Worthy Opponents(61)

“I wholeheartedly agree. I think we should start with dinner on Saturday night to celebrate.”

“Very good policy. I second that.” She was still smiling. “When do we sign the papers?”

“Wait till you see the house first, and make sure you like it and think it will work as a store. We can rent it for now and buy it later if we want.”

“How did all this happen?” She looked at him in amazement.

“I think it’s because you’re magic,” he whispered to her, and she laughed.

They saw the house together the next morning, and Spencer couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. It was the perfect setting for Brooke’s, much more than the old store had been. She kept thanking Mike as she walked from room to room, and when she finally stopped long enough, in her excitement to see every inch of it, he put his arms around her and held her close and kissed her for the second time since the carnage at the store.

“You’ve made all my dreams come true,” she whispered to him. “I don’t deserve this.”

“Oh yes, you do,” he said firmly, and kissed her again. “We both do. It took us a long time to get here, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it with you.”

They walked through the house a second time, while she made careful notes and sketches, and took pictures. She agreed with his father. There wasn’t a lot of work to do. She was guessing that they could get it up and running in three months, by the fall. They would have to work like crazy to do it, but hard work never scared her. It wasn’t far from Mike’s office on Park Avenue, and he said he could meet her at the store for lunch when he was free.

They hated to leave, but they had a lot to do now. She had to decide if she wanted to keep the old location open till they moved, or close while they worked on the new location and focus on that. Mike was going to provide the operating funds to get the new location set up as a store.

“Why don’t we figure out how much money you’ll lose if you close the old store now, or if it makes more sense to keep it open. I’ll work up the numbers with Paul Trask, and we can decide. What are you doing on Sunday by the way?”

“I have the boys,” she reminded him, “with no nanny.”

“I was thinking we could take them for a walk on the Chelsea Piers with Zack. It’s nice level ground for his wheelchair, and I’d like him to meet them, and you.” She smiled as they got into a cab together. She was going to drop him off at his office, and head downtown to tell the others what had happened. The whole world had changed in a single day, thanks to Mike.

He kissed her as the cab sped down Fifth Avenue and turned toward Park Avenue a few blocks down.

“I’m very happy with our policy about working partners,” he whispered to her, and she laughed.

“So am I.”





Chapter 15


When Spencer got to the office, she rounded up Marcy, Beau, and Paul, and had them come to her office. She explained the new arrangement with Mike, that she was retaining majority control, but that at some later date, if she chose to, she and Mike would become equal partners, at her discretion. And then she told them about the mansion Mike’s father was going to rent to her. She showed them the photos she’d taken on her phone, and they were as astonished as she had been. They loved the location, and the interiors. They were going to put the restaurant at ground level this time, and use the garden for outdoor dining in summer. Spencer had a million ideas about where to put each department, in all the rooms that had been previously used as bedrooms or sitting rooms, the main dining room, the elegant living room, with space for all their offices upstairs. It was going to be the most beautiful specialty store in New York.

And Paul and Mike got to work deciding if Brooke’s should stay open downtown for the summer, or close until they opened uptown. There were a million decisions to be made.

Spencer called the realtor and put the store in Chelsea on the market. They would have to disclose the shootout that had occurred there. Spencer couldn’t guess who would buy it, or how they would use it, and even though Brooke’s had an elegant new home to go to, she knew she would be sad when it sold. It would mean leaving a big part of her history behind.

On Saturday night Mike took Spencer to Le Bernardin, one of the best restaurants in the city. He ordered champagne, and when he took her home they tiptoed upstairs to her bedroom and locked the door to her suite. He smiled when he saw the chair where he had spent the night watching her after the shootout. They marveled at how life could change in an instant. Everything was different now. When they made love for the first time, with the moonlight streaming into her bedroom, she felt as though she had been waiting for him all her life, and her past faded behind her like so much mist as she lay in his arms afterwards. She didn’t let him spend the night because Axel and Ben were home, and he had Zack staying at his apartment.

“We have to go somewhere for a weekend,” he said, sad to leave her.

“The boys go on sleepovers,” she reminded him, and he laughed. They were refugees from their children. He wanted her to meet his parents, and so did she. She had a great deal to thank his father for, and she was interested to meet his mother and learn about her online fashion business that was a worldwide success, and his sister Stephanie who worked for her. She warned him about her mother, who found fault with everything and disapproved of everything Spencer did. They had much to learn about each other, and new worlds to discover.