13. Brittney
— ? —
Brittney
The construction site is controlled chaos. Lumber stacked in precise piles. Sawdust hanging in the air like golden fog. The skeleton of the community center rising up against the morning sky, all exposed beams and possibility.
I’m walking the site with Fern and the foreman when I see him.
Shawn. In work boots.
He’s carrying a stack of two-by-fours like he’s done it before, which he definitely hasn’t. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. There’s sawdust in his hair and dirt on his face and he looks absolutely nothing like the man who used to hand his coat to whoever was nearest.
“What are you doing here?”
He sets down the lumber and straightens up.
“Helena said if I wanted to understand what you’re building, I should see it.” He holds up his hands - callused now, I notice, in ways they weren’t before. “She also said she’d bury me under the foundation if I got in the way.”
“She wasn’t joking.”
“I know.”
He’s quiet during the tour. Listens when the foreman explains the structural challenges.
Asks questions that actually make sense.
Carries supplies when asked, without complaint, without making it about himself.
I shouldn’t be watching him. I have a building to inspect, a team to coordinate, a career to protect.
But I keep finding my eyes drifting back.
His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows.
His forearms are tanned in a way they never were before - he’s been spending time outside, doing something physical.
At one point he bends to pick up a box of nails, and his shirt rides up, baring a strip of skin above his waistband, and I have to look away before I do something stupid. Look away. Look back. Look away again.
Fern appears at my shoulder.
“Enjoying the view?”
“No. I’m just… supervising.”
“Uh-huh.” He draws out the syllables in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t believe me even a little bit. “Supervising the way his shirt fits?”
“Shut up.”
The foreman makes a joke about city boys and soft hands, and Shawn laughs - the real laugh, the one that crinkles his eyes - and picks up another load of lumber without complaint.
One of the workers claps him on the shoulder like he belongs there.
I remember the man who wouldn’t carry his own bags.
The man who thought manual labor was something that happened to other people.
The man who never got his hands dirty because getting dirty meant being vulnerable. This isn’t that man.
When he catches me looking, I don’t glance away fast enough.
His eyes hold mine across the construction site, across the sawdust and the chaos, and something hot and traitorous sparks under my ribs.
Stop it, I tell myself. He’s proving something.
That’s all. This is performance. But he wasn’t looking at anyone else to see if they noticed.
He was just working. Being present. Showing up.
By the time the site clears out, my feet are aching and my clipboard is full of notes and Shawn is still there, sawdust in his hair, sweat on his brow, looking more relaxed than I’ve seen him in years. Fern pauses beside me on his way to his car.
“Your ex-husband isn’t completely useless.”
“Current husband.” Shawn’s voice carries across the site. He’s approaching, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Still married. Still trying.”
Fern raises an eyebrow at me. I don’t correct him.
After Fern drives off, I find myself walking toward Shawn instead of away.
“You showed up,” I say.
“I told you I would.”
“Telling and doing are different things.”
“I know.” He holds my gaze. “I’m trying to learn the difference.”
I step closer. Close enough to smell sawdust and sweat and underneath it, that disaster cologne - the cheap one I picked out when we were broke, still there under the sawdust and the sweat. He goes very still.
“Britt?”
“I saw your car.” The words come out before I can stop them. “At the end of the block. Every night this week.”
“I know. I wasn’t trying to hide.”
“I told myself I wasn’t looking for it.” I take a breath. Let it out. “I was looking for it.”
His eyes darken. He doesn’t move - letting me set the pace, letting me decide - but I can see what it costs him. The muscle jumping in his jaw. The way his hands curl into fists at his sides. The effort it takes not to reach for me. I don’t step back.
“Same time tomorrow?” I ask.
“Same time tomorrow,” he says. “Same time every day. As long as you’ll let me.”
I hold his gaze for one more beat. Then I make myself turn and walk toward my car. I feel his eyes on me the whole way. I don’t hate it.
***
He finds me on Mom’s back steps after the site clears.
I don’t know why I’m here instead of inside. Don’t know why I sat down when I saw him walking up the driveway instead of going in through the back door. But he’s close enough that I can feel the warmth of his arm almost touching mine, and I don’t move away.
“Why now?”
The question I’ve been dreading.
He stares at his hands. Dirt under his nails. Calluses forming where calluses have never been. The hands of someone who’s learning to work.
“Because the silence has weight.” His voice comes out rough.
“Because I replay you standing in that ballroom when my mother put those pearls on Mikayla and I said nothing. I clapped. I actually clapped.” He stops.
Swallows hard. I watch his jaw work before he can speak again.
“And I can’t breathe when I think about it. ”
I’m quiet. Waiting.
“I was raised to believe love was providing.” The words come slower now, like he’s dragging them out one by one.
“Keeping the peace. Not making waves. I thought the penthouse meant I was a good husband. I thought ‘later’ was a real place we’d eventually get to.
” His voice cracks. He lets it. “I thought you’d always be there.
I thought I had time to become the man you deserved. And then you left, and I realized-”
He can’t finish.
I’m quiet for a while. The evening light is fading, turning everything golden.
“You sound like you did in that alley.” My voice is soft. “When you were broke and convincing.”
Something moves behind his eyes - pain, maybe, or memory. The alley. Our first year. Dancing at two in the morning outside a bar we couldn’t afford, his jacket around my shoulders, my laugh echoing off the brick walls. The promises he made that I believed completely.
“I was telling the truth then too.”
“I know.” My voice softens. “I just believed you faster back then.”
“I’m going to earn that back.” He turns to look at me. “The fast belief. I swear I am.”
The air between us changes. Electric. My eyes drop to his mouth. Then I look away.
“Coffee tomorrow.” My voice is quiet. “Two cups. And don’t block the fire lane.”
Something in his face shifts - relief, maybe, or hope. He nods like I’ve just handed him something precious.
***
After the site clears completely, after the foreman locks up and the last car pulls away, we’re alone in the shell of the building.
The sunset pours through the unfinished windows, painting everything gold. Shawn stands in the middle of the community room, head tilted back, looking at the beams above.
“This is going to be beautiful.” His voice is hushed, reverent. “The light’s going to come through those windows and hit right here.” He gestures at a spot on the floor. “Like you planned for people to feel warm just walking in.”
I stare at him.
“How do you know that?”
“I looked at your drawings.” He turns to face me. “Helena showed me.”
“You looked at my drawings.”
“I looked at everything. Every sketch. Every note. Every revision.” He steps closer.
“I was married to you for years and never asked what you were making when you stayed up late with your pencils. You told me you’d applied.
Four times, maybe five. I said ‘that’s great, babe’ and asked you to pass the salt.
I didn’t not-know. I decided not to hear you. ”
My eyes sting. He keeps going.
“You’re extraordinary, Britt. And I spent years making you feel small so I wouldn’t have to notice how bright you were. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
I don’t move. Neither does he.
“I want to kiss you.” His voice is barely audible. “I’ve wanted to kiss you every day since you walked out of that elevator.”
My breath catches. We’re an inch apart. Less. I can see the exact moment his eyes drop to my mouth.
“Britt.” Barely a whisper.
“Don’t.” But I don’t move away. “Don’t say something you can’t take back.”
“I’m going to kiss you.” His hand cups my face. Gentle. Shaking. His thumb traces my cheekbone like he’s memorizing the shape of it. “Not now. But soon. And when I do, I need you to know it’s not because I’m desperate or lonely or scared of losing you.”
My breath catches. “Then why?”
“Because I finally understand what I have. What I almost threw away.” His thumb traces a slow line from my cheekbone to the corner of my mouth. “And I want to kiss you like you deserve to be kissed. Like you’re the only thing that matters.”
Everything in me wants to close the distance. One inch. That’s all it would take. One inch. His breath on my lips. His hand in my hair. The whole world narrowed to the space between us.
“Soon,” he says.
And he steps back.
I nearly pitch forward into the space he left before my brain catches up. He catches my elbow, steadies me, and the smile on his face is gentle and wrecked and so full of want that I have to look away.
“Tease,” I manage.
“Promise,” he corrects.
We sit on a pile of lumber as the last light fades. I don’t know how we got here - side by side, shoulders almost touching, sharing the quiet like it belongs to us.
“When did you last eat?” I ask.
He looks up, startled. “What time is it?”
“Time to eat.” I hold up the container I grabbed from Mom’s fridge before I came here. “Mom’s pot roast. She made extra.”
He stares at the container like it might disappear.
“You brought me food.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not - it’s just-” He takes the container. His fingers brush mine. Neither of us pulls away. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Mom. She’s the one who decided you looked ‘too skinny to be useful.’”
He laughs. The real one. The one that crinkles his eyes and makes him look ten years younger. We eat in comfortable silence. The pot roast is perfect, the way it always is.
I pat my pockets for my keys. Third time in ten minutes - my brain never trusts the first two checks.
“Jacket. Left pocket,” Shawn says, not looking up from his food. “You put them there when you sat down.”
He says it like it’s nothing. Like keeping track is just something he does now.
Elise used to watch me check and recheck with that little sigh. Mikayla turned it into a punchline in front of a packed ballroom. Shawn just… noticed. Quietly. So I wouldn’t have to.
At some point his knee presses against mine, and neither of us moves away from that either.
When the food is gone, I pull out my phone.
“There’s something you should hear.”
I find the voice memo I saved months ago. Press play.
Mikayla’s voice, low and careless: “The Oxford paperwork is fine. No one’s going to dig that deep. The Harrington situation was different - they got paranoid. This family isn’t like that.”
Shawn goes very still.
“Where did you get this?”
“She left a door open. I have a good memory for the things people wish I’d forget.”
He listens to it twice. Then a third time. Something hardens behind his eyes - something cold and calculating, the boardroom version of him that I rarely see.
“Harrington.” He says the name slowly, turning it over. “I know that name. The Ross family has done business with the Harringtons for years. There’s someone in Boston I can call.”
“You think she-”
“I think she’s been lying about a lot of things.” He looks at me. “Can you send me this?”
“Already did.”
His phone buzzes with the file. He stares at the screen for a long moment.
“I’m going to find out what she’s hiding.” His voice is quiet. Dangerous. “And when I do, she’s never going to be able to hurt you again.”
“This isn’t about protecting me.”
“Yes it is.” He meets my eyes. “Everything is about protecting you now. I’m just sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”
My phone buzzes. Helena’s name.
“Rowe.” I answer on the second ring. “It’s late.”
“I know what time it is.” Helena’s voice is ice and steel. “Elise Ross just called the firm. Left a voicemail threatening to pull every Ross-connected client if I don’t fire you by Monday.”
The words land like a punch to the stomach. I look at Shawn. He’s close enough to hear, and his face has gone pale.
“She can’t-”
“She can try.” Helena cuts me off. “I wanted you to know what you’re up against. And I wanted you to know that I don’t respond well to threats.”
“Helena-”
“Get some sleep, Brittney. We’ll handle this in the morning.”
She hangs up.
The night is quiet around us. The half-built community center creaks and settles. Somewhere in the distance, crickets start up and go quiet again.
“She won’t stop.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Hollow. “Your mother. She won’t stop until she’s destroyed everything I’ve built.”
Shawn’s jaw tightens.
“Neither will I.”
He takes my hand. Holds it tight.
“We’re going to fight her. Together. And we’re going to win.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe that this time is different, that he won’t fold when his mother pushes back, that the man holding my hand is the man he’s going to stay. But I’ve believed things before. I’ve been wrong before.
“Same time tomorrow?” I ask.
“Same time tomorrow.” He squeezes my hand. “Same time every day. Until you believe me.”
I don’t pull away. That has to count for something.