Penny wandered over to sit on the stone bench alongside the garden path. “Oh, I don’t know. What about saying ‘I do’ to a man I didn’t love, because my parents couldn’t conceive of another option beyond marrying their teenage daughter off to the guy who knocked her up?”

Dylan breathed out through his nose and pressed his hands flat to his thighs. “That sounds more like a regret than something to be ashamed of.”

Staring down at her fingers, twining restlessly in her lap, Penny admitted, “I wish I’d been stronger back then, more willing to stand up under pressure. I knew, with every fiber of my being, that marrying Trent was a mistake. But I did it anyway, and I stayed with him until…”

She broke off, her whole body freezing into the alert stillness of a prey animal scenting danger.

This was it, Dylan knew. This was the steel at the core of Penny Little’s spine, the darkness at the back of her eyes. It seemed oddly incongruous to be having this conversation in a sunlit garden, surrounded by the drone of bees and the heavy perfume of roses. But when Penny tilted her face up, eyes closed and lashes trembling under the warmth of the afternoon sun, Dylan realized this conversation could only happen here.


On Sanctuary Island, in his grandparents’ perfect cottage garden, with the bright sun pouring down to chase away the shadows.

Pushing off the shed, he walked closer to her, taking care to move slowly and not spook her. But he needn’t have bothered, he realized the moment he reached the bench.

Without opening her eyes, Penny stretched out her fingers to touch the back of his hand. “You know what my grandmother used to say?”

He shook his head mutely, grief for his own departed Gram tugging at his heart.

Her lashes fluttered open, and she stared straight up at him with damp, clear eyes. “A very wise woman, my grandmother. If she’d still been around when I got pregnant with Matt, everything would have been different.”

Dylan straddled the bench beside her, facing her head-on and studying every line of her pretty face. “What did your grandmother used to say?”

Penny breathed in deep, then let it go. “She said, ‘A man might hit me once … but he’ll never hit me twice.’”

He’d suspected before this—from her reaction to seeing Matt fight, among other things—but to know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Dylan swallowed down bile. “Your ex-husband,” he grated out. “That’s why you left him. He hit you.”

Giving him her profile, Penny gazed out at the garden. “A man might hit me once, but he’ll never hit me twice. Because I won’t stick around to give him the chance.”

“No second chances,” Dylan said, another puzzle piece clicking into place.