Page 66 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“No bottle opener?”

“No need,” I said. I got out the spoon from my pocket, and levered it to pop the cap of the bottle.

Laura was staring at me.

“Is that a…is that an army thing?” her eyes were wide.

I grinned. “Navy,” I corrected her. “And no, it’s not. It’s an ‘I forgot to buy a bottle opener’ thing!”

“Weird,” said Laura, and then I remembered. I’d always known how to pop the tops of bottles with a spoon. I felt suddenly exposed, and I remembered that I had been about to reveal to Laura my true identity.

But I couldn’t, not now. Thanks to Tracey. I needed Laura to trust me first.

And finding out who I really was? That would have spelled the end of her trusting me ever again. Not now. Not in her hour of need, I told myself.

I opened my own beer, and took a sip.

“This is nice,” I leaned back to the chair.

“This whole evening was nice,” said Laura. “Except for the obvious.”

“Hey, do you want to see my roses?” I tried to distract Laura from the “obvious”.

“Roses? You grow roses?”

“Well, the gardener does.”

“You have a gardener? Who? Mr. Linney? The guy who does the landscaping in town?”

“No. He comes in from Freetown. But I help him sometimes.”

I stood up, and so did Laura. We left our drinks by the pool as we climbed another set of steps. They led up to the field by the side of the chopper shed. This area of the garden was wilder and more tangled. Dense bushes grew around, and I picked my way carefully up the path in the dark to an old covered bandstand.

“Wait a second,” I stepped off the path for a moment and went to the toolshed. Inside, under a covered panel, I turned on the lights. When I stepped back, Laura was staring at the bandstand.

“Wow.”

You could hardly see the flowers in the dark, but the lights, which had been installed in the bedding around it, were on now. Illuminated in the pale glow were the roses. Hundreds of them, standing on thin steps or wrapped in creeping vines around the pillars and the roof of the bandstand. Pink and yellow and white, they stood out.

“This looks amazing,” she laughed and jogged up towards the rose garden. It felt good to see her look happy and lively again, and I watched with more than a little interest as she spun on the bandstand, the skirt of her dress twirling as she stared at the roses.

“You like it?” I stepped up onto the bandstand.

“I do. I just…It’s so beautiful,” she sobbed.

I stepped towards her and opened my arms. Laura fell into them.

“Lucien,” she whispered. “Sometimes I feel like…I don’t know. I don’t…what is this, Lucien? Why are you always so goddamn…nice to me?”

“You know how I feel about you.”

“Yeah. It’s like you know me. You always know what’s going to cheer me up.”

“I pay attention,” I said guardedly.

I stepped to the left to gain some balance, and Laura looked up at me. Her eyes were pale, like her mother’s, but not harsh. I was lost in their lovely azure color.

“Sometimes when I’m with you, I just…”