Page 56 of Meeting Mr. Adorkable
Bibi shook her head. “It’s not a dark secret or anything, it’s just something I don’t talk about because there’s no point. It was my aunt. She got sick.” She picked up her discarded napkin and rolled it into a ball between her palms.
“Aunt Betty more or less took over raising me from when I was fourteen. My mom had died a few years before and my dad, although a lovely man, was hopeless where I was concerned — he didn’t have any idea about bringing up a child, beyond making sure it was washed, clothed, and had enough to eat. He especially didn’t have any idea how to handle an opinionated and pushy girl who believed the world was wrong and that she was right about everything.” Her lips lifted in a wry smile.
“Dad remarried, and I didn’t get on with my stepmom. Looking back, I didn’t get on with anybody. She’s actually a good woman. I just needed to grow up to realize it, and we get along fine now. Anyhow, dad got a big promotion, but it meant a move south. I refused to go.”
“But you were a kid. They must have made you. Or put you in boarding school?”
“If they’d have tried, I’d have made their life hell. I was really horrible…” Bibi grimaced. “They arranged, whether officially or not I don’t know, for Aunt Betty to finish up raising me. We had a lot in common, as she was my mom’s twin. It worked for all of us.” She screwed the napkin into a tighter ball and threw it on her plate.
“When she told me she was sick, I was living in San Francisco. I was achieving all my goals. I’d set up a dressmaking business and I had my own label. It was small but growing, and I was getting a lot of work alongside an excellent reputation. Then I got the call. She tried to persuade me not to quit doing what I loved. But I loved her more. That’s what it came down to. So, I came home. I took over running the flower store. She taught me what she could. Just before she passed, she told me to sell the place and go back to California to do what I really wanted.” Bibi shifted and looked down on her knotted together hands.
Lucian leaned forward and squeezed them tight. Bibi looked up and gave him a wavering smile.
“I couldn’t. Not then. It seemed disrespectful, somehow. Aunt Betty had built the business up from nothing, and I was determined to carry on. And besides…” Lucian waited, as Bibi chewed on her lower lip as though debating with herself what to say next. “Others rushed in to fill the gap I’d created, and it would have meant starting over. Aunt Betty finally passed a year after I returned to the Creek. Between coming back and then, I reconnected with old friends and made new ones. I met a few guys. And the place had changed for the better. It was a lot less rough around the edges. Not so ‘cowboy’.”
Their gazes met, and they both laughed.
“Truth was, I found I enjoyed being home, and the call to go back to California grew quieter.”
“So you dedicated yourself to the noble profession of floristry?”
“Hmm. Not exactly. Let’s just say I’ve always been careful to hire very able and talented assistants.”
“Just as well, because you’re the worst florist I’ve ever encountered.”
“Hey!” Bibi whacked him on the arm, but there was neither force nor malice. “I can make straightforward things.”
“You really can’t. I have to re-do most of your attempts.”
“You do not!”
“I’m sorry the truth hurts.”
“I should fire you right now.”
“Then everyone would discover what a terrible florist you are and recognize my creativity for the genius it is.”
Bibi tried to glare, before the attempt crumbled to dust, and she laughed.
“Okay, I’m a fraud, so sue me.”
“Seriously, sell up and use your inheritance to do what you really want.”
Bibi shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But we’ve talked enough about me. Today is about you, and making that man of yours drool with want.”
Lucian choked on the last mouthful of his coffee, now barely tepid.
“I really wouldn’t put it quite like that.”
“I would. Come on, we’ve got to finish the job.”
“What do you mean, finish the job?” Lucian asked as they headed out. She smiled, but declined to answer.
All was made clear when they came to a halt outside the glass wall of a hair salon, its interior white and stark, everybody from the receptionist to the stylists to the customers, all of them tall, skinny, and coolly attractive. It was everything that made Lucian want to cower, and he stepped back. Bibi stopped him with a firm hand between the shoulder blades.
“Don’t you dare try to run.”
“No, no way. I’m not getting my hair cut.”
