Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I think I’m wearing odd socks.

you think or you know?

I know. 

i never pictured you as the kind of guy with varied enough tastes in socks to end up wearing odd ones.

Do you think about my socks often?

One is plain black. The other one is black with a pattern.

no one will notice.

i can’t believe you noticed. 

It’s very noticeable. 

i guarantee you it isn’t.

Bet.

There is a certain kind of magic to London in the autumn. 

It’s in the way the warmth of summer lingers just a little longer than it should, hovering in the air until the final possible moment when a cool September breeze sends it on its way. It’s children scurrying back to school with shiny shoes, brand new uniforms and backpacks filled with crisp, fresh exercise books and newly sharpened pencils. It’s the slowly changing colours of the trees in the parks, gradually gaining occasional hints of amber and gold and ochre until one morning you blink and the whole world seems to have been transformed into the colours of a sunset. 

It is Kate’s favourite time of year so she chooses to leave the door to the shop propped open even if it is a little too cold now that September is giving way to October. She likes to hear the sound of the street outside, the snippets of conversations from people hurrying by, savouring it from her seat behind the counter as she sips her cup of chai and enjoys the start of a new day. 

Her phone dings quietly and she looks at the screen to see a new message.

My brother noticed.

She laughs to herself, thankful that Penelope is too focused on restocking shelves to pay attention to her, before quickly typing out a reply. 

he did not.

you are lying.

I would never lie to you.

She's impressed at the speed with which he replies with an appropriate gif of his own.

Our friendship is built on trust.

and you typing the wrong number.

That too.

As usual, she forces herself to turn her phone to silent before she wastes the entire morning messaging back and forth but she’s not quick enough to avoid being spotted by Edwina who walks into Off the Shelf carrying paper bags from the bakery next door that Kate hopes contains a raspberry danish or maybe even two.

“You have that silly smile on your face again,” Edwina says, tossing her one of the bags. 

“I’m allowed to be happy.”

“Yes you are. But are you just happy or is it Mr Wrong Number making you all smiley this morning?”

Kate takes an aggressively large bite of her danish to avoid answering and Edwina smiles in satisfaction. 

“What’s this about a wrong number?” Penelope asks, joining them at the counter and gratefully taking a bag from Edwina before tucking into a cronut. 

Penelope is sweet, an English Literature grad student who’s been working part time at the shop for the last few months to fund her love of books and shoes, but she has a penchant for gossip. Kate has learnt more trashy celebrity gossip in the last three months than she had in the twenty-six years previous and, unfortunately, Edwina is just as much of a gossip, especially when it comes to embarrassing her sister. 

“I can’t believe you don’t know! Kate got a text from a wrong number a couple of months ago and now they text every day.”

“Not every day,” she protests. 

Edwina helps herself to Kate’s drink. “When was the last time you went a day without talking to him?” 

She flips her phone over to prove her sister wrong (there’s already another message from him: I’m going to a meeting. I bet someone will comment on my socks) but as she scrolls back through the countless messages, gifs and Wordle scores that they’ve shared, she can see that they have spoken daily for at least the last ten days. 

Putting her phone back down, she glares at Edwina’s smirk. She stands up and dusts the danish crumbs off the counter before trying to busy herself unpacking the new order of Matt Haig books but the two younger women follow her, both too nosey for their own good. 

“You don’t even know his name, Kate,” Edwina continues and now her tone is more one of concern than teasing. 

“He doesn’t know mine either. It started out as a joke but now it’s our thing: no personal details.”

The two of them start helping her rearrange the shelves, moving books around so copies of The Comfort Book and The Midnight Library can face outwards and catch customers’ eyes as they browse. She loves how colourful and varied the bookshelves of the shop are, always with something new to draw a customer in and lead them to the right book for them.

“So you don’t know anything about him?” asks Penelope. 

“I know he lives in London and he’s got a brother and a sister. I think there might be more but they’re the only ones he’s mentioned.” She moves a stray copy of Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart back to the bestseller’s table. “And he’s older than me but only a little.”

“But you don’t know how old?”

“He sent me a clip from a 90s kids' show yesterday that I didn’t know but he did so I’m guessing around 30.”

“I don’t know why you don’t just meet him. You haven’t been on a date in forever.”

It’s not as if Kate hasn’t thought about it. She has even drafted the text message a couple of times, deliberately casual and with room for him to say no without it ruining this friendship they’ve built, but she backs out every time. What they’re doing is no different to online dating really, minus the lack of pictures and first names, but she likes that they haven’t got the pressure yet of seeing what it could be in the real world. 

It’s nice spending a boring Wednesday night watching Netflix with him, the two of them syncing up a movie and sharing their witty commentary on whatever they selected. He mocks her terribly high Wordle scores (How did it take you six guesses to get olive?) and she never complains when he messages her his random thoughts while he’s working at one in the morning even though she’s fast asleep and won’t reply until the next day (I was reading my sister Harry Potter tonight and I don’t understand why the snitch is worth so many points.)

There’s no expectations or obligations. They’re just two strangers who like chatting. 

“Maybe we’ll meet one day,” she says. “But not yet.”

I’m going to a meeting. I bet someone will comment on my socks.

Anthony is not actually worried that anyone will notice his socks but he likes to think it might make her laugh to think of him worrying about it.

It’s silly how much this absolute stranger has become such a fundamental part of his daily routine so quickly, the two of them sharing the trivial moments of their days along with the more frustrating or upsetting ones. He doesn’t even know her name but she was the first person he wanted to talk to last week when Hyacinth told him she didn’t want him to plait her hair in the mornings. It had crushed him, another sign that his baby sister was growing up and didn’t need him anymore, and he had found himself texting her before he could even think it through. 

My sister doesn’t want me to plait her hair anymore.

He had worried it was too personal, breaching the rules they had established early on about not sharing any personal details, and he had already been trying to think how to play it off as a joke when she replied:

i’m sorry.

it broke my heart when my sister stopped letting me read to her at bedtime.

She understands him. He thinks it’s why he’s kept messaging her long after they’ve both moved past him texting the wrong number (she’d had no idea what the Whye document was and she hadn’t appreciated the bluntness of his three texts demanding it nor his supposed inability to use the word please). She makes him laugh and she never judges him for getting stuck in a board meeting and not being able to reply for hours. It’s the most fun he’s had talking to someone not named Bridgerton or Basset in years. 

Wiggling his toes as he stands up from his desk, because it really does irritate him that his socks don’t match even though no one will be looking at his feet, he takes a breath and strides out of his office and down the corridor, his attention already half on his iPad and the latest share report and half on where he’s actually going. 

Being CEO of The Bridgerton Group means he always needs to be twelve steps ahead of what they’re actually working on and fifteen steps ahead of their competitors. The portrait of his grandfather that hangs in the lobby and the photo of his father he keeps on his desk are daily reminders that it’s his duty to make sure the family legacy continues. He’s the third Bridgerton to sit at the helm of the company and the one now responsible for every choice the company makes. 

The boardroom is full by the time he arrives and everyone stands for him, a company tradition he’s always loathed and never managed to successfully eradicate. 

“Where are we at with our latest acquisitions?”

“Demolition starts in Farnham next week and we’re moving on to stage two of development in the Richmond project as of today.”

There had always been a plan for Anthony to join The Bridgerton Group once he was ready, to learn the family business and take over bit by bit. Property development wasn’t the career he had dreamed of when he was little - he wanted to be a pilot or an astronaut and explore - but his father loved the business and Anthony loved his father and so he wanted to make him proud. 

However, there was supposed to be time for him to learn, time for him to figure out who he was outside of the gleaming office block bearing his family’s name. He was supposed to have more time. 

But then there’d be a hike on a sunny day and a bee and an allergy no one knew about. 

So now he sits in a boardroom, still feeling like he’s playing catchup after all these years, wondering with every decision what his father would have done in his place, whether he would be proud of the business under Anthony’s leadership. 

“Are there any complications you can foresee with that one?"

“No,” says Berbooke, leaping into the discussion as if the idea of complications is absurd. He is an odious man, one who had no qualms about voicing his doubts over Anthony’s ability to take over as CEO, and Anthony contemplates firing him at least once a month. “Tenants were informed of the new ownership last month and they should all have received letters about the project and next steps.”

“I’m glad you think they will all take news of their businesses closing with such ease, Nigel.”

“A number of the shopfronts are already empty or the tenants were preparing to move anyway,” Fife chimes in. “There’s Quinn’s, a bakery, which does decent enough trade that it should be able to find new premises quickly, and a bookshop, Off the Shelf, that’s been leasing the building for twenty years but it doesn’t turn a sizeable profit so I expect they’ll be glad to be closing. All in all, it should be an easy clear out.”

Anthony hopes he’s right. 

Kate is proud that she has managed to keep Off the Shelf afloat as Amazon devours her competitors with their cheap paperbacks and even cheaper e-books. 

This had been her father’s dream, the tiny bookshop he’d opened on Kate’s sixth birthday, cutting the ribbon with an excited Kate and a heavily pregnant Mary at his side. He had called it a new start for them and it had been his pride and joy. 

She locks the door, flicking the sign from ‘We’re Open. Come on in’ to ‘We’re Closed. See you tomorrow,’ and remembers every time she had perched on the counter and watched him do the exact same thing day in and day out. 

Penelope is finished for the day so it’s just Kate, her Spotify playlist and the small jobs that mark the end of another day - tidying away stray books, cashing up the register, sorting out the post and deliveries for tomorrow. 

When she was a teenager, her father had paid her £20 a week to stop by and help him shut up shop. She holds so many memories of sitting in this room doing her homework, sweeping the floors and stacking books that it feels as much like home to her as the terraced house over the river where Mary still lives. 

Now the whole shop is her responsibility and she’s kept the doors open for the last eight years even when the accountants and advisers said it couldn’t be done. She feels her father next to her every time she closes up the tills and locks that day’s takings in the safe and she hopes that he’s up there somewhere, proud of her for keeping his dream alive. 

When her father had opened the shop, he had wanted to create a place with books for everyone and she tries her best to keep that tradition going for him, taking a few minutes to clamber into the window to organise their children’s books display to make sure that any child who walks past can find themselves reflected in the stories they see. She moves copies of Sam Wu is Not Afraid of Ghosts next to The Infinite, a personal favourite of hers, and makes sure that The Proudest Blue is in the centre of the display. 

Bookshops are rapidly going out of fashion and she can’t offer price cuts like her online competitors but she can try and replicate her father’s passion for books and make the shop somewhere customers want to return to again and again. 

It’s only as she is moving the new deliveries to open in the morning that she spots the envelope resting on top of one of the boxes. It’s printed with the logo for The Bridgerton Group, the building’s new owners and her new landlords as of six weeks ago. 

Her stomach drops. The shop turns a profit but not enough to cover whatever exorbitant rent increase the envelope likely contains. She should have known it wouldn’t be good news when a soulless corporation started buying up all the properties along the street and she rips the letter open, a feeling of nausea swelling within her. 

The Bridgerton Group

15 Canada Square

London

E14 5LQ

Dear Miss Sharma,

The commercial lease for 148 Upper Richmond Road expires on December 31st, 2022 and I am writing to inform you that The Bridgerton Group will not be seeking to renew the lease agreement with you. We will be using the building for other property interests. 

Thank you for being a reliable tenant and if you have any questions then please feel free to contact me. 

Sincerely, 

p.p. N. Berbrooke

Anthony Bridgerton

Chief Executive Officer

The Bridgerton Group 

“Fuck. ”

Chapter Text

today started out so well. 

now i’m contemplating murder.

(i swear i’m not a psychopath!)

Don’t worry. ‘Is fratricide legal yet?’ is one of my most frequent Google searches.

Bad day?

terrible.

the worst.

I’m sorry. 

Are you okay?

i’m okay.

just upset. and pissed off.

I find alcohol and/or sugar usually helps when I’m feeling homicidal. 

And I’m here if you want to talk any time. 

my sister is in the queue at tesco as we speak. 

and thank you ❤️

“He didn’t even sign it himself,” Kate snaps, reading over the letter even though she’s got every terrible word memorised by this point. “What kind of arsehole evicts someone and doesn’t have the decency to sign the letter himself?”

Throwing herself down on the sofa, she tosses the letter in Tom’s direction, an unnecessary move since he has listened to the letter’s contents numerous times, Kate’s fury increasing with every reading. 

“Technically, he isn’t evicting you,” he points out. Kate shoots him a withering glare but he continues. “Property law isn’t my speciality but there’s nothing in your tenancy agreement to prevent The Bridgerton Group from not renewing your lease. They just have to give you thirty days’ notice and they’ve given you triple that.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him!”

“I’m not. I’m simply pointing out that you haven’t got a legal case.”

Kate growls at him and launches a cushion in his direction, irritated when he catches it deftly. 

“What is the point of living next door to a lawyer if you won’t even sue people for me?”

Tom shrugs. “Because I bake for you on demand and let you steal my Netflix password?”

“It would be better if you’d take people to court when I need you to,” Kate grumbles but she takes one of the freshly-baked cookies he offers her, chewing on it loudly as the prospect of losing the bookshop, the last bit of her father that she has left, gnaws away at her. “There must be a way to fight this,” she says as her front door swings open and Edwina hurries in, clutching two bottles of wine and Newton’s lead tightly while the corgi yaps excitedly around her ankles. 

“I come armed with reinforcements.”

The moment Newton is off his leash, he leaps onto Kate’s lap as if he senses her frustration and she takes a moment to bury her face in his fur. She’s only pulled back into the room when Edwina settles down next to her and begins pouring her a large glass of wine.

“Who are we fighting?”

“We’re not fighting anyone,” Tom says but Edwina rolls her eyes. 

“I know my sister and I know she’s going to want to fight someone.”

“There’s nothing illegal about not renewing my lease,” Kate reluctantly concedes. But the idea of simply stepping back and letting the doors close on her father’s dream burns at her. “But I can’t just give up. I won’t.” 

Edwina picks up the letter, reading its dismissive words for herself. “It says here that they’re going to use the building for other property interests. Maybe you could convince them that the bookshop is a better choice than whatever they’ve got planned?”

Tom chimes in, “It’s not the worst idea,” and Kate considers it. 

What she wants to do is storm into The Bridgerton Group’s offices and tell their CEO, Anthony Bridgerton, exactly what she thinks of him and his attempt to destroy her bookshop. 

148 Upper Richmond Road was her father’s pride and joy, the place where she cannot help but think of him every day. Every inch of that building is steeped in memories of him arranging displays to make them perfectly match his vision, talking to customers and not resting until he found the perfect book for them, charming small children as he read them his favourite stories in a range of ridiculous voices and him delighting in sharing his love of books with every single person who walked through the door. 

Off the Shelf is built on memories of her father and she cannot let some heartless corporation destroy it. 

However, she is smart enough to know that giving into her temper has never been her best idea. At least, not as a first step. 

“Fine.” She gulps at her wine and opens her laptop. It only takes a few clicks on The Bridgerton Group’s pretentious website to find what she is after - Anthony Bridgerton’s email address. “Let’s convince him Off the Shelf is worth keeping.”

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Mr Bridgerton,

I am the current tenant of 148 Upper Richmond Road and having received your letter informing me of the termination of the lease at the end of the year, I was hoping to meet with you to discuss this further.

Since my family has leased the property for the last twenty years, I am emailing you in the hope that you will reconsider. Off the Shelf is a profitable business and a staple part of the local community. As stated in your letter, I have been a reliable tenant and I would be happy to negotiate an increase in rent if The Bridgerton Group would consider allowing my bookshop to renew the lease.

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about my business and tenancy if you let me know a time convenient for you. 

Sincerely, 

Kate Sharma

“That was a fantastic tackle, Hy.”

All he earns for his praise is a monotonous “yep” but Hyacinth doesn’t let go of his hand which he takes as a positive sign. He’s been waiting for his sister to hit the point of being too embarrassed to hold his hand, certain that any day now she’ll yank her hand away, another indication that she’s firmly in her pre-teen years, but today does not seem to be the day. 

Once upon a time, he thinks he spent Saturday mornings in bed, accompanied by either a hangover or a girl he had met the night before. These days, however, Saturday mornings are exclusively reserved for Hyacinth. He delights in schlepping her across the city to participate in whatever extra-curricular activity is currently her favourite. 

This month it’s football and Anthony has been at every game, cheering on the Mayfair Magpies with a level of enthusiasm normally reserved only for the Six Nations and the family’s annual game of Pall Mall. However, today’s match had been nothing short of a massacre, the girls being annihilated by their rivals, the Richmond Rockets, to the point where he had found himself praying for the referee to blow the final whistle and put them out of their misery.

“I want to go home,” Hyacinth pipes up, scuffing her trainers against the pavement as they wait for the traffic lights to change. 

He looks down at his little sister, who cuts a forlorn figure in her sky blue football uniform, and his heart sinks. 

“I know you’re disappointed about the game but you played so well,” he says. “It’s never easy to lose but don’t let that stop you from being proud of yourself and your team.”

She doesn’t reply and they cross the road in silence.

“Do you know my tag rugby team didn’t win a single game in our first season?”

He offers up the embarrassing tidbit in the hope of a response and he is rewarded when she looks up at him, an expression of disbelief on her face. 

“Really?”

“Yes. We lost every match and I wanted to quit so badly.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Dad wouldn’t let me.” He feels that familiar heaviness on his shoulders that’s there every time he thinks about their father but he forces himself to continue for Hyacinth’s sake. He had eighteen years of their dad guiding him and helping him through life’s difficulties. It’s bitterly unfair that she can never have even a few minutes of that same love and guidance. “He drove me to every match, stood on the sidelines cheering me on, and after every single one, he found something in the game to praise me for and made me do the same for my teammates. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to let losing stop me from being proud of myself and my friends.”

He lets Hyacinth process that, swinging their hands back and forth between them and hoping that he’s done at least a semi-decent job of telling her what their father should have been there to tell her himself. 

“Josie almost scored at the start of the second half. Her header was really good,” she says eventually. “Olivia is a great defender. She’ll be even better next season.”

He grins at her. “Definitely. Plus she’ll be even taller and then she’ll be unstoppable.”

“And my tackle was pretty good.” She laughs. “She didn’t see it coming!”

Her smile is back, not as bright as usual but it’s there and he pulls her into his side, hugging her with pride and laughing at the memory of the startled eleven-year-old who had been tackled to the ground by a fast-moving Hyacinth and left blinking in surprise at the unexpected attack. 

“How about we go and get some ice-cream?” he suggests. 

They should be heading back. They’re already running late with no chance of making it back to Mayfair for one o’clock and their mother is expecting them home for lunch but he’s happy to face her wrath if it means cheering Hyacinth up. 

He knows he indulges her more than he does any of his other siblings but he makes no apologies for it, even if he should probably ease off before she spends her teenage years with him wrapped around her finger. And his attempt works because she perks up further, happily drawing him into a debate on the best ice-cream flavours while they explore the unfamiliar streets in search of somewhere that sells ice-cream. 

He’s so distracted by their silly debate - Hyacinth insists on a ranking system and she refuses to allow him to place vanilla in the top three - that he only realises which street they are on when she grinds to a halt, her attention caught by the bright colours of a bookshop’s window display.

“Can we go in?” she pleads. 

The shop name is familiar, the memory of an email read quickly before another meeting drifting to the forefront of his mind, and he makes a mental note to reply to it on Monday morning and inform the tenant that renewing her lease won’t be possible. Taking his little sister into the bookshop that will be relocating - or closing down - shortly because of him possibly isn’t his best idea. He prefers to learn as few personal details as possible about the businesses that are affected by his company’s decisions - because it is just business but he’s not so cruel and heartless that he doesn’t feel for the people who aren’t so pleased to have The Bridgerton Group buying up properties across the the south of England - but he cannot say no to Hyacinth. He especially cannot say no to her when she’s giving him her Disney eyes and pleading with him. 

“Fine.”

With a cheer, she tugs him into the bookshop, the bell jingling as they enter and he wonders just how much his wallet will suffer in his attempts to cheer his little sister up. 

The shop has a few too many customers to be called quiet but it's not crowded enough to be called busy. It was the exact sort of Saturday lunchtime trade that normally would not have bothered Kate, a handful of customers milling around the store, browsing for their next read. However, she’s spent the last two days crunching numbers, drowning in facts and figures, trying to work out just how big a rent increase Off the Shelf could manage if Anthony Bridgerton ever replies to her sodding email and the answer hasn’t filled her with optimism. It isn’t that the business is a failure; it does alright. She knows that the bookshop is never going to make her rich and she’s always been fine with that because she’s keeping her father’s dream alive and that’s enough even if it means not being able to afford a holiday in the Caribbean or a bedroom that doesn’t share a wall with her sister's room.

However, alright now means possibly not being able to save the bookshop. Numbers are black and white and they are making it very clear that she is not making enough money to handle anything beyond a minor increase in rent. All she can hope is that her new landlord replies to her email and is amenable enough to understand the benefits of having a reliable, stable business in one of his properties. 

And if he doesn't and isn’t…Well Kate’s going to end up yelling at him the way she’s wanted to since the second she opened that letter.

She has taken to falling asleep each night imagining exactly what she will say to Anthony Bridgerton if she ever actually gets the chance to be face to face with him, a possibility that is becoming more and more tempting the longer her carefully crafted, exceedingly polite email goes ignored. 

The bell above the store’s entrance jingles and Kate looks up to see two new customers entering the shop. The first thing she notices is that the man is very  handsome: tall, dark hair and an amused grin on his face as he talks to the young girl who is holding his hand tightly. The girl can’t be more than eleven or twelve, dressed in a muddy football uniform and talking at a rapid, excitable pace. Kate takes in their similar features and the way the girl easily leads him into the shop while the man, almost certainly her dad, happily follows her without complaint. She also tries very hard not to pay attention to just how attractive he is. He doesn’t look more than a few years older than her and he’s dressed in a blue jumper and jeans - smart, clean-cut and entirely too good-looking for Kate to not find herself completely distracted.

Edwina is right. It’s been far too long since she last went on a date. 

“Please can I choose some new books?”

The girl beams up at him, a pleading look on his face, and he rolls his eyes before nodding at her request, letting go of her hand and watching her rush off to the back of the shop where the children’s section is. The way he looks at her when she hurries off, soft and totally endeared by her, has Kate leaning forward, chin resting on her palm, watching him. When she catches herself, she flushes and turns away. If this was a cartoon, hearts would literally be drifting from her eyes. 

She will not embarrass herself. Yes, it has been a horrendously long time since she last had sex but she is not desperate enough to start hitting on handsome dads who happen to frequent her bookshop. So she settles for letting the two of them browse and she keeps her eyes firmly fixed on the inventory checklist that needs finishing rather than her two new customers. 

She likes to think she’s relatively successful. She makes very little progress on the list but she also only steals the occasional glance up from the counter to see the pile of books in the girl’s arms growing rapidly while her dad browses over in history and politics. That is until the girl notices Kate’s companion. 

“There’s a dog!” she squeals and she scampers over to where Newton is lolling in his usual spot beside the counter. 

The girl kneels down to pet him and Newton happily revels in her attention, thrilled to have any and all affection. 

“Is he yours?”

“He is. He’s kind of the shop’s mascot.”

“He’s gorgeous. I want a dog but I’m not allowed.” At this, she pouts in her dad’s direction but he just laughs before looking at Kate. She expects him to give her an exasperated look, seeking some shared commiseration at his daughter’s demands, but instead he looks at her in a way that makes her feel warm all over. 

It really has been too long since her last date. 

“What’s he called?” the girl asks. 

“He’s called Newton. And I’m Kate.”

She hears the girl’s father say something under his breath but when she looks at him, his attention is now firmly fixed on a display of book to film adaptations, intensely studying the cover of Crazy Rich Asians.

“I’m Hyacinth and this is my brother-”

“Nice to meet you,” he interrupts, putting the book back on the display and stepping forward to reach for Hyacinth. He bends down beside her, seemingly not phased when Newton growls quietly at him. “Come on, Hy. We should get going.”

The two of them lean close to one another, dark heads almost touching while they examine her armful of books and negotiate quietly as to just how many he will buy for her. Kate cannot resist watching them while studiously ignoring the delight she feels at knowing that they are siblings not father and daughter. 

He’s patient with his sister, clearly happy to indulge her, but eventually they stand up and place the books on the counter, not a single one left behind. Hyacinth has chosen a great selection, a mixture of Emma Carroll, Katherine Rundell and Hilary McKay, all of them filled with fantastic female characters. 

“You’ve chosen some brilliant books. I loved all of these.” Hyacinth beams at Kate’s praise. “I’ve got another one you might like. Wait a second.” She hurries over to the children’s section and finds what she is looking for quickly. “It’s called Murder Most Unladylike. It’s all about two girls who have to investigate a murder at their school. There’s a whole series and they're all completely wonderful but this one is my favourite.”

The man opens his mouth, most likely in protest at another book being added to the sizable pile, and Kate continues, “Consider it a gift. If you love it, pass it on to someone else. And if you don’t enjoy it, bring it back and I’ll find you something else.”

“Do you often give books away for free?” he asks as he taps his phone to pay.

The scepticism and amusement in his tone makes her spine stiffen and she stands a little straighter because, yes, it isn’t good business sense to give away books but it’s not as if one small act of kindness is going to make the difference between her shop surviving or closing. 

“Ow!”

It takes her a moment to realise what has happened: Hyacinth has kicked her brother. 

“Sorry, he can be really rude sometimes. What he meant to say is thank you. That’s really nice of you. Isn’t it ?”

Kate tries not to laugh at the furious look Hyacinth is aiming at him but she can’t help but chuckle when he looks suitably shame-faced. 

“Yes, thank you, Kate."

His eyes are softer this time, a look of genuine gratitude, and when she passes him the carrier bag, their fingers brush. Kate lets her hand drop quickly, her fingers tingling at his touch. 

“Enjoy your books, Hyacinth,” she says, proud of herself for keeping her voice steady. 

“Bye, Kate. Bye, Newton.”

Kate gets an enthusiastic wave from Hyacinth as the pair head for the exit while he simply looks at her again, his gaze intense, and she can’t stop herself from noticing once more just how handsome he is. The wild, spontaneous part of her wants to chase after him and do something reckless like ask for his number but then they disappear out of the door and they’re gone, walking off down the street and out of her life.

It’s only when Kate kneels down to scratch Newton’s head that she remembers that she never even got his name.

Wordle 368 3/6
⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

suck it.

Wordle should let you know if there’s a double letter!

don’t get jealous of my wordle score.

I’m not jealous. 

i will ALLOW you to pretend you’re not bitter and jealous.

get it?

Hilarious. Don’t you have someone else to annoy?

Some of us have to work. 

actually i do! i’m waiting to annoy them right now.

you and your jealousy are a good distraction while i wait.

Glad to be of use to you.

(And I’m not jealous)

The numbers on the screen are starting to blur together after Anthony has studied them for so long but he is determined to have the proposal signed off before the end of the day so he forces himself to concentrate rather than continuing to text mystery woman as Benedict has taken to calling her. 

He scrolls back two pages, trying to work out where Berbrooke managed to generate such an absurdly large figure for architect fees, when his office door opens and Theo, his new assistant, appears looking decidedly nervous, an unusual sight for a man who had been quite happy in his interview to tell Anthony everything he dislikes about big business without a single apology for his brutal honesty.

“Mr Bridgerton,” he starts and Anthony knows that whatever he is about to say is not going to make this very long Wednesday any easier. “There’s a woman in the lobby requesting to see you. Demanding to, in fact.”

“Tell her to make an appointment,” he says. He doesn’t have time for his scheduled meetings, let alone unexpected ones. 

“She says she’s tried to. She insists she won’t leave until you speak to her. She seemed quite persistent.”

Leaning back in his chair, he scrubs at his face, frustration rising within him. The documents he needs to review are endless, he has three more meetings between now and five o’clock and Colin won’t stop messaging him about accessing his trust fund to finance another trip to Asia. He does not have time for an irate member of the public wanting to yell at the company's CEO about environmental damage or noise pollution or building work starting too early in the morning. 

“What does she want?”

Someone else in the building must be able to deal with her instead, anyone else. 

“It’s someone called Kate Sharma. She says she’s from a bookshop called Off the Shelf. Apparently you’re evicting her and she’s not happy about it.”

And against his better judgement, Anthony tells Theo to send her up because Kate Sharma has intrigued him since he watched her and her overweight dog charm Hyacinth on Saturday morning. He’d been drawn to her bright smile, her dark curls that had spilled over her shoulder when she'd leaned down to talk to his little sister and the spark of fire he’d seen in her when he’d dared to question her giving away books. And he’d also noticed the way she had looked at him, an appreciative glint in her eyes when he’d met her gaze on his way out of the shop. 

That was before she knew who he was though. 

He’s hopeful he might be able to convince her he’s not a total twat, because taking his sister to her bookshop the same week his company sent her a letter informing her that her lease won’t be renewed is probably considered quite twattish behaviour, but then he remembers that he never did actually reply to her email and therefore it’s quite unlikely that there’s any chance of him redeeming himself. 

Therefore he does what he does best (“Why do you insist on being difficult, Anthony?” his mother’s voice chides in his head) and so, when Kate Sharma marches into his office, face furious and already halfway to yelling at him, when he sees the moment that the penny drops as she recognises him, he makes sure he has the most smug grin possible on his face. 

He can’t convince her he isn’t a twat but he can enjoy watching her get all riled up. 

“Nice to see you again, Miss Sharma. Or can I call you Kate?”

Chapter Text

Glad to be of use to you.

(And I’m not jealous)

sounds like something a jealous person would say.

It is not Kate’s wittiest comeback, not by far. It’s only a notch above the playground ‘he who smelt it dealt it’ insult that had been deemed such a clever retort by the boys in her primary school class. But she can’t stop her leg from bouncing nervously, even as the receptionist glares at her from behind her extravagant desk, and there’s a terrifyingly large portrait of an intense-looking older man glaring down at her so Kate settles for her amateur comeback. Then she waits, twirling her phone in her hand as adrenaline races through her. 

She needs a distraction. She needs something to keep her mind busy. She needs wrong number guy to text her back so she can focus on their silly back and forth instead of the confrontation that lies ahead. However, her phone remains irritatingly silent, without even those frustrating three dots to hold her attention. Eventually, she settles for trying to read, pulling a copy of Queenie from her bag, but she puts it back when she realises that she’s read the same paragraph three times and not taken in a single word. 

Some part of her knows this is probably a terrible idea, that no good can truly come from her unleashing her anger at Anthony Bridgerton. The other part of her, however, is tired of treading water, passively waiting for a response from a company that apparently has no interest in her, her business or the disaster they have wreaked upon her life. She has tried Edwina and Tom’s patient approach and it has gotten her exactly nowhere. Kate is tired of waiting and she is going to make herself heard. 

The lift doors open and the annoyed assistant who had attempted to give her the brush off returns. 

“Mr Bridgerton will see you now.”

As they ride up in silence in the lift, she tries to mentally review all her arguments for why Off the Shelf is important and deserves a chance rather than being forced to close before the year is out. But her heart is racing and all she can think about is how hard her father worked to keep the bookshop going and how she is the one on the brink of letting all his effort be for nothing. He had loved his shop and she cannot let him down. 

She is led down the corridor towards a door that brandishes a neat sign that reads:

Anthony Bridgerton 

Chief Executive Officer

She thinks of failing her father, of being the one to bring an end to his dream, and she sees red. 

Although his assistant attempts to make her wait for him to announce her arrival, she barges past him and marches into the office, ready to unleash the fury that has been building within her for days in the direction of the company’s CEO.

The truth is that she had not given much thought to the head of The Bridgerton Group beyond the anger she felt every time she read his dismissive letter and thoughts of the ease with which he had terminated her lease. When she fell asleep comforting herself with dreams of telling him exactly what she thinks of him and his business, he was a vague indistinguishable figure, nothing more than an outlet for her rage. But she supposes, if she had thought about the man behind the email, she would have expected someone middle-aged, a Mark Wahlberg type - arrogant and completely forgettable. 

One out of four isn’t bad. 

Anthony Bridgerton is young, unfairly handsome and smiling at her arrogantly. 

And she recognises him.

“Nice to see you again, Miss Sharma. Or can I call you Kate?”

“You.”

A furious fire burns in her eyes. He can see it the moment Kate Sharma strides into his office - tall, imposing and like a whirlwind of determination - and Anthony sits up a little straighter in his chair, enjoying the way she immediately scrutinises him before recognition flashes across her face. 

“Nice to see you again, Miss Sharma. Or can I call you Kate?”

“You.”

The word is practically spat at him and her angry glare is a world away from the warm smile and excited attitude that had caught his eye on Saturday. 

“Me,” he grins because he cannot help himself. 

She steps closer to his desk and he can see her growing taller in her rage even as she leans towards him, eyes fixed on his. 

“Were you spying on me on Saturday? Did you bribe that poor girl to come with you? 

“Yes, I often drag my youngest sister into reconnaissance work in businesses I hadn’t heard of prior to last week.” He laughs and it comes off more mocking than he intended it to. “Why would I have any need to spy on you? Hyacinth liked your window display and wanted to go inside. And unfortunately I find it very difficult to say no to her. That was the only reason for my visit to your shop.”

“So I am supposed to believe it was just a coincidence that you showed up the same week you sent me this insulting letter.”

A creased piece of paper is dropped on his desk and the familiar logo of his company is visible at the top of the page. He wonders how many times she’s read it since the postman delivered it through her letterbox last week, how many times she’s read the same words over and over again and cursed his name. She isn’t the first person to hate him and the work he does nor will she be the last.

‘It’s just business,’ he reminds himself. 

“Sorry to disappoint you but it really was a coincidence and nothing more. If I spent time spying on every tenant in every building we own, I would get very little done.”

“You’re an arsehole.”

The moment she says it, Kate looks a little startled, like the words were a private thought that she had never intended to share. A beat passes, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open just a tad as she processes what she has said, and he waits to see if she will apologise. 

She doesn’t. 

He thinks he might respect her all the more for it. He’s been called an arsehole countless times; the insult doesn’t even register at this point. But he admires that, although she might not have intended to say it, she stands by it and doesn’t apologise for her opinions. 

“I might be an arsehole, Miss Sharma, but if there was no other reason for you demanding this meeting beyond having the chance to insult me then I will have to ask my assistant to see you out. While this is enjoyable, I am quite busy.”

“I want you to renew my lease. If rent is the problem, I can manage an increase. I’ll find a way to make it work.”

“Rent isn’t the issue but, even if it was, I doubt you could stretch yourself much further. I’ve seen shops like yours before and I guarantee you’re barely keeping your head above water. A rent increase would be the end of your business.”

“How the hell do you know what state my business is in?”

“It’s my job to know. Your shop is struggling and it would not survive if we increased rent to the market value for that property. If you want my advice-”

“I don’t,” she interjects but he continues regardless. 

“Take the compensation and reopen the shop somewhere cheaper. Or use it to do something different.”

She frowns at him. “What compensation?”

Confused, he grabs the letter she has discarded on his desk and reads it quickly, taking in the abrupt nature of it and lack of any mention of the necessary compensation Kate Sharma is owed. And, when he reads the signature at the bottom in place of his own, he knows exactly what happened. No wonder she is so furious. 

“Bloody Berbrooke,” he mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

He closes his eyes for a moment and does his best to contain his own rising temper. Nigel is an idiot, an idiot whose never-ending desire to cut corners is going to bring a lawsuit across Anthony’s desk one of these days. 

“The letter should have informed you of the compensation you are entitled to. I can’t say for sure until my accountants do the necessary calculations, but taking in the property and the area, it should be somewhere in the region of…”

He does some mental maths before scribbling a figure down at the bottom of the letter and sliding it back to her.

Anthony Bridgerton’s comment about compensation has thrown her off her rhythm, interrupting her anger and leaving her confused. She doesn't like it.

“I didn’t know I could get compensation.”

Tom hadn’t mentioned anything about her being entitled to money and she feels foolish for not having known, for walking into this office not completely prepared. 

The number he has written on the bottom of the letter is not life-changing but it would be enough for her to start over: enough to set up in a new building or a decent amount for her to live off until she figures out what’s next. But then she thinks about it in terms of her father - his years of hard work, the early mornings and the late nights, the sacrifices he made to keep the shop going - and it seems like nothing at all. 

It wouldn’t matter if there were a hundred more zeros after it; no amount of money will be enough to make up for failing him. 

“I don’t want your money. I want to keep renting the building that my family has been renting for years. I’m a reliable tenant who always pays on time and I will manage any rent increase that your company wants to impose.”

Anthony Bridgerton stares at her. He doesn’t speak; he simply stares. 

Kate wonders what he’s thinking, if he finds her embarrassing or passionate with how much she is willing to fight for a tiny shop on a quiet street. And, in the moment before he opens his mouth to speak, she feels that dangerous flare of hope deep inside because maybe he’ll be willing to listen, maybe the patient, kind man she had found herself thinking about long after he had walked out of her shop on Saturday is in there somewhere and maybe he'll do something.

Then he sighs, heavy and foreboding, and the spark inside of her is extinguished in an instant. 

“Even if you could manage an increase in rent, it wouldn’t matter anyway. The whole area we’ve bought is going to be demolished and redeveloped.” 

Her stomach sinks and her fury reignites in place of her naive hope.

“I’m losing my business because of gentrification? So you can take a high street that has been part of that community for decades and replace it with what - expensive apartments no one in the area can actually afford or pretentious boutiques designed to appeal only to people who earn extortionate salaries? Do you even care about the community you’re investing in or the history of those buildings?”

She watches the tight tick of his jaw in satisfaction before counting the seconds it takes for him to quash whatever displeasure he is feeling at her words and start talking again.

“My job isn’t to preserve buildings out of some sense of nostalgia, Miss Sharma. You claim to care about the community but, without our investment, that dying high street will be completely lost in two years' time. Then where will those people be?”

“I don’t know but I do know that they don’t need you coming in and destroying businesses and buildings that have been a part of their home for decades. Off the Shelf has more than earned its place on that street and I have loyal customers, people who won’t stand to see your company coming in and destroying it.”

He laughs and she clenches her hands in irritation that her anger seems to be nothing but an amusement to him. “If you’re telling me that you plan to protest then I have a sister who will happily march the protest line with you. But everything we are doing is above board and, although you might not believe it, it’s the best thing for that street. There is a reason so many buildings are boarded up and empty. The area is dying just like your bookshop.”

“How dare you.” Her temper flares. “You are such an-”

“Arsehole. Yes I know. But I am also right,” he says before continuing to talk, leaving her no space to interject. “Bookshops are a dying industry. When was the last time your business increased its profits year on year? How many times have you watched a customer look at a book, leave it on the shelf and already be searching for it on Amazon before they have even walked out of the door? How many of your loyal customers have you not seen in weeks or months because they no longer feel inclined to pay recommended retail prices?”

Kate wants to correct him. She wants to throw all the evidence that he’s wrong in his face before storming out of his office on a self-satisfied high. But instead she thinks of the increasingly depressing meetings with her accountant; the customer who she had helped find the perfect novel as the perfect birthday gift for her mum only to watch her search for it on Amazon before Kate had even walked away; the mother and her daughter who used to come in weekly to choose a new book to read together and who she hasn’t seen since Christmas.

“You’re running a business in a dying industry on a dying high street, Miss Sharma. And do not think I am saying any of this to be cruel or because I doubt your ability to run your shop with the passion and care it deserves. It is simply a fact: you are selling products that your online competitors sell for half the price with same day delivery. Customer loyalty is long gone. If it wasn’t me making you face shutting your doors, it would be someone else. Or you would be making the decision yourself eighteen months from now when you’re in debt, laying off your staff and realising you’ve sunk every penny you have into a business that’s a relic of a bygone era. So while your desire to fight this is admirable, you’re picking the wrong fight.”

“I am not,” she argues but she knows the determination in her voice isn’t the same, eradicated by his brutally honest words. “I love my business and it deserves to survive.”

“Then if you really believe it can, open it again somewhere else. There are plenty of other shops with landlords who would be willing to lease to you.”

“I can’t…” she starts with no idea where she intends for that sentence to go. Anthony Bridgerton can’t begin to understand her desperation to preserve the one part of her father that she has left. “That shop was my dad’s pride and joy. It’s the place where I grew up and now you’re going to demolish it like it was nothing.” Then, to her horror, she feels the tell-tale sting of tears starting and she forces herself to take a shaky breath before she crumbles in front of the man who has enraged her, a man who, only a few days ago, had been a stranger she had thought she might want to get to know. “Thank you for this useless meeting. Good afternoon, Mr Bridgerton.” 

She turns and marches out of the office, almost knocking into a dark-haired man hovering outside. Calling out an apology over her shoulder, she hurries into a waiting elevator, counting backwards from one hundred as it carries her back down into the lobby, and then she forces herself to keep moving out of the building, down the street, and onto the underground. 

It isn’t until Kate is sitting on the tube, hurtling across the city deep underground, that she finally lets those infuriating tears fall. 

“I like her.”

Benedict is leaning against his office door, blocking the view of the corridor that Kate Sharma had disappeared down. 

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious,” he says, not taking any notice of Anthony’s mood and taking a seat across from him. “It sounded like she read you the riot act.”

“I’m busy.”

There’s a lull of silence and when he looks up, Ben is watching him closely. “She actually bothered you, didn’t she?” he asks, the humour gone. 

“People have been angry with me before, Ben. It’s nothing new.” 

“That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to let it get to you. You’re only human.” Ben reaches over and picks up the letter that Kate had left behind. “She’s in one of the buildings you’re taking over?"

“Yeah. She’s angry we won’t let her renew the lease. Called me an arsehole.” 

“Well that’s definitely not the first time someone’s called you that.”

Anthony laughs but it’s half-hearted and empty, his attention already turning back to the file that he has opened on his computer. The plans and details for Upper Richmond Street - for the building that means so much to Kate Sharma - are laid out for him in neat black and white print, people’s livelihoods reduced to numbers and logical business decisions.

Kate’s words stay with him even after Ben leaves him alone - confirmation of his attendance at tonight’s family dinner obtained. He’s back improving the same proposal he has been working on since eight am but his progress is negligible.

That shop was my dad’s pride and joy. It’s the place where I grew up and now you’re going to demolish it like it was nothing.

And however hard he tries to focus on the work he needs to finish, one thought won’t leave him alone:

Because if it was the other way around, if it was him dealing with someone destroying the business his dad had worked so hard to build, wouldn’t he react with the exact same fury that had made Kate Sharma come storming into his office? 

join the queue.

I felt like a bad person today. 

You ever have one of those days where you doubt everything you do and feel like a complete arsehole?

yeah I do.

they suck.

but i bet you weren’t as bad as you think.

I think I was.

How about you? I’m guessing your day wasn’t the best either? 

not really.

i’m feeling pretty rubbish too.

We’re quite a pair.

i’m ordering nando’s. i recommend doing the same.

I am having dinner at my mum’s tonight. 

It’s not quite as good as Nando’s but it’ll have to do.

sounds good.

also stop beating yourself up. i don’t know what you did today but we all do shitty things sometimes.

just try and be a little better tomorrow.

Thank you. 

I’ll try. 

good. and i’ll be here to remind you if you forget.

Chapter Text

everything okay?

i haven’t heard from you today and i know you’re basically a stranger but still.

i’ve kind of got used to texting you.

is that weird?

Work is busy at the moment.

oh ok.

Sorry I’m just dealing with a lot right now. 

I’ve got a problem and I don’t know how to fix it. 

i’m going to guess you don’t like not knowing how to fix stuff quickly.

My brothers call me a control freak. Often.

well i’m the same so if i can help then let me know.

i know we said no personal stuff but i figure we’re kind of friends.

strangers but friends.

Thank you. Same by the way - if you ever need to talk, I’m here.

I’m probably better at talking to you than my actual friends sometimes.

I think it’s the anonymous thing.

yeah. 

it’s probably best we stay anonymous forever.

Probably.

If anyone asks - not that anyone does - Anthony would say that his bad mood is due to the missed deadline on the Farnham build, an oversight in Blenheim that is going to cost him tens of thousands and a contract negotiation that has been dragging on for far longer than he ever expected. 

He’s running the family business decades earlier than he ever intended to and most days it feels like everyone, including his own mother, is waiting for him to mess it up spectacularly and fail. His therapist frequently reminds him that he is not responsible for every little thing that happens in this place but it’s his name on the front of the building and walking into a building underneath his own surname every morning feels a hell of a lot like responsibility, especially when there are hundreds of employees counting on him for their next payslip and the same reliable job security that Edmund Bridgerton was beloved for promising.

So Anthony feels that he has many justifiable reasons to be stressed. 

The only problem with that is that he could pass some of this off to other people. There is no need for him to be the one chasing contractors, reviewing architect’s plans and adjusting budgets. He employs an army of people to do those very things for him. And yet, he’s sat in his office pouring over the financials on the Blenheim build for the hundredth time, because if he stops, if he lets his brain quieten for a minute, then he’s going to end up thinking about that one stupid meeting that’s been bothering him for far too long. 

As hard as he tries to banish it from his thoughts, Kate Sharma’s visit has played on his mind ever since she stormed out of his office last week. 

You’re an arsehole.

He believes in what The Bridgerton Group does and he’s worked hard over the last few years to ensure that what they do is positive for the communities around them rather than just generating profit for themselves. But business is business. He’s not naive and he knows that the business decisions he makes affect people he normally never meets. Being confronted about the direct results of his actions by someone whose life is being shifted due to his company is unsettling. 

But it’s more than that. 

That shop was my dad’s pride and joy. 

He knows what it is to shoulder a parent’s legacy. The very office he sits in belonged to his dad. Anthony has never even been able to bring himself to change it much from the way it was when his dad used to make him stop by during the summer holidays so he could introduce him to his employees with pride - “This is my eldest, Anthony,” he’d say. “He’s going to be running this place better than I do one day.” Every part of this building reminds him of his dad and every decision he makes is shaped by the constant desperation to make him proud and having to grapple with the fact that he will never know if he would be. 

So he understands wanting to protect something that mattered to someone special more than he can ever explain. 

And knowing that it is his company taking that away from someone else, someone so willing to fight for the business they love, sits heavy and uncomfortable on his chest and it has left him irritable all week. 

And then there’s Kate herself.

She looked at him with such fury. It should have incensed him but instead he finds himself still thinking about her anger, her intensity, her passion. There’s something about her, something that’s settled underneath his skin and left him waking in the middle of the night thinking about her. 

He’s a mess.

There’s a knock on the door and Benedict walks in before Anthony even has the chance to ask who it is. 

“You’re not ready,” is the first thing his brother says and it takes Anthony staring at him blankly for him to continue. “The car is downstairs.”

He thinks and it’s only when he catches sight of the calendar on his desk, a Christmas present from Gregory and Hyacinth with silly photos of the three of them decorating each month of the year, that he remembers the plans for that evening.

“Shit.”

“Exactly,” Ben says before handing him a garment bag. “From Daphne.”

Anthony closes his laptop and takes it gratefully. “Thank god for our sister.”

“She also orders you to not be in a foul mood tonight,” he says as Anthony disappears into the bathroom to change, leaving the door ajar, a decision he regrets instantly at Ben’s words.

“I’m not in a foul mood.”

“He says angrily,” Ben laughs. “You’ve been a grouch since that woman stormed out of here last week.” 

Anthony aims for nonchalance. “What woman?”

He can practically hear his brother’s eyes rolling. “The fact that you may have had more than one woman yelling at you should be cause for concern, brother.”

“Shut up.”

“You know,” Ben continues while Anthony changes his suit for a tuxedo that Daphne must have had the foresight to collect from his flat. He doesn’t know whether to be grateful that she remembered or disappointed that she knew he would forget. “I meant what I said last week. You’re allowed to be bothered by what she said. I didn’t hear much but she sounded mad and sometimes I think you’re too good at taking people’s shit.”

He frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you deal with a lot. You have ever since dad died. And I know you don’t complain about it but we’re all here to help too. When things aren’t good, you’re allowed to say that it’s not okay, that you’re not okay.”

“You’re starting to sound like my therapist,” Anthony says as he walks back out, aiming for a humorous tone but Benedict isn’t laughing. 

“I mean it. Art school didn’t prepare me to run the family business or anything but I’m here whenever you need help. We all are. You’ve just got to ask, Anthony.” 

His cufflinks are fiddly and he uses it as a necessary distraction to keep from looking his brother in the eye because he thinks he could easily crumble in that very moment, spilling all of his worries and fears at Benedict’s feet if he let himself. Breathing in and out slowly, he secures the cufflinks and straightens his sleeves, only looking up when he feels steady again. 

“Thank you,” he says. “Really. Thanks. But I’m fine. Work is busy at the moment. That’s all.” He turns off the office lights, a clear signal that the conversation is done. “Anyway, tonight isn’t about me. This is Daphne’s night.”

“Again, I don’t understand how this has happened.”

Kate shifts as she studies her reflection in the mirror, rethinking her outfit choice for the tenth time since she shut the door to her flat. It’s a gorgeous dress but it’s more daring and more expensive than most things in her wardrobe. It had been a spontaneous, heavily discounted end of sale purchase from a boutique in Kensington which Edwina had talked her into buying after she spent ten minutes deliberating over it in the fancy changing room. She’s never had a reason to wear it before, leaving it hanging in her wardrobe for the last two years, and it had been her sister who insisted she wear it once she heard the name of where they were going tonight.

“It’s because you’re a good friend who wants to keep me company tonight,” Tom says.

“Firstly, I had plans tonight.”

“A book and a takeaway pizza are not plans.”

“Yes they are. They are excellent plans.” Kate thinks longingly of the new Jasmine Guillory book which Edwina had snatched out of her hands as she shoved her into the bathroom an hour ago. “And secondly, how am I the one doing you the favour when you’re the one who messed up?”

Tom turns to glare at her and she almost giggles at how hopelessly he fails at looking annoyed. “I told you I wasn’t a property lawyer. It’s not my fault you didn’t listen to me before you went and yelled at the guy.”

Kate cringes as the memory of her calling Anthony Bridgerton an arsehole flashes into her mind and she dismisses it quickly. “One of us spent three years at Cambridge reading law and I think that person should have been able to give better advice. Maybe I’ll tell your colleagues tonight what a hopeless lawyer you are.”

“Okay now I am regretting inviting you.”

“Excellent.” She leans forward as if she is going to press the button for the ground floor and Tom tugs her back, laughing when he sees the amused expression on her face. 

“I invited you because I know everything has been rubbish for you lately with all this stuff with the shop so I thought you could use a fancy night out with free fancy champagne and free fancy food.”

“Free champagne does sound good.”

“Exactly. Plus I need good company otherwise I’ll end up talking work all night. Save me from a very boring party please, Kate.”

“Fine. But there better be lots of free champagne and really good food. I was looking forward to that pizza.”

“Trust me. Simon is loaded. I mean even the lift in this place is fancy.”

It is an extremely fancy lift. There’s even a small velvet sofa at the back just in case you need a rest on the ride up to your hotel room. It’s the sort of lift that makes Kate feel very very poor.

Kate groans quietly. “Are they all going to be pretentious posh people?”

“No. Simon is great. He was the first person to make me feel welcome at the firm. He’s really down to earth and he didn’t have to invite all of us from work to his engagement party but his fiancée, Daphne, and him insisted we come.”

The lift doors swish open and Kate lets out a low whistle as she takes in the incredible view in front of her. They’re on a hotel rooftop, high above the city, with the twinkling lights of London stretching out before them like the entire city has been crafted and placed perfectly just for their enjoyment. The bar is decorated with strings of soft lights, beautiful bouquets of flowers and small fire pits that are doing a marvellous job of easing the autumn chill. Smartly dressed waiters drift amongst the tables with trays of champagne and there is even an orchestra up ahead playing something that sounds strangely like a classical version of Madonna.

“Where are we?” she whispers and Tom shrugs at her before suddenly he’s being pulled away by an enthusiastic man who is somehow pulling off a bright blue suit. 

Tom shoots her an apologetic look over his shoulder but then he’s gone, leaving Kate standing alone at the entrance to a party where she knows literally no one else. 

Sighing to herself, she makes a beeline for one of the waiters who wordlessly hands her a glass of champagne. It’s cool and crisp, the definition of the perfect glass of champagne, and she allows herself to enjoy the luxurious taste of the bubbles while determinedly not thinking about how much this one glass costs, let alone the whole bottle. 

Tom might have abandoned her - traitor - but she can happily spend her evening drinking this delicious champagne and it looks as if some of the waiters are beginning to circulate with trays of appetisers. It only takes her a moment to locate the door where they’re originating from and she begins sizing up a path to position herself as close as she can to be one of their first stops on their journey around the terrace. However, as she’s finishing her drink and preparing to move, she catches a snippet of the conversation at the table next to her. 

“Daphne Bridgerton will make a beautiful bride.”

Kate freezes. 

Bridgerton is not a common surname. She knows this. But there has to be more than one Bridgerton family in London. Surely the world cannot be so small that Daphne Bridgerton and Anthony Bridgerton are of any relation. 

“She will. And the Bridgertons know how to throw a party. Violet must have been planning this before they even got engaged.”

“Absolutely. And to think, the poor woman has seven more engagement parties to go.” 

The women laugh and Kate thinks she must have missed the joke - Daphne and Simon can’t be throwing eight engagement parties, surely? - but her attention is torn between eavesdropping on the conversation and trying to quell the panicked feeling that is beginning to churn in her belly as she scans the room. She convinces herself she is looking for Tom, for the waiters, for the bathrooms but the moment her eyes land on him, she knows exactly who she was looking for. 

On the other side of the rooftop, deep in conversation, is Anthony Bridgerton. 

It takes longer than he would like but Anthony finally manages to make his excuses and extricate himself from Aunt Billie’s clutches, seamlessly passing her off to Colin with a promise that his younger brother will tell her every detail about his trip to Australia. 

The furious glare Colin gives him over their aunt’s head is worth being free of her unsubtle questions about whether it will be his engagement party that Violet plans next. 

He takes a glass of champagne with a murmur of thanks and he is about to try and locate his youngest siblings when he spots a familiar figure leaning against a column in the far corner. She might not be yelling at anyone or standing behind her shop’s counter but her face is immediately familiar to him, a recurring presence in his dreams that he doesn’t entirely resent. 

Kate Sharma.

She looks stunning. The deep purple of her dress suits her perfectly and it dips dangerously low making his eyes trail over chest in a way that would surely have her yelling at him again if she knew how he was looking at her. 

The best thing to do would be to leave her alone. She is here to enjoy the party and it’s Daphne’s night; she most definitely would not appreciate him making a scene. He should walk away and look over his notes for the toast or catch up with his university friends. But he doesn’t. Instead, he lets himself give in to the dangerous temptation, his feet leading him over to her as if there is an invisible string pulling him towards her, and he tries not to think about the flash of excitement he feels at the idea of watching her get riled up all over again. 

This is a terrible idea.

“I thought you would have been avoiding anything involving Bridgertons,” he says, leaning against the wall next to her and enjoying the way she startles at his voice. 

She doesn’t look surprised to see him though and he wonders if she’s been waiting for him to approach her. 

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she says, glaring at him as she stands a little taller. They’re almost the same height. 

“At my sister’s engagement party?”

“I didn’t know she was your sister. I wouldn’t have come if I did.” 

“I didn’t know you knew Daph.”

“I don’t.”

She doesn’t elaborate. He likes that. 

“Gatecrashing then?”

“No.”

“Friend of Simon’s?”

He would like to think that Simon wouldn’t invite any of the multitude of women whose beds he graced during their younger years to his engagement party. He hopes that is true out of respect for his sister but also because even the fleeting notion of Simon and Kate together makes him feel slightly nauseous. 

“No.” She dithers for a moment before clearly deciding to put him out of his misery. “Tom works with Simon. I’m his plus one.”

Anthony’s stomach drops. Kate is no longer looking at him and instead she's focused on a man who’s dancing badly with some other people that Anthony doesn’t recognise. She laughs affectionately at his terrible dancing, the soft look on her face a world away from the anger that she directs his way, and that nauseous feeling from before swells within him. 

He wants Kate to be looking at him.

The thought surprises him. He feels like a petulant child being forced to share his favourite toy because she’s still looking at Tom, giggling at whatever dance move he’s doing. Anthony doesn’t care to look. He’s only looking at her.

“Did you want a to go bag for that?” he asks, gesturing to her napkin which is loaded with canapes. 

She frowns before following his change in conversation and she looks at him, a smirk dancing across her lips. “Someone’s closing my business so I thought I should take advantage of the free food.”

Right. She hates him because he’s closing down her business. Her father’s business. She thinks he’s an arsehole, which he probably is. 

“About that,” he starts with no idea where that sentence is going but then they’re interrupted by the clinking of glasses and he realises that the music has stopped and his mum has taken to the stage. 

“Thank you all for being here to celebrate my wonderful daughter, Daphne, and her gorgeous fiancé, Simon.” There’s a round of applause. “Now I’d like to welcome my eldest son, Anthony, to the stage to give this evening's toast."

He takes a moment, just a moment, to breathe in the intoxicating scent that surrounds her and then he forces himself to turn away.

Kate doesn’t think she breathes until Anthony is walking away, the scent of his cologne lingering in the air even after he’s across the room and walking up onto the stage.

There’s something about him that unsettles her and leaves her not able to think straight and she doesn’t like it. Talking to him feels like playing a game of Jenga. One wrong move and everything will come tumbling down only she doesn’t know what everything is or what the wrong move would be. 

Being in proximity to him again is also an irritating reminder that he is too attractive. She had noticed him that day in the bookshop. She had even had a very satisfying dream about him the next night. But then the handsome man in the bookshop became Anthony Bridgerton, the man intent on ruining her life, and she had focused all her energy on hating him and had not allowed herself even a second to remember how attractive he was. 

But then he was standing next to her in a tuxedo, smelling unfairly good, and she’d had two glasses of champagne and all she could think about was how she couldn’t let herself look at him again because if she did, she would find herself dreaming about what it would be like to fall into bed with him. And that dream had been fine when he was just an attractive guy looking after his little sister. But he’s more than that now and she cannot let herself be attracted to the man who’s the reason her father’s shop is going to be destroyed. 

And yet her eyes drift over to the stage where Anthony is standing in front of a microphone, champagne glass in hand, looking devastatingly good in his tuxedo and Kate finds herself reaching for another drink. 

“As some of you may know, Simon and I met on our very first day at Oxford. And he made me promise that tonight I would not tell any stories from that time which would be embarrassing.” There are some groans from around the room, especially from a group in the corner that Kate presumes witnessed said stories first hand. “Unfortunately that is almost the entirety of our time at Oxford. However, what I will say about our time there was that it was not an easy point in my life. And I do not think I could have made it through those three years without Simon as my best friend.”

Kate works out who Simon is because he’s stood in the centre of the room looking surprised and touched at Anthony’s words. 

“So you can imagine that when I found out my best friend was sleeping with my sister, I was not thrilled.”

A chorus of gasps and laughter ripples around the room and the woman standing next to Simon, stunningly beautiful in a pale gold dress, audibly groans before burying her head in her fiancé’s shoulder. 

“I think Daph would rather I hadn’t mentioned that - and I am sure she will exact her revenge on me one day - but I say it because the start of their love story was messy and I played my part in that mess. I thought what they had would be a fleeting thing and that Simon would leave my little sister heartbroken. Thankfully, I was wrong. Our parents had an amazing love story, one that all of us can only do our best to live up to. And if our dad was here today to see how much Simon loves Daphne, he would be so very proud of the love that my sister has found for herself in all its messy, wonderful glory. I love my sister more than anything in this world.”

“Hey!”

A young boy of no more than thirteen is standing beside Anthony’s mum, who is now openly crying, and his shout garners laughs from the crowd. 

“Apologies. I love my sister as much as I love all of my siblings. She is a very special woman and I cannot think of anyone I would trust more to love her and look after her than Simon. And I know that our dad would agree.” He raises his glass and Kate swears she can see his eyes growing glassy. “Those of you who know me know this is more sentimental that I usually allow myself to get so I will leave this toast there and simply ask that you raise your glass to two of the best people I know - to Daphne and Simon.”

Kate lifts her glass and joins in the toast but as the rest of the room resumes the party spirit, she watches as Anthony descends from the stage and is immediately wrapped into a tight hug by his weeping sister. He hugs her back just as tightly and the two of them stand there, surrounded by their family who look equally emotional, and Kate feels something uncomfortable jolt inside her. 

It’s easy to hate Anthony Bridgerton, the corporate monster determined to demolish her favourite place in the world. But Anthony Bridgerton is now a terribly real human being and that makes it so much harder to hate him. 

“Sorry that I ditched you, Kate.” Tom is suddenly standing beside her, swaying slightly, and she forces herself to look away from the Bridgerton family and their private moment. “I’m such a bad friend.” He leans his head on her shoulder and she swears she can smell the alcohol on his breath. Tom always was a lightweight. 

“Do you want to go home?”

“No! I need to eat something and then let’s dance!”

Kate knows she should be responsible and tell Tom to call it a night. Penelope's busy with her family all weekend so Kate is opening solo. They should go home. But she’s wearing her most expensive dress, the champagne has given her that wonderfully bubbly feeling and going home now will mean falling asleep to thoughts of Anthony Bridgerton which seems like an incredibly dangerous idea. 

A waiter is passing by and Kate grabs two more glasses of champagne, passing one to Tom and offering him her napkin of canapes. 

“I love you!” he shouts, louder than is probably appropriate, and kisses her sloppily on the cheek. 

All of a sudden, Kate gets the feeling of someone watching her and she turns her head to try and work out where the sensation is coming from. She sees a flash of yellow disappearing behind a pillar and then she finds him over by the bar, the same man who dragged Tom away when they arrived. He meets her eye and laughs, shaking his head at Tom’s inebriated state, and she shares a laugh too before turning back to Tom, squashing the feeling of surprise. She wonders why she was expecting to find someone else.

“To us!” Tom says, proffering her his glass and they clink their glasses before diving into the nibbles that Kate had procured. 

The champagne and canapes disappear far too quickly for Kate’s liking but more seem to keep appearing and, although she is admittedly excellent at holding her drink, by the time she makes it to the dancefloor, she is aware that she is somewhat drunk.

Tom whirls her around the floor, both of them too buzzed to care that they keep stepping on each other’s toes, an equally uncoordinated pair. He’s holding her waist, trying to keep her steady, but Kate can’t stop laughing and she is sure the two of them look ridiculous as she topples against him, his hand sliding around to her back to stop her clumsy feet tripping her over. 

Once she’s stopped wobbling, Tom loosens his hold and she spins away again. And then she sees him. Anthony.

He is at the edge of the room staring - no, glowering - right at her, not in her direction but directly at her. She’s not sure what she has done to annoy him but somehow, to her increasingly drunk brain, he looks even more attractive than he did at the start of the evening. 

And in that moment, she makes a decision. 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” she half-whispers, half-shouts to Tom before making her way through the crowd who are all dancing as badly or even worse than she just was, which feels like a reassurance. 

It takes her longer than she would like to locate the bathrooms and she gets waylaid taking photos of the ridiculously beautiful decor and sending them to Edwina. But eventually she locks herself in a cubicle and puts the toilet lid down. 

The cubicle is quiet and Kate sits down and closes her eyes, breathing deeply. 

She cannot let herself be attracted to Anthony Bridgerton. The whole situation is enough of a mess as it is. She cannot and will not let her own feelings make it even worse. 

Unlocking her phone, she takes another calming breath. 

She knows what she needs to do. 

Anthony downs the last of his scotch and resumes the same activity he’s been doing for the last five minutes - watching Kate Sharma. Only, she’s gone, making her way across the room, leaving him behind. 

It’s probably for the best. 

He doesn’t know why the sight of her dancing with her boyfriend bothers him so much but watching him put his hands on her waist and make her laugh like it’s the easiest thing in the world makes that same nauseous feeling stir deep inside him again.

Every time Kate looks at him, she glares at him and he wonders what it would be like to make her laugh instead. 

It’s a pointless thought though because he is the one demolishing her shop and it’s that thought that has his bad mood from earlier returning with ease.  Anthony slips out of the party with only a goodbye to a giggling Eloise and Penelope who have decamped to the hotel lobby with a bottle of champagne each.

He should probably alert Ben or Colin; however, when he pulls out his phone as he’s climbing into a waiting car, it chimes and he checks it, expecting it to be a message from his mum admonishing for leaving. 

It’s not.

i’m just drunk enough to ask this but not so drunk that i’ll regret it

forget the anonymous thing

what do you think about meeting up 

Chapter Text

the mad hatter in soho at 7? 

Kate tries to resist the urge to repeatedly check her phone after she presses send but she fails miserably. Every time she turns her attention back to the laptop screen in front of her, she’s convinced that her phone screen has lit up and she finds herself distracted once more (and then disappointed because there are no new notifications beyond a reminder from Natwest that her credit card payment is due in three days’ time). She doesn’t know which is worse - the horrendous wait for a response to her text or the depressing state of the property market, made worse by the bleak numbers that litter the spreadsheet totalling the shop’s takings last quarter. 

Suggesting that she finally meets the stranger she has been texting for weeks had seemed like exactly the right idea when she had expensive champagne - and a desire to focus on any man who was not named Anthony Bridgerton - fuelling her decisions. If she thinks back hard enough, she can even recall the triumphant feeling that had overcome her when she had pressed send, certain that this was the right decision, the smart, sensible choice.

Only now it’s three days later and their conversation has been stilted and awkward in a way that it hasn’t been since their first clumsy messages when he’d been a pompous arse and she had been unappreciative of the deluge of abrupt text messages interrupting her morning (but then she had indirectly insulted what turned out to be one of his favourite childhood books and they had been off, awkwardness abandoned in favour of surprisingly witty banter).  

It isn’t as if he rejected her offer to meet; her text on Friday night had been met with a thumbs up emoji and a ‘Sure. When?’ that certainly suggested he wasn’t opposed to the idea. But something about moving their interactions from quippy texts, rants, gifs and even the occasional piece of advice into a face-to-face medium is nerve-wracking. She hasn’t quite known how to talk to him since and his sporadic texts hint that he feels the same. 

However, although the nerves aren’t particularly appreciated, they are doing a semi-decent job of distracting her from her professional woes which she supposes is a good thing. 

“Any luck?” Edwina asks, passing her half of her Twix before hopping up to perch on the counter, swinging her legs as she tucks into the chocolate. 

“No. Everything around here is either ridiculously small or ridiculously expensive.” She notices Edwina nosing through the books that she had left out after she had abandoned unpacking the latest order in favour of idly scrolling through property listings and Kate passes her You Should See Me in a Crown which she had intended to set aside for her anyway because she knows how much her sister loves to finds things to balance out her heavy philosophy reading. “You’ll like this one. It’s a cute high school romance.” She murmurs her thanks and skims the back of it approvingly but her attention quickly turns back to Kate. 

“What’s the plan then?”

“I keep looking until I find somewhere else nearby where we can reopen Off the Shelf. It won’t be the same but it’s something.”

It’s not a solid plan and she’s not putting anywhere near as much effort into the property search as she could be. Because, deep down, she’s hoping that a miracle will happen and she won’t have to move at all. She wants to keep the shop open right here, unlocking the same door her father had walked through every morning. 

But The Bridgerton Group’s plans are in motion and none of her remaining neighbours seem as put out as Kate is at the idea of their street being demolished. Granted the area has been in decline for years, ever since the recession, but Kate had hoped that someone else would be as aggravated as she is at what is happening. Unfortunately her post on the community Facebook group had garnered little more than a few likes and a comment about whether anyone was interested in a work from home business selling skincare products.

Edwina hums quietly but it’s not a hum of agreement and Kate knows that there’s something her sister isn’t saying, something that she is deliberating whether to share or not. 

“What?”

“I just…” She trails off and takes another bite of her chocolate bar, chewing slowly and Kate can see her carefully considering her words. “I just think it’s a lot of work.” 

It’s not what Edwina wants to say, not really. Kate can tell by the way she shifts awkwardly as she speaks and glances down at the floor rather than at her but Kate finds herself suddenly feeling fearful of what her sister actually thinks about it all. Off the Shelf has always meant more to Kate than it does to Edwina. It’s not that her sister doesn’t love the shop too - she has her own memories of sitting in the children’s corner with their dad, excitedly choosing her next bedtime story - but it means something different to Kate. She was the one who always helped out after school and learned to balance the books alongside their dad while Edwina was still too little to have any interest in it all. And when he died, it was Kate who had taken over running the place while Mary was lost in her grief, rejecting her place at Leeds to stay and keep the shop going. This shop is Kate’s responsibility and she’s never been quite sure what Edwina thinks of that.

Thankfully, her phone buzzes before she can decide how to respond.

Works for me.

Relief bursts to life in her chest at the confirmation that he’s not going to ghost her. 

Question: How will I recognise you? 

It’s something Kate had given some thought to and she lets Edwina’s curious gaze follow her as she browses the shelves until she finds what she’s looking for. Laying it down on the counter, she takes a quick picture and presses send before she can change her mind:

i’ll be the only person there with this colonialist rubbish

I agreed with you that, on re-reading, it does not stand the test of time!

i know 

i thought it would be a good reminder that this entire conversation started with me proving you wrong.

She giggles and it’s only then that she notices Edwina reading over shoulder.

“You’re really going to meet up with this guy?”

“Yes. It’s no different than meeting someone on Bumble.”

“Except Bumble involves names and photos,” Edwina points out. “You don’t even know what he looks like.”

“It’ll be fine. We’re meeting somewhere busy and I’ll share my location with you the whole time if you want.”

Edwina rolls her eyes. “I’m coming with you.”

“You are not.”

“I am. I have watched enough true crime documentaries to know how badly this can end. You’re crazy if you think I am letting you meet a total stranger by yourself.”

“I do not need my sister babysitting me.”

“It’s not babysitting! I’ll stay out of the way. You won’t even know I’m there.”

Anthony tries to talk his brother out of accompanying him but Benedict seems to view this whole situation as a soap opera being performed for his own entertainment and therefore he insists on meeting Anthony at his office and riding with him, practically bouncing in his seat as the car approaches their destination. 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“You don’t have to be here.”

“And miss this? I want to see the woman who you’ve been obsessed with for weeks. Or the teenage boy who successfully catfished you.”

“I’m not obsessed with her,” Anthony protests.

When they come to a stop in one of the side streets, he thanks his driver and makes a point of ignoring Ben’s eye roll at his denial as they exit the car.

“You haven’t spent this much time talking to a woman since Siena.”

“Thank you for bringing up my ex-girlfriend right now. That’s very helpful.”

Up ahead is the sign for the bar where they’re meeting and suddenly he feels as nervous as he did when he was fifteen and going on his first proper date. 

“I’m just saying that she has to be pretty special to have convinced you that a blind date is a good idea.”

Another wave of trepidation washes over him and he gives voice to the doubt that is rapidly rising within him. “What the hell am I thinking doing this?”

This was a terrible idea. He doesn’t do blind dates. He barely even does relationships. His last one had been two years ago - after years worth of therapy to make him feel even vaguely ready to risk something beyond casual sex and commit to Siena - and they had crashed and burned almost immediately, an excellent reminder that he is better off leaving the grand love stories to his younger siblings. 

Benedict shoves him forward slightly, closer to the bar. “This is exactly why I came along. I knew you’d freak out.” He continues pushing Anthony towards the entrance. “How are the two of you planning to recognise each other?”

“You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“Probably.”

“She’s going to be reading a copy of Robinson Crusoe.” When Ben gives him a querying look, he explains, “It was the first proper conversation we had.”

“Cute.” Anthony glares at him. “Okay. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go and see what she’s like. And then you’re going to stop being pathetic and go in there and chat to her. If it’s terrible then text me and I’ll give you a call so you can make a rubbish excuse and leave.”

And before Anthony can protest, Ben has disappeared up the steps to peer through the door, leaving him to wait impatiently on the pavement, trying to not listen to the voice in his head telling him that this was all a mistake and to head back to the office before his brother returns. He probably looks ridiculous, pacing back and forth in front of a closed H&M, but it passes the time before Ben comes bouncing back over to him, an amused grin on his face. 

“She’s beautiful. In fact…” Benedict’s tone is the same one he used to use when they were little and he knew something Anthony didn’t. It had driven him mad when they were children and it is even more vexing now because it had always signalled trouble for Anthony (“I get to go to Aunt Billie’s house and have ice-cream but mummy says you have to stay and tidy your room.”) and he has a sinking feeling that it’s no different now. “She sort of reminds me of that woman who was yelling at you in your office a couple of weeks ago.”

“Kate Sharma?” Anthony regrets how easily her name slips off his tongue when Benedict’s smirk grows even more smug. “Why would I care that she looks like her?”

“Did you find Kate attractive?”

That is a question that he has no interest in answering. 

“She was yelling at me.”

“As if you haven’t always had a thing for women who put you in your place. Did you find her attractive or not?”

Ben can be like a dog with a bone when he chooses to be and Anthony lets out an aggravated sigh. 

“Yes, fine. She was attractive in an infuriating, ‘this woman really hates me’ sort of way. What does that matter?”

“Oh good. Because if you weren’t into Kate Sharma, you definitely wouldn’t enjoy this date.”

A horribly ominous feeling washes over Anthony and his jaw clenches when he asks the next question.

“Why?”

It couldn’t be.

“Because your blind date is Kate Sharma.”

And just like that, Anthony decides that someone up there must really have it out for him. 

Monday is an unsurprisingly quiet night even for a popular bar in Soho and Kate finds herself looking up every time the door opens, surreptitiously moving her copy of Robinson Crusoe in case the next person through the door is who she is waiting for. People come and go but no one approaches her table and she tries not to feel self-conscious as the clock ticks over to seven o’clock and then a few minutes past. 

Turning in her chair, she looks over at Edwina who has claimed a seat in the corner, a fruity cocktail keeping her company. She gives her a questioning look and Kate shrugs before signalling that she hasn’t heard anything but she realises that Edwina is no longer looking at her but rather at something over her shoulder. 

“Kate Sharma.” She stills. “Fancy seeing you here.”

His voice is irritatingly familiar already and she swivels round to find Anthony Bridgerton standing next to her table, smiling at her so smugly that she feels the immature urge to shove him. Hard. 

However, it doesn’t escape her attention that he looks just as attractive as he had at the engagement party. There’s a stray dark curl of hair that’s falling over his forehead and the desire to push him over is abruptly replaced with the overwhelming urge to brush it back into place. It would be so easy for her to reach out and do it, one small touch, and she wonders how he would react if she did. 

It’s a silly thought and she chastises herself before gripping her glass tightly, not trusting her hands to behave themselves, and glaring up at him. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he picks up her book and eyes it curiously. 

“I found this too outdated for my tastes. A lot of slavery and racism.”

He holds it out to her and she snatches it back. This night has already deviated from what she had hoped and she doesn’t need it to be made any worse by having to endure Anthony Bridgerton of all people explaining the problematic nature of eighteenth century literature to her.

“Obviously it’s horrendously racist,” she says, sliding the book out of his reach. She doesn’t want to have to explain to him why she has a copy of it at all so she repeats her question. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “I was meeting my brother for a drink but he’s bailed.”

And then, without so much as asking if she minds, he’s taking off his coat, draping it over the back of the chair and sitting down opposite her. 

He lounges back in his seat as she sputters at his entitlement, the picture of nonchalance, and she tries her hardest not to notice how good he looks in a suit. 

“I’m actually meeting someone so you need to go.”

He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Boyfriend?”

“What?”

“The person you’re meeting. Is it your boyfriend? That guy you were with on Friday.”

Something about the way he asks the question gives Kate the irrational desire to lean forward and tease him because if she didn’t know any better, if he was a different guy and this was a different situation, she would think he was jealous. 

“Tom isn’t my boyfriend.”

A pleased smile flits across his face as he moves forward in his seat and she does her best to dismiss it from her thoughts because she cannot afford to think about what it might possibly mean. 

“You still need to leave,” she continues. “I’m waiting for someone and I’d rather you not be here when he shows up.”

She tries to visualise how she would begin to explain the infuriating man sat across from her to the guy she’s been messaging for weeks: she’s sure it wouldn’t be anything short of a disaster.

“He?”  She mentally berates herself for slipping up and revealing more than she needs to. He tilts his whole body towards her, leaning in, and instantly the table feels far too small. She doesn’t know how to cope with him being in such close proximity. He’s close enough now that she can see the flecks of hazel in his eyes and she would barely have to stretch out her arm to allow her fingers to smooth out the wrinkle that seems to live between his brows. “Miss Sharma, are you waiting for a date?” 

He’s watching her, studying her, and his penetrating gaze almost seems to burn underneath her skin as if every intimate thought she has ever had is being laid bare to him. Part of her wants to look away but the more stubborn part of her holds his stare, matching it with her own, and she sees the satisfaction in his eyes when she doesn’t shy away. 

“It’s none of your business.”

“Maybe I’m just curious about the sort of man who catches your interest.”

“Because you know so much about me after two conversations?”

“Three.”

“What?”

“We’ve had three conversations although I suppose the one in my office could be considered more of an argument than a conversation.”

The right choice would be to walk away and leave Kate waiting for someone who she’ll decide never showed, but there’s something about her that intrigues him and Anthony finds himself utterly unable to walk away.

(Deep down, he knows the right right choice would be to tell her the truth but he is a coward.)

If things were different, he would have been sitting here on a first date right now getting to know the strikingly beautiful woman from the bookshop that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. He would have been thanking the universe that somehow, against all odds, the accidental recipient of his texts was the same Kate that had charmed Hyacinth and captured his attention. He would have decided that maybe his therapist was right and taking a risk on a relationship again was worth it after all. 

Things aren’t different though and Kate Sharma hates him, something that he cannot see any way to fix. 

Therefore, he should walk away and leave her be. His presence is doing nothing but aggravating her. However, there is something about Kate that makes Anthony want to do something he never does: she makes him want to be selfish. 

“Please leave.”

He stays.

“And miss out on another conversation with you?”

“Yes,” she hisses, making no effort to hide how vexed she is. “He’ll be here any moment and the last thing I want is you sitting here when he arrives.”

“Maybe we’d get along.”

“I doubt it. The guy I’m meeting is kind and funny and thoughtful and I don’t expect you to relate to anyone like that. Surely you have another business to go and close down?”

It’s a cheap shot but he can’t resent her for being angry. It doesn’t stop her barbs from stinging though. 

“None of this is personal. It’s just business.”

She rolls her eyes. “It might just be business for you but it is personal to me. You’re not demolishing a building that doesn’t matter. That place is everything to me, to my family, and your company is destroying it to replace it with some soulless building as if what was there before meant nothing at all.”

“I get it.”

“You don’t-”

“I do,” he interrupts because she can hate him as much as she wants but he needs her to understand that he isn’t ambivalent to the pain he’s causing her. “My father dedicated years of his life to The Bridgerton Group and he was meant to have so much more time to achieve all the things he dreamed of. Instead, I’m the one who has to continue what he built. And if someone was trying to destroy it, I would hate them too.”

The bartender brings over the scotch he had ordered when he arrived and he sips it, stealing a glance at Kate over the top of the glass. She is quiet, the first time he’s ever seen her not immediately armed with something else to say, and he knows he’s in trouble.

He doesn’t like to talk about his dad with anyone outside of the family. His inability to open up and be vulnerable had been a prominent feature on Siena’s list of his many faults as a boyfriend and yet here he is sharing about his dad to Kate with no prompting at all. 

“We call it the dead dads club, my sister and I,” she says eventually. “You can’t be in it until you’re in it and then, once you’re in, life is always just a little bit shit.”

He nods in understanding and his throat tightens because he’s lived twelve years without his dad but it never seems to get any easier.

“And it can be hard to explain what life is like to anyone who isn’t in the club because they can’t know what it’s like, right?” he says. “My friends came to the funeral, offered mum their condolences and checked in on me but none of them really understood.”

It’s her turn to nod before she rests her chin on her palm and looks over at him. Whatever anger he had found in her eyes earlier is gone. It’s been replaced by a soft vulnerability that draws him in, pulling him even further into her orbit. 

“My friends were the same. They tried their best to understand and be supportive but none of them had lost a parent so they didn’t really get it. And then they were all heading off to university and I was the one staying behind.”

He’s terrified that in a moment she might suddenly remember who he is and withdraw back behind the protection of her sharp tongue but he risks asking the question anyway.

“How old were you when your dad died?”

“I was eighteen.”

Daphne, the hopeless romantic, would see the parallel as some mythical sign from the universe but Anthony recognises it for what it is: someone else who understands the pain of losing a parent when you’re barely an adult yourself.

“I was eighteen too.”

She offers him a small understanding smile and silence surrounds them. It should feel awkward but instead there’s something comforting about it because, as they each sip their drinks, there’s an air of understanding that hadn’t been there before.

It only lasts a short while, however, before loud laughter at a neighbouring table startles them back to reality and he swears he can see the guard going back up as she gulps down what is left of her drink.

When she puts her glass down, she taps her phone and the screen lights up with a picture of her with a younger girl who he assumes is her sister. He can see from here that there are no notifications and when she looks up to glance at the door again, she droops and the disappointment that he can see on her face sends a pang of guilt shooting through his gut. 

He should tell her who he is and let her know that her date hasn’t abandoned her and is instead sitting in the chair opposite hers. But if she is already disappointed at the guy she’s waiting for never showing up, he can only imagine how much her disappointment would increase if she found out that there was no kind, thoughtful guy at all and instead there was only him. 

“I’m going to go. My date obviously isn’t coming.”

He doesn’t know what to say so he can only watch as she stands up and pulls on her coat before catching the attention of someone in the corner. He looks over and recognises the girl from Kate’s lockscreen because apparently he isn’t the only one with an over-involved younger sibling.

Kate turns to leave, but just as he thinks she is going to walk away without so much as a goodbye, something makes her stop and she looks at him, a small frown knitting her eyebrows together. 

“What you said before - I don’t hate you.” Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. “I hate what The Bridgerton Group is doing and I think, if you wanted to, you could make your company better than it is today. But Anthony Bridgerton…I’m not so sure that I hate him.”

And then she is walking away like she hasn’t just knocked him off-kilter with only a few words.

He is in so much trouble.

“How did it go?” Edwina asks, hurrying to catch up with Kate as she makes her way towards the entrance of the tube station. 

Her conversation with Anthony is playing on a loop in her head and she can’t help but wonder what on earth had possessed her to say what she did.

Anthony Bridgerton can be an arsehole but he also clearly cares about his family, understands the awful grief of losing a father and has never been anything even close to rude towards her no matter what names and insults she's hurled his way. And she knows what she told him is true - as much as she tries to, she doesn't hate him after all. 

“It didn’t. He never showed.”

“But what about Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome?”

It’s an irritatingly fitting description for him and Kate can’t keep from remembering how handsome he had looked even though he had clearly just come from work. 

“He wasn’t my date. That was Anthony Bridgerton.”

The loud gasp and the dramatic way Edwina immediately clutches at her arm garners a few amused glances from the other people trying to make their way through the station and an old man tuts loudly when she practically shrieks, “Shut up!”

“Yes, be louder please,” Kate says, making her way through the ticket barrier and waiting for her squealing sister to follow. 

“Why did you never mention how stupidly hot he is? I was picturing some old dude not someone who should be on the cover of GQ.”

“He’s not that hot.”

Edwina scoffs loudly as she steps behind her on the escalator. 

“That was about as convincing a lie as the time you tried to convince mum the massive scratch on her car had always been there.” Kate tries to ignore her sister but Edwina has never been easily defeated. “You fancy him.”

“I do not fancy him.”

“You do.”

“I don’t,” she snaps, glaring at her over her shoulder but Edwina continues to grin at her like this is the best thing she’s heard all day. “He’s the whole reason the shop is closing. I can’t fancy him.”

She only realises what she’s said when Edwina’s grin increases tenfold and Kate wonders what the TFL’s policy is on sisters fighting on the underground. 

She hisses, “Shut up,” and marches towards the correct platform with Edwina trailing behind her. To give her her due, Edwina doesn’t say another word but Kate can feel the amusement and smugness rolling off her sister in waves so she purposefully chooses a seat on the opposite end of the carriage. 

She does not want to be attracted to Anthony Bridgerton.

What she wants is for her date to have shown up tonight so she can still be sitting in The Mad Hatter having a great time getting to know the guy whose messages have become the bright part of her day instead of replaying her conversation with Anthony in her head for the third time. 

What she wants is for Anthony to have never brought his little sister into her store so she doesn't end up fancying someone she has no business being attracted to based on a charming first impression.

What she wants is for The Bridgerton Group to never have bought her building so Anthony can just be a cute guy who she eventually asks out since the universe seems determined to keep throwing them into each other’s lives.

But what Kate wants doesn’t matter - what she wants isn’t even possible - and this whole situation feels like it’s slipping out of her control. The whole point of messaging wrong number guy had been to shut down this absurd burgeoning attraction she feels for someone she can’t let herself be attracted to. Instead, tonight has granted her another piece in the confusing, conflicting jumble of puzzle pieces that makes Anthony Bridgerton who he is and instead of hating him and never wanting to see him again, she’s more fascinated by him than ever. 

That night, her dreams seem determined to taunt her and she wakes up with images of his head between her legs, a wicked gleam in his eyes, and the sound of his name on her lips. 

It leaves her disorientated and irritated and her irritation only increases when, on her way to the bathroom, she stumbles over the pile of books that Edwina has left outside her bedroom door. Cursing loudly, she gathers them up before rolling her eyes at her sister’s selection: Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Book Lovers and Red, White and Royal Blue - three romance titles all with an enemies-to-lovers slant. 

Her sister will never be famed for her subtlety. 

However, what finally cements Kate’s irritated mood into place doesn’t occur until her phone chimes as she’s letting herself into the shop where Penelope is already hard at work behind the counter:

I’m sorry.

Chapter Text

I’m sorry. 

I wanted to be there but something came up. 

I got pulled into a last minute meeting that I couldn’t get out of.

I had a family emergency. 

Running a hand through his hair, Anthony deletes what feels like his hundredth attempt at trying to work out what he can say; however much he tries, nothing he writes seems like the right thing to send. He has already lied to Kate and to lie again doesn’t sit right in his chest but he can’t even work out where to begin when it comes to telling her the truth

I was there last night. 

There’s something I should have told you.

Guess what? 

Kate might say that she doesn’t hate him - a confession he has over-analysed since she walked out of the bar - but he cannot see an outcome that leads to anything good. Discovering that the person she was meant to meet at the bar was actually him, the person who is taking away the building that means so much to her, can only lead to disappointment or hatred on her part. Yet, if he continues deceiving her by pretending to be a stranger when the reality is so very different, how could it possibly lead to a positive outcome?

Sending an apology had felt like the right thing to do this morning but, while one of the many breakaway family Whatsapp groups has kept his phone busy all day with plans for Eloise’s birthday, there has been nothing but silence from Kate in response to his text and his apology seems more pathetic by the minute. He knows he needs to say more to explain himself but he can’t think what to say and the longer his inaction goes on, the harder it is to think of what it is he should write. 

His indecisiveness (an unsettlingly unusual trait when he normally prides himself on knowing exactly what to do) means that days pass without him doing much more than texting her again in an emboldened rush one lunchtime:

I really am sorry. 

He finds himself obsessively glancing at their messages throughout his next meeting and the sight of those three little dots is enough to send his mind spiralling at the possibility of what she could be typing. 

The dots vanish and reappear before vanishing again and he proves to be a completely useless contributor to the meeting, barely hearing a word of what is being discussed as he waits for them to appear once more; however, the chat stays completely silent and he returns to overthinking what he should say to her. 

That is how he finds himself sitting in his office on Friday afternoon with his attention split between the proposal he’s drafting and what feels like his thousandth try at finding the right words to redeem the mess he has found himself in. Because while he knows he could easily ghost her and vanish from her life, becoming nothing but the signature at the bottom of the documents that commence the demolition of her shop, he wants to be selfish and that means he can’t bring himself to simply let her go. 

Work forgotten on his computer, he is part way through attempting to craft a purposefully vague, more detailed apology that can cover his behaviour on Monday night without admitting that he was there or lying about his supposed absence when the message disappears, replaced with the contact details of Hyacinth’s school as his phone begins to ring. 

“Hello?”

Hyacinth’s teacher is on the other end of the phone and she fills him in quickly, his heart plummeting while she speaks, and thoughts of trying to redeem himself in Kate’s eyes vanish as he races out of his office. 

fuck you

i’m sorry is the best you’ve got?

you couldn’t even have had the decency to call me?

In quiet moments, Kate has taken to trying to channel her anger, disappointment and confusion into a succinct text but it’s been days of trying and she hasn’t found any response that has felt like enough so she has settled for simply ignoring his two pitiful apologies. 

It’s Friday evening and, since the clocks have rolled back, the street outside is dark and Kate has dimmed the lights in the shop, leaving her working in the cosy lowlights of the lamps and fairy lights that decorate the store. It’s calm and quiet and it reminds her of autumn evenings spent in her father’s company, tidying the shelves while he finished the inventory for the week. There are times it can be lonely when she is working by herself after the final customer has cleared out and Penelope has finished for the day but something about replicating the same routines that litter the memories of her childhood brings her a much-needed comfort. 

Methodically logging the new deliveries, she tries not to think about how many more Fridays she has left like this one before the familiar comforts of these routines will be gone, demolished just like the walls that surround her. It seems impossible to imagine her life without Off the Shelf and yet the building that has been like a second home to her for practically her entire life won’t even be left standing in a matter of weeks. 

Every time she tries to make herself think of a plan for what comes next, she remembers her father’s smile whenever he found the perfect book for a customer or the excited way he would talk about the shop over dinner and she almost can’t breathe. Off the Shelf was everything to him, his pride and joy, and she can’t find a way to move past the feeling that she has failed him, that he would have found a way to save the shop rather than letting it be destroyed. 

She always misses him but the grief feels more powerful than ever because losing the shop is beginning to feel a lot like losing him all over again. And, right now, she would give anything to have him beside her, offering her advice on what on earth she should do next. She doesn’t know what he would tell her to do yet she knows with a powerful certainty that he would have had something wise to say, something that would be exactly what she needs to hear. 

Instead, she’s alone and she’s not sure she has ever felt more lost. 

Brushing away the tears that she cannot bear to let spill - because if those tears fall then she knows just how easy it will be to find herself on the brink of being consumed by that familiar grief - she takes a shuddering breath and picks up her phone to message Edwina, promising that she is almost finished and will be home soon. 

Then another message appears. She clicks on it before she can even think about it, a force of habit after messaging the same number every day for weeks, and she’s barely finished reading it before three more follow in quick succession. 

I know you must hate me and I’m being horribly selfish by messaging you after everything but I really need someone to talk to. 

My sister had an accident and we’re all sat in the hospital waiting room. 

Everyone needs me to be the strong one but I can’t do it.

I’ll understand if you don’t reply but you were the first person I wanted to talk to. 

Kate is many things - competitive, independent, stubborn, a terrible dancer - but she’s never possessed the ability to be callous so her fingers are typing out a response before she can even think about it. 

is she going to be okay?

We don’t know. 

I’ve never seen her so pale. 

Her first instinct is to ask what happened but it feels like a needlessly invasive question. If it was Tom waiting for news on his sister, she knows she would join him as quickly as she could. She would busy herself making a run to Costa and keeping him distracted while they waited but wrong number guy is still a stranger to her and the hospital waiting room is definitely not the time or place for them to finally meet. 

i’m so sorry.

i know it’s scary but try and focus on the fact that she’s in the best place she could possibly be right now.

I’m supposed to be the one who protects her and instead she’s lying in a hospital bed.

Granted she doesn’t know what happened but she knows that blaming himself cannot lead to anything good. 

blaming yourself isn’t going to help her

can you go and sit with her? 

being with her might help you both

She’s got my mum and they’re only letting one of us in. 

Everyone else keeps asking me what we should do and I don’t know.

don’t worry about everyone else

Three dots appear and they linger for a while before disappearing and Kate stares at her phone. Has she crossed a line telling him what to do? She doesn’t know his family and she supposes she might not appreciate it if someone said the same to her while Edwina was lying in hospital. 

I don’t handle my family being hurt very well. 

i don’t think anyone does.

The three dots appear again, doing the same vanishing act as before. It takes a couple of minutes before the next message arrives and its vulnerability makes her realise that he must have been typing and deleting the words over and over again, hesitating over whether to send them to her.

I get panic attacks sometimes. Not as often as I did but they still happen from time to time. 

I had one this evening when the doctors took my sister through to A&E. 

The jilted date suddenly doesn’t seem very important any more but Kate wishes it had happened, that she had put a name and face to the person at the other end of the phone, because she desperately wishes she could make her way to the hospital, hold his hand and tell him that everything will be okay. 

She doesn’t know him though; he remains a nameless, faceless stranger. And yet, the idea of him standing in a hospital somewhere, struggling to breathe out of fear for his sister, hurts more than she thought it would. 

i can’t imagine how scared you must be but i’m here for as long as you need to talk.

and thank you for confiding in me.

It’s selfish of him to have messaged Kate. He knows that. But he thinks it’s becoming well-established now that he struggles to be anything but selfish when it comes to his behaviour around her. 

They message on and off throughout most of the evening. While they never discuss the details of Hyacinth’s accident or the mess of their failed date, they do talk about mindless, silly things. He knows Kate is doing her best to keep his mind from spiralling as doctors look after his baby sister and he appreciates it more than he knows how to express. 

“She’s going to be okay,” Daphne says, sliding into the seat next to him and he locks his phone before she can steal a glance at Kate’s very detailed texts explaining the plot of some awful Netflix movie her sister has corralled her into watching, her sister’s attempt to distract her from the storm and her attempt to distract him from worrying endlessly over what is happening somewhere else in the hospital.

“You don’t know that.”

“She had an accident in PE. These things happen. You know as well as I do that Colin spent most of the ages of eight through fourteen in this place.”

The memories of Colin’s various clumsy accidents, and subsequent bumps, bruises and breaks, makes him roll his eyes.

“I know. But it’s Hyacinth.”

It’s not an explanation but it’s the best he’s got and somehow Daphne gets it because she nods and takes hold of his hand in hers. 

There’s an innate need to protect Hyacinth that permeates through every member of the Bridgerton family but Anthony knows he is affected by it more than most. He was the one who spent Friday evenings on the train to London to make sure he was there to hold his newborn sister when she cried in the middle of the night, those weekend visits doing little to assuage his grief at his absence during the week. While his friends were taking advantage of the cheap drinks in Purple Turtle, Anthony was taking charge of the midnight feeds, nappy changes and early morning cuddles. His Oxford years are a scattered collection of weekday nights out, one-night stands, arduous tutorials and caring for Hyacinth. He has always felt a responsibility for her, from the very first moment the doctor placed her tiny crying body in his arms, and he doesn’t think that will ever change. 

Even now, when she’s not far off being an independent teenager, he makes time for her - and Greg - no matter what else he has on his plate. It had been a sticking point with Siena, his unwavering devotion to his family above all else, and he had never been willing or able to apologise for it no matter how much she grew to resent feeling second place to them.

He can’t imagine a day when he doesn’t worry about Hyacinth and he could never build a life with someone who doesn’t understand that. 

His phone lights up with new messages from Kate:

any news yet?

the nanny just stabbed the husband

this movie is so stupid - why can’t i stop watching it?

Still waiting.

And it’s because you’re actually enjoying that rubbish.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Daphne inelegantly trying to read the messages over his shoulder and he angles the screen away from her. 

“Is this that woman you’ve been messaging?”

He whips his head round to look at her. “How do you know?”

“Ben told me.”

He should have guessed. 

“I’m not talking about this with you.”

His dismissal falls on deaf ears as Daphne swivels in her seat to face him.

“I like this for you.”

“You don’t know anything about it, Daph.”

“I know that you’ve been smiling at your phone most of the time we’ve been sitting here when normally you’d be making a hole in the floor pacing back and forth.” She takes hold of his hand again. “You deserve someone who makes you smile.”

He squeezes her hand and wishes it was as simple as that.

His phone buzzes again with another message but then Violet is walking out of the double doors and the waiting room becomes a flurry of information about Hyacinth. She’s broken her arm and earned a nasty bump on her head which means an overnight stay to monitor her in case of concussion but she’s going to be alright and Violet has already made her promise not to attempt the vault in gymnastics again for at least the next year.

The relief ripples through their family, which quickly turns to joy when they’re all granted a short visit to see her, and Anthony doesn’t find the time to text Kate again until he’s lying on an uncomfortable cot on the floor of Hyacinth’s hospital room. He had insisted that his mum go home to rest after the hours she spent accompanying his sister to various X-rays and scans and the lumpy mattress is worth it if it means he gets to be here making sure that Hyacinth is okay. 

Sorry for disappearing. 

She’s going to be okay. 

The reply comes too quickly for this late at night and he wonders if she had been waiting to hear from him.

that’s amazing news

i’m glad she’s okay

get a good night’s rest

I will.

Thanks for chatting to me tonight. 

any time

He hopes she really means it, both because he hadn’t realised just how much he had missed talking to her until tonight and also because he’s certain that an injured Hyacinth is going to cause him stress and worry even once she’s out of the hospital.

The latter is a concern that is proven right when, by the following Friday, the novelty of wearing a plaster cast has rapidly worn off for Hyacinth and her grumbling has become a common fixture within the background noise of Bridgerton House. If she isn’t complaining about how hard it is to do basic tasks with one arm out of commission, she’s lamenting that her injuries only earned her two days off school. 

It’s the most out of sorts Anthony has seen her since Biscoff, her pet hamster, had died while she was away on a school trip. It had taken a visit to the pet shop with a stop off at McDonald’s on the way home to cheer her up then, and when she flings her phone across the lounge on Saturday morning, infuriated at the Whatsapp messages in her football team’s group chat about the training session she missed the night before, he is sure it’s going to take something major to make her smile again. 

However, it can never be said that Anthony isn’t committed to making Hyacinth happy - which is how he finds himself driving across London on Saturday afternoon with Gregory and Hyacinth loaded into the back of the Range Rover squabbling over who gets to control the Spotify playlist.

Once they’re parked up and wandering in the direction of their destination, he worries that perhaps his selfish thinking has led him astray and that this won’t be something that Hyacinth even remembers; however, the moment she sees the bright orange sign, she shrieks in excitement and practically drags Gregory into the bookshop, not even checking over her shoulder to make sure that Anthony is following her or that this is actually where he intended for them to go. 

He is sure that coming back here is a bad idea for a multitude of reasons but he’s starting to think that he is incapable of acting rationally when it comes to Kate Sharma. 

Their text messages had resumed after the panic of Hyacinth’s hospital visit with his attempt at apologising for their ‘failed’ meet-up being brushed off with a blunt text about how it would probably be best if they stuck to the written word from now on. Since then, there’s been an awkward air to their messages, almost like they’re trying to find the rhythm that they have lost, and so Anthony can’t deny that part of this visit is purely selfish because stilted messages with Kate aren’t enough. 

He needs to see her.

And it’s that lack of rational thinking that leads Anthony into Off the Shelf and straight into more complications.

Because, as he walks through the door to find Hyacinth sprawled across the floor in the middle of the shop, introducing Kate’s chubby corgi to Gregory (who is staring at Kate with an expression horrifyingly similar to the way he looked at the chocolate eclairs he had devoured for pudding the night before), he is far too focused on taking in the sight of Kate laughing at whatever his siblings are telling her to even think of the potential flaw in his plan.

He’s too busy watching how Kate’s whole face lights up when she smiles to even notice which arm his sister is using to cuddle the dog.

And he’s too enamoured by the way Kate happily drops down onto the floor beside his two youngest siblings and helps adjust the overweight dog in Hyacinth’s arms to pay attention to the bright pink plaster cast encasing his sister’s arm.

The bright pink plaster cast which was a result of her accident on Friday.

The very same accident he had messaged Kate about. 

Let the records show - Anthony Bridgerton is an idiot.

Chapter Text

i’m soliciting opinions on the best movie to watch on halloween

I’m not much of a Halloween fan.

“He’s here!”

The excited shout, combined with the jingle of the bell above the door, draws Kate’s attention away from her fourth unsuccessful attempt to hang cobwebs off the bookcases in preparation for Monday’s Halloween event. It’s one of Kate’s favourite events of the year, an evening filled with spooky stories, trick or treating and a nice bump to the week’s takings, but it would be a lot of easier if the blasted cobweb would hang how she envisioned it in her sketches.

She looks up to see a young girl hurtling through the shop and she can’t keep herself from wincing when she practically throws herself onto the floor in front of Newton, who barely bats an eye at the intrusion to his usual Saturday afternoon routine of napping, eating and more napping.

“Over here, Greg.”

A teenage boy, who is shuffling uncomfortably after her and aiming to look like he’s not interested in what the girl is clearly eager to show him, reluctantly sits down beside her, and it’s only when Kate hops off the ladder that they turn to look at her.

“Greg’s pretending he’s not interested because he thinks he’s cool now but he loves dogs really.” Kate laughs at that. She remembers her own awkward teenage years when being cool had seemed like the most important thing in the world and she can sympathise with Greg’s posed aloofness. “I think Newton is awesome. I wish I had a dog like him.”

The girl is talking a mile a minute as she cuddles a slightly startled Newton and her knowing Newton’s name throws Kate for a moment until she joins the children on the floor and the girl beams at her.

“You’ve been here before,” she says, trying to place the eager grin amongst her usual rotation of customers.

Nodding enthusiastically, the girl does her best to cuddle Newton properly but her arm is encased in a neon pink plaster cast which makes it all the more difficult so Kate reaches over to help adjust her (perfectly healthy-sized) dog until he’s resting contently on her lap.

“I came in here last month with my brother. You gave me a copy of Murder Most Unladylike which I loved by the way. Thank you. Anthony’s already bought me the rest of the series. They were meant to be for Christmas but he let me have them early because of my arm.” She wiggles her cast in Kate’s face before panicking and wrapping it back around Newton who’s wobbling precariously in her arms. “Oops. I’m Hyacinth by the way, in case you forgot.”

Talking to Hyacinth is a little like standing on the platform as a high-speed train races past but Kate follows her enough to pick out the important details and her stomach swoops as she remembers just who Hyacinth’s older brother is.

Anthony Bridgerton has been a persistent presence in her mind over the last few days, no matter how determinedly she has tried to avoid thinking about him, but it still doesn’t prepare her for the sight of him being stood in the doorway to her shop looking over at them with an expression that makes her stomach swoop once more.

He looks unfairly handsome, dressed in a dark blue t-shirt that clings obnoxiously to his biceps (when does a CEO even have time to go to the gym to get arms like that?) and jeans that probably cost more than her rent, and his eyes meet hers for a long, intense moment before his gaze shifts to his siblings and his face morphs into a soft, warm grin that makes Kate think of a sunset on a summer evening or the feel of the warm sand beneath your bare feet.

He’s ruining your business, she reminds herself but she can’t seem to summon the necessary fury that should accompany such a statement. However, she can feel her lips quirking into a wry smile before she has even stood up from her crouched position on the floor and she can’t resist volleying a biting comment in his direction.

“Sorry but I don’t believe demolition is due to start for at least another two months.”

He rolls his eyes. “And here was me hoping for some of that charming customer service I read about in your Google reviews.”

“You looked me up on Google?”

“Your shop,” he corrects after a moment. Then he moves to follow after Greg who’s gotten distracted by the graphic novels section. However, instead of taking the easy path towards his brother, he walks behind her, brushing obnoxiously close while he squeezes between her and the counter, and it takes all of Kate’s self-restraint not to shiver at both his proximity and the heady scent of sandalwood that has no right to be so inviting. “Though that doesn’t mean I’m not fascinated by you too.”

She probably looks ridiculous, her mouth hanging open as he strolls off towards his brother, and it’s an embarrassingly long moment before she remembers to close her mouth rather than gaping after him.

She leaves Hyacinth to her cuddles with Newton and aims for busyness, sticking more posters for Monday’s Spooktacular Stories in the window while her brain whirs away, replaying Anthony’s comment over and over.

He was flirting with her.

Kate is not a naive woman. She knows when men are flirting with her and Anthony Bridgerton was most definitely flirting. The closeness, the seductive tone of voice, the teasing comment - he was aiming to charm her and the aggravating thing is that, judging from the fact that she sticks the first two posters upside down, it's worked.

Irritating man who’s closing down her business - Kate can deal with that. Unnecessary crush on said irritating man - Kate hasn’t got that figured out yet but she’s dealing with it as best she can. But said irritating man potentially also being into her - Kate hasn’t got a clue where to start with that one.

“I love Halloween!”

Hyacinth is hovering behind her and holding one of Kate’s hand drawn posters.

“So do I.”

“I’m dressing up as Eleven. I wanted to shave my head to be properly authentic but Anthony said I should just dress as Eleven from season four instead,” she sighs.

“Maybe wait until you’re eighteen before you make any big decisions about shaving your head.”

Hyacinth ponders her statement for a moment before nodding. “You’re both probably right. But don’t tell Anthony.”

“Never,” Kate promises and she holds out her little finger the same way she used to when her and Edwina were little. “I don’t think your brother needs his ego boosting any further.”

Hyacinth links pinkies with her enthusiastically and nods. “Absolutely. His head’s already massive.”

The two of them burst into laughter, although Hyacinth gasps and shushes her quickly when they notice Anthony looking their way, another irritatingly soft look on his face.

“It won’t be too authentic anyway,” she says once their giggles have calmed down. “Not with this.”

She waves her broken arm in Kate’s face, disappointment clouding her face.

“What happened?”

“Florence Sutton-Jones bet me that I couldn’t do a handspring over the vault. She’s always showing off because she goes to gymnastics competitions and it didn’t look that hard when she did it!”

Kate cringes in sympathy. She can imagine how badly it must have gone. There’s a nasty greenish bruise on Hyacinth's forehead and Kate remembers her own annoyance at being stuck in a plaster cast when she was thirteen and she broke her arm after falling off her horse.

“I’m sorry. How long have you got to have the cast on for?”

“Six weeks.” She pouts. “It sucks.” Then she leans forward as if she’s about to bestow a sacred secret to Kate and she can’t help but feel honoured that the girl likes her so much already. “I think Anthony brought me here to cheer me up because I’ve been so miserable all week.”

Honestly, what is Kate meant to do with that? Anthony Bridgerton being a caring older brother and taking his little sister book shopping when she’s sad is not the sort of mental image that is remotely helpful for her successfully getting over this ridiculous crush she’s developed on a man whose sole reason for being in her life is to make it as difficult as possible.

“Well,” she says, copying Hyacinth and leaning in towards her. “Why don’t we go and find an especially large stack of books for your brother to treat you to since he’s being so nice?”

When Hyacinth grins at her, there’s a glint of something machiavellian in her eyes and Kate has the distinct feeling that it would never be a smart idea for anyone to find themselves on the wrong side of the young girl.

The two of them trail around the children’s section, discussing possible book selections and getting waylaid by the YA shelves where Hyacinth takes it upon herself to explain the plot of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before in incredible detail before insisting that Kate promise to watch the trilogy as soon as she can.

“What about this one?” Kate offers up the bright yellow book, Ghost, for Hyacinth to scrutinise. “It’s not a spooky story like the title suggests but it’s a great sports story; something to read while you’re stuck on the sidelines for the next few weeks.”

Kate watches as Hyacinth adds it to her basket and she waits for her to notice that it’s only the first in the series. It only takes her a moment to pick up Patina and Kate pretends not to notice as she skims the blurb, pauses and then reads it again.

“I think I’d like this one too,” she says in a quiet voice and Kate adds it to her basket without a word.

When she was about the same age, she had become obsessed with reading any books where the main character had lost their mother, desperately searching for some connection to other people who had experienced the same loss that she had. It doesn’t surprise her that Hyacinth might appreciate finding the same connection in stories of girls who had to grow up without their dads.

“Time to go, Hy,” Anthony calls and it’s only then that Kate realises that he is watching them.

She tries not to consider how much he looks like he belongs there in her shop, leaning against the counter with that stupid smile on his face.

Avoiding meeting his eye, Kate makes her way behind the counter and rings up their purchases, adding Greg’s pile of graphic novels into the same reusable tote as Hyacinth’s assortment of books, and she’s acutely aware of Anthony watching her the whole time. Her skin practically burns under the intensity of his gaze and she can’t help but wonder what he might say - or do - if his siblings were not sandwiched either side of him.

He doesn’t say a word when she announces the final total. But, when she hands him the receipt, his fingers wrap around hers and she swears it feels like her whole body is set aflame.

She should pull away. He should let go. They should stop.

And yet, they stand there, hands touching, him watching her and her determinedly not looking at him and it feels like nothing could break them apart.

That is until the bell above the door rings, a noisy jingle that reminds them that, somehow, there is a world still existing outside of the two of them.

Greg is by the door, eyes glued to his phone, clearly signalling that he’s ready to go in that unsubtle way that all teenagers communicate that their patience has run out, and Hyacinth is watching the two of them with that same machiavellian gleam in her eyes.

Kate is the one to yank her hand away and she busies them tidying the various leaflets that clutter the counter in case she does something mad like reach for his hands that are still lingering so close to her.

When she does risk a look in his direction, Anthony is smirking and she loathes that he can see how flustered he has made her.

“I’ll see you around, Kate,” he says.

She has no idea how he can make a simple sentence sound so lascivious.

“We definitely will,” Hyacinth adds, trailing behind him as they head towards the exit, and Kate doesn’t like the amusement in her tone either. “And make sure you watch that movie,” she continues. “I’m going to make Summer watch it when she stays over tonight.” She keeps chatting, even as Anthony glances at his watch and begins to corral her towards the door. “We were meant to have a sleepover last Friday but I was stuck in the hospital instead and-”

“Come on, Hy,” Anthony interrupts quickly, looping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her into his side. “Kate doesn’t need to hear your whole life story.”

Hyacinth bristles at being manhandled but then she says something that Kate can’t hear, her voice purposefully low, and Anthony glares at her in mock annoyance before clipping her on the back of the head.

The two of them depart in a cacophony of squabbling and giggles, Greg already having left them behind, but the look Anthony gives her just before he disappears out of sight leaves her distracted for far longer than she would care to admit.

By the time her head has cleared, she’s halfway up a ladder trying to hang the same cobwebs she had been battling with before the Bridgertons descended into her shop and then she remembers Hyacinth’s comment about being in the hospital last Friday and she grows distracted all over again.

How odd that Anthony’s sister also ended up in the hospital last Friday night.

However, before she can follow that train of thought any further, she sneezes. Twice.

By the time Monday morning rolls around, Kate can’t remember what it feels like to breathe normally. Her nose is blocked, her throat has become lined with sandpaper and she is starting to think she should have purchased shares in Kleenex with how many boxes of tissues she has gone through.

“You’re not going to work,” Edwina insists and Kate would resent how hard her sister shoves her back into her bedroom if she wasn’t using all of her energy to remain standing.

“But it’s Halloween.”

“Which is a scary enough time of year without the kids being terrified by you too. No offence but you look dreadful.”

She hasn’t looked in a mirror since she stumbled into bed on Saturday evening but she takes Edwina’s word for it.

She rarely gets ill and, when she does, she has always needed to power through it because there are too many things that need her attention. However, this time, her sister is insistent and she finds herself forced back into bed with promises that Edwina can take charge of the shop for a day.

“It’ll be fine. I can handle one Halloween event with some little kids, Kate. Read them some stories, give out sweets to trick or treaters and sell lots of books. I’ve got it.”

She must see the worry on Kate’s face because she quickly adds that she’ll get Penelope’s number and ring her to come in and help too.

Kate wants to tell her exactly what she needs to do - it’s the shop’s last big event and she wants it to be perfect - but her eyelids are so heavy and her duvet is so warm that she can’t seem to get her brain to make her mouth start talking.

A few minutes later, there’s the faint sound of the front door closing but Kate is too deep asleep to even hear it.

In fact, she sleeps for the next few hours, only waking up well after midday, and the first thing she registers is the sound of someone banging around in her kitchen.

“Hello?” she calls out, her voice scratchy. “Who’s there?”

Her sleep-addled brain vaguely recalls the conversation about Edwina running the shop today and the only other person who would make themselves at home in her kitchen, Tom, is on a work trip in Manchester.

There’s a soft tap on her bedroom door before it slowly opens to reveal Mary who is carrying a tray loaded down with various cups, plates and packets.

“Mum? What are you doing here?” Kate attempts to shuffle herself up into a seated position with her muscles aching in protest but Mary tuts disapprovingly at her and forces her to let her help, the tray still balancing precariously in her left hand as she helps Kate sit up.

“Edwina said you weren’t well.”

“I’m fine.”

Another tut. Mary presses her hand to Kate’s forehead and she can’t stop the relieved sigh at the feel of the cool palm against her own burning skin.

“You’re burning up, Kate, and I’m surprised you can even breathe through that cold.”

Despite Kate’s grumbling, she begins fussing around, rearranging the bedside table to place the tray down before sweeping the discarded tissues and cough sweet wrappers into a bin bag that she must have carried in with her. Then she presses a warm mug into Kate’s hands and although she can’t smell it, she knows that if she could, the bitter spicy scent of the kadha would take her right back to her childhood sick days.

“Do you remember how your appa would always make this for you girls whenever you were ill?”

She takes her first sip before nodding. If she closes her eyes, she could be eight years old again, holding her nose and doing her best to finish the entire mug of kadha because her appa always promised it would make her feel better.

“When I was little, I always used to think it was some magic potion he was making.”

There’s a smile on Mary’s face but Kate can also see tears glinting in her eyes and she knows the same tears are building in her own eyes.

They don't talk about him enough.

“He loved being in that kitchen.” Mary lets out a wet laugh and swipes quickly at the first tear that falls. “Always left me to clear up his mess though, didn’t he?”

Milan Sharma had been famous on their street for his culinary talents. While the women of the Sharma family lacked any true skill in the kitchen, Milan had delighted in taking the spices that cluttered their kitchen cupboards and creating something mouthwatering that had their neighbours clamouring for an invitation to dinner.

“He told me once that there were two ways to win someone over - food and books.”

Mary laughs again but it’s a richer sound this time, a laugh soaked in the memories of the love she and him had shared.

“That was Milan,” she smiles. “If he had good food and a good book then he knew everything would be alright with the world.”

The ache Kate feels whenever she lets herself think about her appa for too long is awful so she sips at her kadha and reaches for another tissue instead. However, Mary squeezes her leg through the blanket, a sign that she wants Kate’s attention, and a sense of wariness descends over her when she sees the look on her face.

“When I’m on a night shift and the wards are quiet, my mind wanders to the most anxious of places. Sometimes I worry about you and Edwina living alone here. Sometimes I worry about if I'm making a mistake in never talking to my parents again. And sometimes I think about whether your appa would be disappointed in me for how I failed you after we lost him.”

It’s a painfully vulnerable thought and Kate’s immediate instinct is to pacify her worries.

“You didn’t fail-”

“Kate.” Mary’s voice is firm and unyielding. It’s the same tone she used to use when Kate was grounded with no room for discussion. “I failed you. It’s taken a very long time for me to accept that but I won’t deny it any longer.”

Kate tries again. “You were grieving.”

“We were all grieving. We all loved him and we all lost him.” The tears are spilling down Mary’s cheeks more freely now, overflowing like the doubts and regrets that she’s carried within her since the day the doctors had told them that there was nothing more they could do because Milan was gone. “I let myself get lost in that grief and that wasn’t fair to Edwina and it especially wasn’t fair to you. I allowed you to shoulder far too much responsibility and I failed you as a mother. I am so sorry.”

The part of Kate that has felt so alone since the night she held her appa’s cold hands and tried to grasp that she would never see him smile again wants to brush Mary’s doubts aside. However, the other part of her, the quiet, yearning part that has always desperately longed to belong and to be loved, makes her keep quiet because maybe she has always needed to hear this.

Maybe she has been waiting for this acknowledgement and this apology without ever even realising that it is what she was waiting for.

So Kate lets herself cry, tears of release and regret and relief, and Mary cries too, holding Kate’s hand tightly in her own.

When their tears finally stop, Mary swaps Kate’s half-drunk mug for a plate of hot buttered toast, her ultimate comfort food since she was a little girl.

“Thank you,” she whispers and Mary squeezes her hand again.

As Kate chews on her food, Mary fiddles with the edge of Kate’s blanket, twisting it between her fingers and Kate resists the urge to prompt her to share what else is on her mind. If today has taught her anything, it’s that she will speak when she’s ready.

“I should never have let you give up on university to look after the shop.”

“I wanted to.”

“I know you did. But as your mother, I should have said no. Your appa would never have wanted you to change your plans and keep the shop going out of loyalty to him.”

Kate bristles. “I couldn’t let it go under.”

“He loved that shop and you wanted to keep it open because he loved it; I understand that. But he wanted you to build your own dreams, sweetheart, not keep living his. And it was my duty to help you see that. I didn’t then but I can now.”

"Keeping the shop going was what mattered not my dreams," she whispers.

"Oh, Kate, no. Your father would be so proud of everything you have achieved in that shop but he never would have wanted you to feel like you had to give up on your own dreams because of it. And I should never have allowed you to feel that way either."

She moves to hold Kate’s hand again and then changes her mind, shifting closer so she can hug her.

"But I didn't want to fail him. I still don't," she says quietly.

“Please don’t ever think that the shop closing means that you’ve failed him," Mary says, her tone pleading as she holds Kate close.

“Edwina told you what's happening."

“She thought I should know.” She doesn’t relinquish her hold on Kate when she speaks again. “That shop was your father’s dream and he loved it but it’s okay for you to let it go now and find your own dream instead."

“What if it’s my dream too?”

Mary pulls away and looks at her. “Is it?”

The honest truth is that Kate isn’t sure she knows. It has been a long time since she last allowed herself the luxury of ruminating on her dreams. Her life is good and she likes to think that she is happy for the most part but she hasn’t had dreams since the world thrust her into the harsh realities of adulthood before she had even finished her final A-Level exam.

“I don’t know.”

It feels like a weak non-answer yet Mary nods as if she understands exactly what Kate is trying to say.

Silently, she takes the plate from Kate and balances it on the bedside table before settling herself next to Kate and resting against the headboard. It only takes a little coaxing for Kate’s muscle memory to kick in before she’s wriggling down the bed and curling herself around Mary until her head is laying in her lap. Mary’s hands begin to thread through her hair and massage her scalp, a childhood comfort that Kate hadn’t even known she missed, and the gentle touch is so soothing that her eyes flutter closed.

“Whatever you choose to do,” Mary says in a soft voice, “I will be proud of you and your appa would be too. If you let the shop go, we will have twenty years of wonderful memories and if you want to keep it going, you can find somewhere new to start it again and you can make it your own."

Kate thinks of the building on Upper Richmond Road that she knows like the back of her hand, from the creaky third step on the way to the stockroom upstairs to the way the front door always sticks on freezing January mornings.

“But the building-”

“Is just a building. We are so lucky to have so many marvellous memories of your appa but they’re not trapped in that building. It can be turned to dust and we’ll still have the life we shared with him. That lives on no matter where we are or where his shop is.”

She had thought she was all cried out but tears tumble down and soak into the fabric of Mary’s trousers, new ones spilling before she can wipe them away. She chokes on a small but audible sob and then, in a small, scared voice, she finally gives voice to the thought that’s been haunting her since the moment she held that first letter from The Bridgerton Group in her hands but which she’s never felt brave enough to say out loud.

“I know it’s silly but that building feels like a part of him and losing it…It feels like I’m having to go through losing him all over again.”

“Oh, Kate.”

Mary’s arms are tight around her and she doesn’t say a word while Kate cries, her face buried in her hands as she sobs, quiet, devastating sobs steeped in the loss of her favourite person. Nor does she say anything when Kate eventually quietens and slowly sits up, her face a mess of tears and snot and her eyes red and swollen. She simply hands her the box of tissues and lets her wipe her face clean.

Only then does she speak.

“Come here.”

Holding her arms out, she waits for her to settle against her before pressing a kiss to the top of her head like she’s a little girl again, crying over her bleeding knee, rather than a woman of twenty-six still battling the grief of losing her father.

“When we pack up the shop, we’ll make time to remember your appa and all the good memories we had of him there. Then we’ll take those memories with us on to wherever life takes us next. How does that sound?”

Kate nods her agreement.

“It’s only a building, Kate,” Mary murmurs. “It’s okay to let it go. It’s time.”

This time, when Kate takes a shuddering breath, it’s not a sign that she’s on the brink of tears once more. Rather, it’s as if something has shifted inside of her, a heavy weight easing, and in spite of her horrendous cold, she can breathe for the first time in a very long time.

Her eyes drift close and it takes no more than a minute or two for sleep to claim her. As she drifts off in Mary’s arms, a sense of much-needed peace envelopes her - the soothing feeling that everything will be alright.

As they pull up on a now increasingly familiar street, Hyacinth sporting ghastly fake blood that she had demanded in the name of authenticity, Anthony has the uncomfortable feeling that he is being manipulated by his little sister.

He had been in the middle of a meeting with the bumbling idiot that was Nigel Berbrooke when Theo had interrupted with a message that he needed to call Hyacinth urgently. Filled with panic about all the possible side effects of a broken arm or a missed concussion, he had concluded the meeting with all the politeness that Berbrooke deserved, leaving him blithering in the conference room while he raced off to call his sister.

After knocking at least five years of his life with the unnecessary panic, it had turned out she was distraught after her Halloween party plans had fallen through and now she was stuck at school in her costume with nowhere to go.

“No, I can’t go home, Ant,” she had sobbed dramatically. “All Greg’s friends are there and they’re overly hormonal creeps.”

In the end, he had had his driver take him on the forty minute drive through Central London to meet Hyacinth who was happily sitting sipping some awful looking orange drink when he finally located her in the Starbucks opposite her school. Then she had casually pointed out that it would be a shame for her costume to go to waste especially when they were only fifteen minutes from another Halloween event that she might want to go to.

“I can’t go alone. I’m a kid,” she had said as if it was obvious.

So yes, as Hyacinth leads him into Off the Shelf for the second time in a week, Anthony is almost certain that his little sister has had this planned all along.

However, rather than finding Kate behind the counter as she - and he - had hoped, the shop seems to be in a state of chaos.

Firstly, there are children everywhere, all dressed in different garish Halloween costumes and roaming freely with no interventions from their parents, a number of whom are huddled in a corner where there’s a paltry assortment of crisps (still in their bags) and white wine (definitely warm). Secondly, there’s a sizable queue building up beside the counter, filled with impatient looking people, and Anthony watches a customer shake their head, dump their items on the nearest table and hurry off towards the exit. Finally, the young woman behind the till looks like she’s on the brink of tears as she yanks viciously at the receipt roll with a cry of frustration.

“I am so sorry. I just need to try turning it off and on again.”

“It’s fine. I’ll leave it.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” she says but the customer has already walked away.

Anthony spots the Amazon logo on his phone screen as he walks past.

“What’s going on?” he asks, slipping to the side of the counter and holding his hands up in surrender as the next customer waiting to be served glares at him. “Where’s Kate?”

“She’s ill,” she says, jabbing at the power button to restart the till. “I said I could handle this place today but it’s all gone to shit.” A mother who’s standing nearby with her young son glares viciously over at them. “Sorry!”

“Can we help?” Hyacinth pipes up and the woman finally looks up before doing a double-take when her eyes land on Anthony.

“You’re Anthony Bridgerton.”

“Do we know each other?”

“I’m Edwina. Kate’s sister.” He recognises her now, the woman in their corner during their disastrous meeting at the bar. “She’s talked about you.”

Edwina’s impish smile lets him know that whatever Kate has told her sister, it’s not the vitriolic barbs he might have feared and Anthony can’t help himself; he preens at the knowledge that Kate has mentioned him.

“Has she? Good things?”

“Some,” she says before swearing again as the machine beeps loudly at her.

He forces himself to stow away his desire to discover everything that Kate has said about him and tries to be helpful instead.

“Seriously, what can we do?”

“Isn’t there meant to be a Halloween event going on?”

“This is it,” Edwina snaps. “Kate’s normally the storyteller and she’s great at it. I’m meant to be reading a story to all these children but I can’t get the till to work and I forgot to buy snacks until half an hour ago so I didn’t even get a chance to put most of them out before people started arriving and the other girl who works here has the same thing as Kate so I’ve been on my own all day and I haven't even sorted the sweets for trick or treating yet and…” She trails off. “I really wanted to get this right for Kate.”

She sounds like she’s on the brink of tears and Anthony’s about to suggest he take over the till while she starts the storyteller part - he never had a Saturday job as a teenager but he thinks he can figure out scanning some books - when Hyacinth beats him to it.

“Anthony is great at reading stories.”

He whips round to glare at Hyacinth whose smile is a tad too innocent for him to buy it.

“He is?”

“I am?”

“He always read me a bedtime story when I was little. He does the best voices and I never used to let anyone else read to me because I only wanted him to do it.”

Damn his little sister and her ability to make him do whatever she wants. How can he say no to that?

He’s going to try though, feign embarrassment or nervousness speaking to large crowds, when Edwina chimes in.

“Would you really do that?” Then she smiles the same faux innocent smile as Hyacinth. “Kate would appreciate it so much if you read the story.”

And that is how Anthony, a fool who is manipulated far too easily, finds himself sitting in the children’s corner as he reads The Worst Witch to a group of enraptured children, a sparkly wizard’s hat perched on his head (“It’s the storyteller’s hat. Kate insists every storyteller wears it,” had been Edwina’s response when he had refused to wear it. Then she had added, “And it’s the least you can do since you’re the reason the place is closing down,” which he had thought was a tad unfair since he was already putting it on at that point.)

When Kate wakes up, her bedroom is lit by the low light of her bedside lamp and she can tell that it’s dark outside.

There’s a note from Mary propped up against a now cold mug of chai:

Had to go and get ready for my shift. I’ll pop in and check on you on my way home tomorrow. There’s soup and some kadha to reheat in the fridge.

I love you and I’m proud of you.

Kate must be all cried out by now but she still holds the note tight to her chest and blinks away the tears that are waiting to burst free.

Although her nose is still blocked and her throat aches, she thinks she has enough energy for her first trip to the kitchen since Sunday lunchtime but she checks her phone before she gets up and thoughts of going to obtain some food vanish.

She has a number of texts from Edwina, increasing in their desperation to reassure her that everything is fine - which makes Kate certain that it isn’t - but it’s the last one that holds her attention.

She stares at it for a moment, trying to process what she is seeing, and then laughter bubbles out of her, loud and unrestrained, only increasing in volume when she looks at her phone screen again.

Edwina has sent her a photo of the Spooktacular Stories event and the children’s corner is crowded with children dressed in various Halloween costumes, all of them sitting facing the storyteller who’s reading to them in earnest.

She had assumed that Edwina would take charge of telling the stories, or Penelope if Edwina could convince her to overcome her hatred for being centre stage, but it’s neither of them.

Instead, Anthony Bridgerton of all people is sitting on the same bench where Kate herself used to sit with her father for storytime. He’s dressed in some no doubt ludicrously expensive suit, children's book in hand and a smile on his face. And to top it all off, he has Kate’s homemade storyteller hat perched on his head.

It should be a truly ridiculous sight and it is.

But if Kate saves the photo in the hidden folder on her phone and glances at it for the rest of the evening, well that is nobody’s business but hers.

Chapter Text

My brother has trapped a spider under a glass.

Not really sure where to go from here. 

don’t tell me you’re scared of spiders?

Didn’t you once say you were scared of storms?

a totally rational fear

lightning kills

Unlike tarantulas? 

is it a tarantula? 

did your brother trap a tarantula? 

did he?

hello?

thought so.

Anthony carefully adjusts his laptop when Gregory settles himself closer to him on the sofa. While his brother is pretending he’s watching whatever movie he’s selected on Netflix, Anthony can see from here that he’s fighting a losing battle with his eyelids drooping further and further. If he didn’t recognise his own stubbornness in his little brother, he’d order him to go up to bed but there’s as much chance of Greg admitting his fear of there being another spider in his bedroom as there is Anthony responding to Kate’s taunting text messages so he lets him keep fighting sleep under the pretence of keeping him company while he works late. 

It only takes a few more minutes for him to drift off and Anthony lowers the volume on the TV and drapes one of his mum’s blankets over Greg. He might maintain a consistent gym routine but he doesn’t fancy the challenge of carrying his increasingly lanky teenage brother back upstairs the way he used to when he was a six-year-old who refused to sleep in anything that wasn’t covered in Spiderman. 

The low light of the living room is disturbed when the door quietly opens, light from the hallway following Violet, who smiles at the sight of Greg fast asleep beside Anthony, into the room. 

“I can’t remember the last time he fell asleep downstairs,” she says, silently closing the door behind her. 

“Turns out all it took was a particularly large spider to terrify him back down here.”

Violet tenderly strokes Greg’s hair, who shifts slightly beneath her hand before burying himself deeper under the blanket, and sits down opposite the pair of them. 

“I thought you could use this.” She passes him one of the glasses of wine that she’s carried in with her and Anthony reaches for it gratefully. “You’re here late.”

“Sorry,” he says automatically. “I got caught up on this. I can go.”

“No. I wasn’t suggesting you leave. It’s nice to have you here. We haven’t seen enough of you lately.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he bites back a sigh of frustration. He pays a very insightful woman in Kensington a sizable amount of money per hour to remind him of the need to exercise patience when he feels his mother is being passive aggressive but it’s easier said than done; he’s still a work in progress. 

He tries and fails to keep the tense tone out of his voice. “Work has been busy. And I’ve been around plenty for Hyacinth since her accident.”

Violet’s half-hearted murmur of agreement suggests she doesn’t agree at all and it takes all of Anthony’s self-restraint not to roll his eyes. Instead, he sips at his wine and does his best to let the moment pass. He could point out that it’s rare for a week to go by without him visiting the family home in Mayfair, while the rest of his university friends can easily let a month pass without seeing their parents, but it would simply lead to an argument that he hasn’t got the strength or willingness to have. 

“What are you working on?”

“Just a couple of different things.”

It’s Violet’s turn to sigh and Anthony watches as she looks at him with a surprisingly gentle expression on her face. “I used to always listen when your father wanted to talk through what he was working on with me. It helped him to discuss it with someone outside of the business I think.” Her gaze grows distant for a moment and he wonders what she’s seeing - his father sat in the same room years before, turning to her for her opinion, valuing what she had to say. “I miss that.”

It’s a peace offering, a slice of vulnerability that acts as a small symbol of her own desire to attempt to repair their fractured relationship. 

Anthony isn’t sure quite when their relationship fell apart: when she was too lost in her own heartbreak to comfort him as the doctor told them that Edmund was dead; after she became trapped in her grief for months on end and he suddenly found himself feeling like both an orphan and a substitute parent; the day she looked at her eldest child and realised the boy she remembered was gone, replaced with a man who she didn’t know anymore. 

Maybe it wasn’t one singular moment that left their relationship awkward and tinged with frustration but a series of interactions that has left him feeling like he’ll never quite be good enough. And he’s smart enough - and paid enough for therapy - to know that it’ll take far more than one conversation to heal the chasm between them. However, somewhere deep inside, he’s still the little boy who delighted in picking hyacinths from the garden just to make his mother smile and so he takes the olive branch for what it is and offers one of his own. 

“I’m working on a proposal for the board. I had an idea and I think it could be the next step for The Bridgerton Group.” He looks to Violet who nods for him to continue. “Dad, and grandad, always wanted the business to be about the people. That was the original idea for TBG, wasn’t it? Take an old, unloved building and transform it into something beautiful that a whole new collection of people could enjoy. But someone got me thinking recently and I realised that that ideal got lost along the way.” He sees Violet’s brow start to furrow and he hurries on. “That’s the nature of any business as it expands - the original goal can get lost in the name of profit. We started buying up properties that were cheap in areas with potential for growth and we lost sight of the people, the people who can be most impacted by us and what we do. I want to help us focus on them again.”

Violet is leaning forward, her chin resting on the palm of her hand, and he can see that she’s listening carefully to what he’s saying so he continues, buoyed by her interest, however tentative.

“I want to start a foundation, an offshoot of TBG, that focuses on supporting the communities where we work. With each new project, we’d ring fence a percentage of the profits and invest it directly back into projects that benefit either the local community or an area nearby. Things that the people there actually need and want. We could have a team who work with local people to find out what it is they want funded and what would benefit them - community centres, libraries, playgrounds, schools - and we could help improve those things that are so important and get forgotten. We need to care about the communities we’re investing in and this could be the way to do that.”

When he’s done, he sits back and takes a long drink from his glass before he dares raise his eyes to look at his mother. This is the first time he’s given a voice to the idea that’s been keeping awake at night for the last week and a half and he can admit to himself that he’s nervous about the response. But, when he finally looks up, it’s to find Violet with a hand pressed to her lips and tears glinting in her eyes. It’s only when she moves her hand away that he sees that she’s smiling. 

“Anthony,” she starts in a wavering voice before blinking furiously and trying again. “If your father was here and listening to that idea, he would be so proud of you and so jealous he didn’t think of it himself first.”

Anthony laughs but he’s startled to find that his own voice is shaky too. He swipes quickly at the tears that have appeared from nowhere but as his breath becomes increasingly unsteady, he buries his face in his hands, trying to stem the wave of emotion that’s swept over him so suddenly. 

“Oh sweetheart.”

He’s only aware of his mother’s proximity when the warmth of her hand when she takes hold of one of his in hers steadies his breath and he doesn’t stop himself from leaning closer to her. She reaches for him, comforting him in a way that she hasn’t since he was a teenager, and he allows it. 

“All I want to do is make him proud,” he whispers. 

His voice is barely audible from the way he whispers towards the floor, his head bowed into his chest, but she hears him nonetheless. 

“Never doubt that he would be incredibly proud of you, not just of the work you do but of the way you have supported this family when I couldn’t.”

Anthony is embarrassed at the way he sniffles but he can’t bring himself to pull away from her either. 

“If I could go back and change those weeks and months after we lost your father, I would in a heartbeat. All I can do, however, is tell you how sorry I am and how proud I am of you, just as your father would be if he was here.”

He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t think there is anything he can say, and so he simply lets her hug him, drawing comfort from her that he wasn’t even aware that he needed, until the two of them eventually part, cheeks equally wet with tears. 

“Look at us,” she sniffs, wiping at her cheeks as she stands. “We’re quite the pair.”

Nodding, he dries his own face and closes the laptop, assuming this marks the end of their conversation. His therapist is going to have a field day with this when he next sits down in her office. 

However, rather than leaving, Violet sits back down across from him.

“You should present your idea to Agatha,” she suggests. “It’s the exact sort of thing she’d be interested in and it would be useful to have a member of the board on your side from the beginning.”

It’s a smart idea. Agatha Danbury is one of the most intimidating people Anthony knows and he respects her more than perhaps anyone else at The Bridgerton Group. She had been his father’s right-hand woman for over a decade and, when the Bridgertons had been spiralling in their grief and Anthony was terrified of how to manage his studies at Oxford, his family and protecting the family business, it had been Agatha who had stepped in as interim CEO, running the ship for nearly eight years until Anthony had felt prepared to take his seat as head of the company. For a time, he had worried that she would resent him, a then twenty-six year old usurping her because his name was on the wall, but she had gladly taken early retirement - if one could call taking a seat on the board and acting as Anthony’s honorary advisor retirement.

“I’ll give her a call in the morning,” he nods. “Some of the board won’t like the idea of giving any of our profits away but she can be quite convincing.”

“Terrifying, you mean,” Violet laughs but he can see that she’s pleased at him accepting her suggestion. 

She busies herself for a moment, reaching for the remote and switching the TV to the news channel. The comforting voice of George Alagaih plays at a low volume as she turns to look at him. 

“Also, I have to ask,” she says and the faux lightness of her tone sets him on alert. “You mentioned that someone got you thinking recently and it sounds like they quite inspired you. Does this young woman have a name?”

Anthony freezes. “When did I say it was a woman?”

He doesn’t appreciate the knowing glint in his mother’s eye when she smiles at him. 

“You forget that I know you, Anthony.” She pauses. “And Ben might have mentioned something.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he murmurs under his breath, covering his eyes with his hand.

“Kate,” says a quiet voice and Anthony looks down to find Greg with his eyes still closed but a smirk on his face. “Her name’s Kate.”

Glaring down at his brother, he asks, “When did you wake up?”

“A while ago,” he says although Anthony isn’t sure how awake he actually is since his voice is heavy with sleep and his eyes remain closed. “I was going to say but you guys were having a moment and I couldn’t find the right time to interrupt.”

Anthony feels his fingers twitch with the desire to pick up his phone and Google for the hundredth time what the punishment is for justifiable fratricide. He knows Greg is a minor but he thinks a jury would understand.

“You should have interrupted,” he says at the same moment that Violet asks about Kate. 

“She runs the bookshop,” Greg happily shares and Anthony punches him in the leg. “Ow! Hyacinth is trying to play matchmaker with them.”

“She’s doing what?”

“Her little scheme on Halloween was her trying to get the two of you together. I told her it wouldn’t work.”

He’d known she was up to something with her too casual suggestion that they visit Off the Shelf. He will be having words with his little sister tomorrow…and Benedict. 

“Just to be clear,” he says, standing up and shoving Greg for good measure. “My idea has nothing to do with Kate.” Greg snorts and Anthony doesn’t bother to resist the childish urge to fling one of the fancy throw cushions at his head. “I don’t need anyone playing matchmaker, especially my little sister, and I definitely don’t need any of my family getting involved in my private life.”

“Where is this bookshop?” Violet asks, totally ignoring what he has just said and Anthony’s head is filled with visions of his mother going to Kate’s bookshop and embarrassing him completely. 

“No! No one is going to her bookshop. Absolutely not.” He grabs his phone, orders an Uber and scoops his laptop up under his arm. “Forget this entire conversation please.”

He kisses his mother on the cheek while Greg flips him off from behind a cushion and he makes his way to the door. 

“Can we look her up on the Instagram?”

“I’ve already checked. Her account’s private.”

Anthony debates turning back to lambast them again but he has the distinct feeling that his anger would only encourage them more so he walks out, childishly slamming the door as he goes, and the sound of his mother and brother laughing follows him out of the front door. 

Not for the first time in his life, he wishes the Bridgerton family had a better understanding of personal boundaries.

By Thursday, Kate is finally feeling like a human being again but her incessant sniffling and her lingering sore throat means that Edwina insists she stays at home for another day, reassuring her that her and Penelope can handle the shop for one more day.

“After all, nothing can be as chaotic as Halloween,” she tells Kate on her way out of the door and she’s not entirely sure how that is meant to reassure her. 

She spends most of the morning on the sofa, notebook in hand while she continues to rough out her idea for what she could do once Off the Shelf is demolished. 

Her conversation with Mary had been the catharsis she hadn’t realised that she had been looking for and, for the first time since the letter from The Bridgerton Group had been delivered, she thinks things might be okay, different but okay. She still can’t think about the shop closing without her chest tightening but she feels like she has been given permission to look to the future without feeling as if she is letting her father down. 

To begin with, she had toyed with the idea of leaving bookselling behind completely and pursuing something else instead. However, the more she had considered what life would be like without her days spent around books, the more she had realised how much she would miss it. 

While it is true that she had started running the shop because she couldn’t bear the idea of losing it so soon after losing her father, she also knows that she is good at it. She holds the same passion for stories that he did and she loves helping customers choose their next book. She can recommend the perfect book for someone and she loves discovering new authors. And the chance to create window displays that draw new customers in allows her to use the same creativity that she had loved so much when she was younger.

However, Anthony Bridgerton’s words from when she had stormed into his office all those weeks ago have gnawed away at her. What would be the point of reopening the bookshop somewhere else only to have it fail in a year’s time? 

And so she had fallen down an internet rabbit hole, spending most of Wednesday morning reading articles on independent bookshops and learning about their successes and failures. That was until she had read about a small bookshop in Vermont and then an idea had begun to form, an idea that has consumed her attention ever since.

Halfway through scribbling down ideas for potential community events, it takes her a minute to realise that the annoying buzzing sound she can hear is the sound of someone at the building’s front door and she makes her way over to the entry phone.

“Hello?” 

She assumes it’s a delivery driver with another unnecessary ASOS package for Edwina.

“Hi. Is that Kate? Sorry the speaker’s not very good. It’s Anthony…Anthony Bridgerton.”

Three things happen in quick succession: firstly, her heart seems to start beating alarmingly fast at the same time that she looks at her reflection in the mirror, takes in her sloppy plait, yesterday’s pyjamas and her red nose and she feels her heart practically leap out of her chest; secondly, her phone chimes with a terribly timed text from Edwina informing her that Anthony Bridgerton of all people had stopped by the shop earlier looking for her and she’d given him their address (Kate will be committing sororicide when she gets home this evening); and thirdly, before she can speak up and send him away, she hears Mrs Colson, her cantankerous downstairs neighbour who doesn’t like anyone, on her way out of the building and she can do nothing but listen as Anthony charmingly thanks her for letting him in. 

From experience, Kate knows that it takes, on average, less than two minutes to get through the front door and up the three flights of stairs to her flat, which is enough time for her to pull on a hoodie over her wrinkled pyjama top, slam her bedroom door closed, scrounge up the used tissues that litter the floor and toss them in the bin and open a window. She’s about to collect up the array of half-empty mugs that neither her nor Edwina have bothered to clear up when there’s a knock at the door and she opens it to find Anthony standing outside with a bunch of flowers and a carrier bag in his hand. 

“What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t mean for her tone to be quite as irritated as it is but, if he’s bothered by it, he doesn’t let it show. 

“Hyacinth and I stopped by your shop for the Halloween event and your sister mentioned you were ill.”

The image of him sitting in her children’s corner, entertaining an array of tiny humans hyped up on sugar, pops into her brain and she smiles in spite of herself. 

“I was worried,” he adds and he speaks in a rush like he’s embarrassed at what he’s saying. “When I stopped by this morning and you still weren’t there.”

“Why did you stop by?”

“Huh?” He’s not listening and instead is leaning around her and peering into her flat. “Is someone here?”

It takes her a second to realise he can hear the sound of her TV. “Just Phil and Holly,” she says but he’s already slipped past her and into the living room where This Morning is discussing the important topic of the perfect outfit to wear on Bonfire Night. 

She closes the door and follows him through to the kitchen, doing her best not to notice how immediately comfortable he looks in her home as he locates a vase on top of the fridge. 

“I bought you flowers,” he says as he wanders over to the sink and fills up the vase with water. Startled at the kindness of the gesture, she picks up the beautifully wrapped flowers to find bright pink tulips inside.

“Tulips? It’s November.”

He shrugs nonchalantly. “There’s a florist in Marylebone that sells them year round.”

Kate wonders how much it costs to buy a bouquet of out-of-season flowers but Anthony’s plucking them from her hands and unwrapping them before she can be rude enough to ask. 

He’s about to place them in the water when she puts her hand on his arm. It’s warm beneath her palm and she can feel his muscles tense at her touch. It takes more willpower than she would like to pull her hand away and she reaches for the drawer instead. 

“You need to trim the stems first,” she tells him and she holds out a pair of scissors before grabbing a pair of her own. 

The two of them stand in silence side by side, carefully trimming the stems of the tulips and placing them in the vase until the whole bouquet is arranged. She places it on the windowsill, the brightness of the tulips standing in contrast to the gloomy grey of the November sky outside, before turning to face Anthony who somehow seems wildly out of place in her small, cluttered kitchen and also like he fits perfectly.

“Thank you.” 

“Hyacinth instructed me to tell you they’re from her,” he says and he shrugs again as if the flowers are nothing. Then he awkwardly thrusts the carrier bag in her direction, his other hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck and she swears the top of his ears are tinged pink. “I got you these as well. The man in the shop recommended them.”

Inside the bag, there is a box and her heart skips a beat when she immediately recognises the white and gold packaging of Ambala. As she opens it, the sugary sweet smell sends her back to her childhood when her appa would occasionally head out of the city on business. On the way back from the station, he’d always stop off at Ambala to pick up a treat for them to enjoy after dinner and Kate can feel her mouth water at the sight of the orange motichoor laddoos contained within it.

She scrunches her nose and sniffs, hoping she can pass the wave of emotion off as part of her lingering cold. 

“I don’t know if they’re any good or if you even like them…”

“They’re perfect. Thank you. You really didn't have to do this."

The delight on his face is obvious and she can see Anthony’s nerves give way to the confident smirk that’s far more familiar to her. 

“Now the polite thing to do would be to offer your guest a cup of tea but since you’re ill, I’ll make them for us.”

He brushes past her, deliberately close, just like he had in her shop on Saturday but she refuses to allow herself to be flustered by his proximity this time. 

“You know how to make chai?” she asks, arching an eyebrow in his direction. 

His smirk falters for a second. “You could show me.”

And that is how Kate finds herself in her tiny kitchen on a Thursday morning, slowly talking Anthony through the steps to make the perfect cup of chai, with him watching her intently and discussing each step and spice as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever heard. 

While the chai is steeping, she ushers him out of the kitchen under the pretence that he is getting under her feet but, the moment he disappears from view, she closes her eyes and forces herself to take a steadying breath. 

“What are you doing?” she whispers to herself.

If she could find it within her to hate Anthony, it would make her life a million times easier. She should hate him. A sensible person would be yelling at the man who’s demolishing her shop, not making him chai and blushing because he brought her flowers and stood particularly close to her. And yet, in spite of what his company is doing, she stands by what she told him in the bar the night of her failed date: she doesn’t hate him. 

“Here you go,” she says, walking back out into the living room with two mugs of chai in her hands but she stops when she sees what Anthony is holding. 

Putting the mugs down on the coffee table, she snatches the notebook out of his hand and clutches it protectively to her chest, cursing herself for leaving it open on the sofa.

“It’s a good idea.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” she snaps. 

“Branch out beyond just a bookshop, give people other reasons to visit your shop. It’s smart.”

“Again, I didn’t ask what you thought,” she says but she can't stop the rush of pride at hearing his initial assessment of her plan. 

He offers her another aggravatingly nonchalant shrug and sits down before helping himself to a mug and she watches through narrow eyes as he sips at it and his brow furrows. 

“It’s…”

“Not your English dishwater.”

He smirks. “It’s delicious.”

“I know.”

She considers kicking him out but her own mug is calling her name and this is the most active she’s been since she got home from work on Saturday so she sits down beside him on the sofa and picks up her drink. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I heard you were ill and I was worried.”

He does the same embarrassed scratching at the back of his neck again and she hides her smile behind her mug.

“Why? We’re not friends.”

It’s blunt and probably a little rude but it’s also true. Anthony might have become an increasingly prominent presence in her life but they’re not friends. She’s not really sure what she would classify them as. 

“We could be friends.”

She stares at him. “Is that what you want? To be my friend?”

The question hovers there, lingering in the air between them, and Kate refuses to be the one to shatter the silence, watching closely as his gaze drops to her lips for a moment before flicking back up to look her in the eye. 

She might not know why he’s here or what this thing between them is but she does know one thing for sure - Anthony Bridgerton does not want to be her friend.

“I could be your friend,” he says and it takes considerable effort not to roll her eyes. 

“You’re closing down my shop; I hear that’s how all good friendships start.”

To his credit, he does have the decency to look abashed at her words. 

“I am sorry about what’s happening with your business. I meant what I said before that it’s not personal.” She opens her mouth to interrupt him but he continues talking before she can. “But I also understand that it’s personal to you and you have every right to hate me.”

Kate can’t remember the last time someone looked at her the way Anthony is looking at her, his eyes locked onto hers, and she forces herself to hold his gaze when she replies, “And I meant what I said. I hate what your company is doing but I don’t hate you.”

He smiles at that, visibly pleased at her words, and that same flustered feeling that seems to be becoming an inescapable part of being around Anthony creeps over her.

“Would you talk me through your idea?”

“Why?”

“Because I think I could help.”

Raising her mug to her lips, she forces herself to take a long drink while she processes his words. His immediate faith in her idea and his desire to help is doing nothing to ease her rapidly developing attraction to the man sitting across from her and it’s incredibly irritating. She does her best to not get distracted by the warmth that shines in his eyes when he looks at her and she definitely doesn’t fixate on his long fingers that are wrapped tightly around her favourite mug. 

He has nice hands, strong hands, distractingly attractive hands. It’s very unhelpful. 

“I want to keep running a bookshop,” she says and she knows it’s the truth. She doesn’t want to keep doing it because it was what her father loved or because it’s routine. She wants to do it because she loves it. “I love it and I’m good at it. But someone told me recently that it’s a dying industry.” He winces at her words but then he meets her grin with one of his own. “I read about this bookshop, Sandy’s Books and Bakery, that’s an example of a successful indie bookstore. It sells books, runs a cafe and holds workshops and different community events. I think we could use something like that around here. The bookshop makes a profit but it’s not a huge one; if I could add income from a cafe, one that sells decent chai rather than that awful English breakfast tea, and run events that get people through the door then I think it could turn a really good profit. The compensation I’m getting from your company would easily fund the deposit on renting a new space and getting it set up and I really think it could work.”

Kate finishes her spiel to find Anthony smiling over at her and she has the strong sense that he’s impressed.

“I agree. I think it’s a good plan. And, you know, if you wanted, I could help you find somewhere decent to rent. I know it wouldn’t make up for losing your shop but I’ve got some contacts and I bet we could find something for a good price.”

It’s a kind offer and Kate knows that it’s Anthony trying to do something to make up for the pain his company has caused her. It’s a small step but she can appreciate the gesture for what it is. However, that doesn’t mean she can resist teasing him. 

“Is this you proposing a truce?”

“I wasn’t aware we needed one.”

“Oh we definitely do.”

She holds out her hand and he stares at it for a moment before his hand - his strong, nice, attractive hand - grips hold of hers. They shake but as he releases hold, his thumb traces a gentle path over her palm and it takes every ounce of her willpower not to shiver.

“I think we could be an excellent team,” he says and, while she refuses to voice her agreement, she finds herself inclined to think that, aggravatingly, he might just be right. 

Reaching for her phone, she says, “Why don’t we swap numbers and then you can let me know if you find anywhere that might work and vice versa?”

Anthony stills. 

“Right. I should give you my number.”

He fiddles with his phone and, for a moment, she has the strange feeling that he doesn’t want to tell her his phone number but eventually he rattles it off and she saves it before sending an embarrassingly formal ‘Hi, Anthony. This is Kate’ text. 

“There you go. Now you’ve got my number too.”

She offers him a smile but, for some reason, he avoids meeting her eye.

“Yep,” he says but Kate frowns as he keeps his phone angled away from her, texting quickly and still not looking at her. “Got it.”

Then, to her surprise, he stands quickly. 

“I should get back. I’ve got, um, a board member coming to see me. Important meeting.”

It’s a clumsy explanation but it’s all she gets as he hurries out of the door with barely a goodbye, leaving as suddenly as he arrived, and Kate can’t help but feel puzzled at the abruptness of his exit. 

Everything had seemed fine between them until she had asked for his number, something she had assumed he would be eager for her to have, and yet the moment had been bizarrely awkward and devoid of the flirtation that she is beginning to expect when she is around Anthony.

It’s only later when she’s indulging in the luxury of lounging on the sofa in the middle of the day, a fresh cup of chai, a motichoor laddoo and her current read, Quite, for company, that she remembers Anthony’s other awkward exit when he’d hurried Hyacinth out of the bookshop and the weird coincidence that his sister had found herself in hospital the same night that wrong number guy’s sister had had an accident too. 

Then a peculiar thought pops into her head and Kate picks up her phone off the bedside table and clicks through to her messages. There they are: two separate chats - her text from earlier giving Anthony her phone number and her last message in her ongoing chat with the accidental wrong number.

Two different chats, two different numbers and two different men. 

Shaking her head, Kate laughs and puts her phone back down. Clearly, she has spent too long stuck in her flat. The sooner she gets back to work, the better. 

Chapter Text

do you think anyone else is still playing wordle?

i am starting to feel like it’s just you and me keeping it going

we may be the last people still caring about guessing five letter words

or maybe it’s just me

guess you’re busy

When Anthony finally makes it to Pavilion, the torrential rain soaking through his coat in the few short steps from the car to the covered entrance of the members’ club, he can already feel a persistent headache beginning to build at his temples. It’s been an especially long Friday and being summoned to meet for drinks instead of being able to go home has left him feeling sour. He’s too brusque with the doorman and makes a mental note to be particularly generous with his Christmas tip next month but that doesn’t stop him from hurrying through the club and towards the bar, practically barging past people and deftly avoiding Mrs Cowper and her gaggle of intrusive friends before they can spot him and draw him into a conversation that will inevitably involve her mentioning her daughter’s continued single status. 

However, any hope he had of his mood improving vanishes when he strides up the stairs two at a time and arrives to spot one more person than he expected sat at the table the maître d directs him towards.

“No.”

As he approaches the table, Ben looks over at him with a smug grin that has Anthony clenching his jaw and for the hundredth time, he wonders whether the prison sentence wouldn’t be worth being free of his brothers once and for all.

(The Times headline will read, “Handsome and kind CEO murders all of his brothers in totally justifiable killing.”

Colin hasn’t done anything in particular but, with the way Anthony’s week is going, his brother is bound to end up doing something wrong so it’s better to be safe than sorry.)

“Nice to see you too, brother,” he says, nodding at him before hiding his shit-eating grin behind his pint glass. 

Rather than sitting down, Anthony continues to glare at his brother who, to his frustration, does nothing but continue to grin as if Anthony’s life is a comedic play being staged for his own amusement. 

“What is he doing here?” he hisses. 

“Stop being so dramatic and sit down,” Simon says with a roll of his eyes and he prods the vacant chair with his foot. 

The steeliness in Simon’s gaze, too reminiscent of his face when Daphne had finally cornered the two of them and forced them to sit down after the explosive mess that had been Anthony’s discovery of their relationship, leaves him with little choice but to do as he is asked but Anthony makes the necessary to do of removing his coat, adjusting his shirt cuffs, making himself comfortable in his chair and ordering his drink of choice before he finally looks Simon in the eye.

(He knows he’s being a prick but he has the distinct sensation that the ensuing conversation is not going to go well for him and he also has the uncomfortable feeling that it is all his own fault.)

Simon doesn’t say a word; instead, he slides his phone across the table and waits, watching as Anthony reads the simple sentence that the solitary blue text bubble contains.

Hi, Anthony. This is Kate

His first thought is ‘She used capital letters for once’ and he can't help but find the neat formality of her text endearing.

His second thought is that he wonders how he could have ever thought this hare-brained, ill-conceived last minute idea could ever end in anything aside from the judgemental stare of his oldest friend.

“Now, you can imagine how confused I was to receive a text yesterday from someone thinking I’m you, especially when it was rapidly followed by another message, this time from you, ordering me not to reply to it. But then I got to thinking about how stupid you are.” Anthony bristles at that but Simon simply cocks a brow, challenging him to correct him. “And when Ben stopped by last night to drop off our belated engagement present…thanks for that by the way. It’s a gorgeous painting.” Ben smiles at Simon and offers his thanks as if Anthony isn’t sat across from them but their attention quickly swivels back to him and he finds himself wishing they had kept talking a little longer. “I asked him if he had heard you mention anyone named Kate and he told me a very interesting story about an angry woman at your office who turned out to be someone you’ve been messaging for weeks.”

“Which led us to wonder why Kate would need a fake number for you,” Benedict says. “You went on that date with her. I was there. If you'd told her who you really were, she'd know your number and there'd be no need for her to message Simon, right?"

“Unless, of course, you did something ridiculously stupid like not tell her you were the blind date she was expecting to meet.”

“And then we thought about it and we realised you could definitely be that stupid.”

“Are you done?” Anthony snaps, taking an aggressively large drink of the scotch that has been silently placed in front of him by one of the loitering waitstaff.

He knows his behaviour has strayed into arguably foolish territory since he met Kate but he really doesn’t need it pointed out to him by Simon and Ben of all people.

“Not even close.” Simon sips at his own glass of scotch, allowing the oppressive silence to linger at the table, which Anthony is certain is purely for the joy of taunting him, before he finally continues speaking. “So we’re right, she has no idea that you and the man she’s been talking to are the same person?”

Reluctantly, Anthony nods. 

Ben lets out an ungainly snort that he tries and fails to transform into a cough before abandoning the attempt and laughing loudly enough to draw the attention of the table next to them. 

“Sorry. Let me just…so you went on a date with Kate and instead of telling her you’re the person she’s been texting for weeks, you decided to not tell her that. And now she actually likes you - Hyacinth has told me about all your trips to her bookshop. Except she can’t have your number because then she’ll know that you were the other guy and that you lied about it so you gave her Simon’s number instead.” His lips twitch as he tries to suppress his amusement. “Is that about right?”

Anthony chooses not to say anything and instead glares at his brother who's doing a poor job of hiding his snickering.

Simon shakes his head. “What possessed you to think it was a good idea to have me pretend to be you?”

“I wasn’t going to get you to pretend to be me,” Anthony retorts. “I just couldn’t give her my bloody number because she already has it.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, he realises it’s not the compelling argument he hoped it would be. 

“And what do you suggest I do if she keeps texting me thinking she’s actually texting you and expects a reply?”

Silence. 

Anthony won’t admit it but he hadn’t really thought that far ahead. 

“Exactly.”

Simon leans back in his chair, unfairly smug at uncovering the admittedly impressive mess that Anthony is beginning to fear his personal life has become.

“It is a genuinely stupid plan,” Ben chimes in. 

“I don’t even know why you’re here."

“For fun. And because wonderfully optimistic Simon here is of the belief that between the two of us, we can talk some sense into you.”

“Or at the very least try,” Simon concedes. “Why give her my number in the first place?”

“Like I said, she already has mine,” Anthony grumbles into his glass. “And yours is the only one I have memorised.”

“I’m touched.”

“Rude,” Ben says at the same time.

Anthony rolls his eyes at Ben. “It wasn't your number I had to ring on the porter’s phone whenever this one left me hungover and locked out of our suite at Oxford."

“Shouldn’t have insisted on hooking up with girls who lived over in Headington then, should you?” says Simon.

“And you shouldn’t have locked our door every time you bought another random girl back.”

The two of them share a laugh, caught up in the memories of their younger, wilder university days, and it goes some ways to easing the pressure that seems to weigh down their conversation. 

“I know it was stupid,” Anthony says and he glares at his brother when he sees him opening his mouth to utter whatever witty retort has jumped into his brain. “I panicked when she asked for my number when I should have-”

“Told her the truth,” Simon offers and Anthony’s mouth snaps shut because he wasn’t entirely sure where his own sentence was going but he knows, immediately, that Simon is right. 

Bugger.

“Why didn’t you tell her who you were weeks ago?” asks Ben once he realises that Anthony has no intention of challenging Simon. 

Anthony isn’t sure how to explain the mess he has found himself in since Kate Sharma burst into his life but he's not in the mood for any further mockery from Ben.

“I get I’ve made a mess of this,” he grits out, clenching his jaw. “I don’t need to give you any more reason to take the piss out of me.”

Surprisingly, instead of laughing or offering more witty commentary on the disaster that is Anthony's love life, Ben raises his hand in a conciliatory gesture. “You’re right. You have made a mess of this but I shouldn’t have laughed about it. I'm sorry. I told you before that I’m here whenever you need help and I meant it.”

His brother has the decency to look sheepish and Anthony’s irritation fades almost as quickly as it started.

“When we went to that bar and I found out it was her I was meeting, I was certain that she hated me. I’m the reason she’s losing somewhere special to her. How could she not hate me? She was excited for her date and if she’d known it was me she was waiting for, I assumed she would have been disappointed. And by the time I realised that not only did she not hate me but that she might actually be starting to like me, I had no clue how I could tell her the truth without making her hate me for lying to her.”

“You like her a lot, huh?”

The answer is obvious and yet admitting it out loud feels beyond his capabilities. If someone asked him to explain how he feels about Kate, he fears he might turn into a bumbling fool and to express feelings towards her when their relationship is so out of balance seems presumptuous so he settles for a simple, minute nod.

Ben doesn’t prod for him to expand. Instead he offers him a small smile and looks to Simon who says, “Then you need to tell her what’s really going on.”

It’s easy enough for Simon to suggest that but Anthony knows the reality would be - will be - much harder. 

“She would never forgive me.”

In the last few months, he’s learnt a lot about Kate Sharma. He knows she’d rather go thirsty than subject herself to English Breakfast tea; that she can rap the entire opening song from Hamilton and is incredibly proud of it; and that she is not the kind of woman who has time for liars and fools. 

Anthony, unfortunately, is both.

“You won’t know that unless you tell her,” says Ben. “She deserves to know and she deserves the chance to decide her reaction for herself rather than you deciding for her how she feels about it.”

“But…” Anthony trails off and fixates on his drink, swirling the remnants of his scotch in the glass, a fitting image for the doubts currently swirling around in his own head. “What if she hates me?”

Simon, always a fan of telling Anthony the blunt truth rather than coddling him with soothing lies, says, “She might. It’s just a risk you’re going to have to take.”

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Hi Kate,

Following our conversation last week, I am sending over the details for three properties that might be the sort of thing you’re looking for. They’re all owned by people I can vouch for and who would be willing to offer you a good deal on a lease. 

If you wanted to view any before they go on the open market, we could look round on Wednesday evening if you’re free. I am aware it’s short notice but they’re keen to get them rented asap. 

Anthony Bridgerton

Chief Executive Officer

The Bridgerton Group

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for emailing. You could have just text me though - I think bringing me laddoos qualifies you for texting privileges and you’ve got my number! 

The first one could work and I like the sound of the third one although there’s no photos. I can get cover for the shop if you let me know what time. 

Kate

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Hi Kate,

I figured it was easier to send all the links/info via email (and luckily I had yours from that email you sent a while back. Apologies for never actually replying to it). 

We can meet at five on Wednesday. Once I know which place we can view first, I’ll let you know where. 

Anthony Bridgerton

Chief Executive Officer

The Bridgerton Group

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Miss Sharma,

Anthony wanted me to let you know that he will meet you at the first property on Lansdown Road at 17:30 this evening. 

P.S. He told me you’re planning to reopen your bookshop once you find new premises. I’m not sure the corporate life is for me, so, if you’re hiring, let me know. I’ve been told I give great book recommendations.

P.P.S. Please don’t mention this to Anthony.

Theo Sharpe

Assistant to the CEO

The Bridgerton Group

Kate is nervous. 

It is not a feeling that she would care to admit if anyone asked but, as much as Penelope loves to gossip, she is decent enough to respect Kate’s privacy, even as she watches her boss organise a display, reorganise it an hour later and put it back to how it was barely thirty minutes after that. And she’s polite enough not to comment when Kate disappears into the tiny staff bathroom at the back of the shop and re-emerges with noticeably more make-up on. 

(When Kate catches her reflection in the shop window, she grabs a tissue and rubs off the new lipstick she treated herself to on Saturday. 

She reapplies it five minutes later.)

“You’re going to look at new properties?” Penelope asks in a too casual voice when she spots Kate pulling on her coat. 

“Mm hm.”

“And you’re going with Anthony Bridgerton?”

Kate nods. She had mentioned it to Penelope on Monday when she asked her to close up the shop in her absence but she’s surprised the girl remembers who she is meeting.

Then she recognises Penelope’s own nervous tics - the way she shuffles the leaflets on the counter even though they’re perfectly arranged and can’t quite look Kate in the eye. 

Her phone tells her she has a few minutes yet before she really needs to leave. 

“Are you alright, Pen?”

“It’s not important.”

Eyes stayed fixed on the pile of leaflets advertising next month’s Christmas craft fair, something that cannot possibly be that fascinating to the younger woman. 

“Clearly something is bothering you. You can tell me.”

Penelope looks up, her gaze now fixed somewhere over Kate’s left shoulder, and she can see the girl steel herself before she speaks. 

“I never meant to hide it from you. You were just so angry and I thought if you knew that I knew them, knew him, then you might be angry with me too - by association. But now you’re not so mad and I’ve felt awful lying to you!”

All of this bursts from Penelope in one breath, a panicked ramble that Kate can’t quite follow, and when she stops long enough to take another breath, clearly intent on resuming verbalising her stream of consciousness, Kate jumps in. 

“Know who?”

“The Bridgertons,” Penelope huffs as if she had made that obvious. 

“Oh.”

The statement stops Kate’s thoughts in their tracks. The world of her tiny bookshop feels so far removed from the world that the Bridgerton family - that Anthony - inhabits, and yet here is Penelope, the unknown bridge between two.

And then there is the fact that she never told her, that she had listened to Kate’s tirades against The Bridgerton Group when that blasted letter had arrived all those weeks ago and not said a word. 

Pompous, condescending arsehole is the phrase she thinks she used to describe him to Penelope in the aftermath of that disastrous visit to Anthony’s office on a day that now feels like a lifetime ago. 

Had Penelope told them? Had the Bridgertons sat around laughing at the way Kate talked about them, delighting in Penelope’s tales of her infuriated boss? Had Anthony known all about Kate’s shop from Penelope and never told her? 

Kate’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. 

“I’ve been best friends with El since primary school,” Penelope says, her desperation to both explain herself and fill the sudden silence obvious. 

“Who’s El?”

“One of Anthony’s sisters.”

“Oh.”

She’d like it if she could think of something more insightful to say than just oh. Kate doesn’t hate many things (being served tea that tastes like dishwater, having the flu and missing seeing Hamilton the same night as Harry and Meghan, big corporations that like to destroy tiny businesses) but she absolutely loathes being caught on the back foot. 

“How many sisters does he have?”

It’s not much better than “oh” but it’s something. 

“Four. And three brothers.”

“Oh.”

Her brain is whirring to catch up (seven siblings is just absurd) but Penelope must take her silence as anger because she starts rambling again. 

“I never mentioned anything you told me to El or any of them. I don’t think Anthony even knows I work here. And I know I should have told you earlier but I panicked and then it never seemed like the right moment to mention it.”

Considering Penelope’s proclivity for gossip, Kate is oddly touched that she never shared the mess of the last couple of months with any of the Bridgerton family. However, the knowledge that someone she works closely with has been lying to her sits heavy on her chest. 

Although she is still trying to gather her own thoughts, Penelope’s panicked expression compels her to start talking before the poor girl ends up any more distressed. 

“Thank you for not telling them anything I said. I wouldn’t have said half the things I did if I knew that you knew them.”

That’s the crux of it for Kate. She was talking to Penelope from a place of trust. She’d thought nothing of ranting to a colleague when the frustration at her situation threatened to bubble over. But that had been with the assumption that The Bridgerton Group meant as little to Penelope as it did to her. 

“I know you wouldn’t have. And it’s why I knew I couldn’t keep lying to you."

“I just wish that you had told me when all of this first started rather than feeling the need to hide it from me and assuming I would have been angry at you.”

Penelope looks shame-faced at Kate’s reproach and she is reminded of just how young the woman standing across from her is. When she was twenty-one, she felt sure that she knew everything about the world and was as mature as any other adult. Now, she looks back at that misplaced confidence and cringes. 

“But you did tell me eventually,” Kate reluctantly concedes. “I do appreciate that. That took courage. And I can imagine it has been difficult for you, working here and knowing the Bridgertons.”

Penelope nods. “I really am sorry for not telling you the truth. I didn’t mean to make such a mess of everything.”

“You haven’t made a mess,” Kate says just as her phone buzzes in her hand, notifying her of the arrival of her Uber. “But please don’t lie to me again.”

Penelope’s response is immediate. “I won’t.”

With that, Kate starts to leave but Penelope keeps talking.

“He’s a good guy.”

Kate turns. “Who?”

“Anthony. El always likes to complain about her dull big brother but she loves him really. I don’t think you’d find many people who care about their siblings as much as he does. He’s a good guy. A good, single guy.”

Kate’s cheeks burn. “Goodbye, Penelope.”

“I’m just saying,” she calls out as Kate opens the door to leave. “He’s a good, single, rich, handsome guy.”

The door closes before Penelope can add anything further. 

Kate should probably talk to her about boundaries.

Outside the vacant shop front on Lansdown Road is Anthony, impeccably dressed in a dark suit and black coat and with a small crease between his brow, most likely due to whatever he is frantically typing on his phone while he waits for her.

Kate’s first thought upon spotting him is that, annoyingly, he seems to somehow get more attractive each time she sees him. 

Today, her attention is fixed on the sharp line of his jaw and for one fleeting moment, she imagines how it would feel to kiss him there and relish the warmth of his skin beneath her lips. 

Bloody Penelope and Edwina. 

"No guy treks across London with laddoos and your favourite flowers just to be polite," had been Edwina’s response when she had gotten home and badgered Kate to find out about Anthony’s visit. "He’s so into you."

It had been accompanied by a dreamy sigh, her sister losing herself in whatever romantic comedy-inspired fairytale she was concocting in her head, but Kate had later conceded (in the privacy of her own head) that Edwina was, for once, most likely right. 

Kate’s dating history isn’t anything to write home about but she’s dated decent men and shitty men over the last ten years and she struggles to think of any of them having done anything quite as sweet as bringing her flowers and sweets when she’s ill. 

In fact, no man has ever bought her flowers before.

(Okay, on reflection, decent men might be a stretch. There’s a reason she’s been single for the last eighteen months.)

Anthony flirts with her. Anthony bought her flowers and laddoos when she was ill. Anthony is helping her find a way to keep her business going when she’s sure a CEO has other things needing his attention on a Wednesday evening. 

And, thanks to Penelope, she also now knows that Anthony is single. 

She’s still not happy about what his company does but she stands by what she told him at the bar - she doesn’t hate him, not even close. Maybe someone else in her position would hate him, would view his decision to buy the building she loves and knock it down as an unforgivable action, something that would permanently shape and cloud the way they see him. But over the last two months, Kate has seen the man behind the CEO title - the man who dotes on his little sister, who still carries the loss of his father, who cares enough to drive across London just to check in on her, who is trying to help ease the pain of his company’s decisions when he has no obligation to.

Penelope is right.

Anthony Bridgerton is a good man. 

Anthony Bridgerton is a good, handsome, single man.

And Kate, who gave up her university place to run the bookshop, who stayed living at home for years to look after Mary and Edwina while all of her friends moved on and away, who resisted temptation and only ate one laddoo before Edwina got home so she could share them, has never been especially good at going after what she wants. 

But the truth is simple.

Kate wants Anthony. 

And maybe it’s okay to finally go after what she wants. 

“Kate,” he says, pulling her from her thoughts when he spots her and she swears the way that he smiles at her, his lips quirking to the side and his eyes crinkling, makes her stomach swoop. 

Kate definitely wants Anthony. 

“Hi.”

When she reaches him, she summons the same courage and determination that sent her storming into his office back weeks ago, steps forward and hugs him. 

He is still in her embrace for a moment, the contact unexpected, but then he's wrapping his arms tightly around her and all of her senses are filled with Anthony: the firm press of his body against hers; the rich, intoxicating scent of his aftershave where her face is pressed against his neck; the sound of his steady breath against her ear; the brush of his heavy winter coat against her cheek. And when she pulls away, her height means they’re almost eye to eye so she can see how intensely he’s looking at her while his fingers slowly trail their way down her back and across her hips, lingering like his fingertips are trying to memorise the feeling of her body beneath her own bulky coat. 

There’s barely an inch of space between them. If he wanted to, he’s close enough that he could lean forward and brush his lips against hers with ease. And the way his hands rest on her hips as his eyes drop to her lips and back up again makes her think he just might. She allows her own gaze to drop to his lips - he has infuriatingly kissable lips - and she thinks she could be brave enough to close this infinitesimal gap between them and take what she wants. 

Her breath catches in her chest when their eyes meet again, his eyes heavy with a desire that she is certain is reflected back in her own. 

“Mr Bridgerton?”

They leap back, the unexpected interruption propelling them away from one another, and they find a short woman in a garishly bright tartan jumper smiling at them, a cluttered keyring jangling in her left hand. 

“I’m Janet,” she says. If she is phased by the position she found Kate and Anthony in, she doesn’t let it show, taking Anthony’s hand in her own and shaking it firmly. “And you must be Miss Sharma.” 

Kate finds herself on the receiving end of an equally firm handshake and then Janet is off, reeling off the particulars of the building in front of them, leaving no chance for Anthony or Kate to give voice to the moment that just passed between them. 

And as Janet ushers the pair of them into the shop that could be Kate’s future, she forces herself to push the almost kiss to the back of her mind and focus on the building in front of her. 

They’re here to find the perfect place for her business. 

Talking and kissing can come later. 

Will come later, she promises herself before forcing her attention back to Janet and asking a question about meeting space.

‘Kate, before we look at the building, there’s something I need to tell you.’

That was what he had planned to say. 

It was so simple.

How had he messed it up? 

Anthony knows how he’d messed it up: the moment he’d seen Kate walking towards him, errant curls tumbling free from her braid and her emerald green coat making her glow under the street lights in spite of the drab, grey November weather, all common sense had left his brain. And then she’d hugged him and if Simon or Ben had been there, they would have immediately declared him a lost cause as he allowed his mind to become consumed with her mesmerising scent, the glorious feeling of her body against his, her full, soft lips that were tantalisingly close to his and the blatant want in her eyes when he looked at her. 

At that moment, he hadn’t been thinking about telling her the truth. All he had been able to think about was the overwhelming desire to pull her desperately towards him until he could kiss her the way he had been thinking about since that first meeting in her shop. 

And now he’s traipsing behind Kate and Janet, trapped with the desire to tug Kate back into the dusty storeroom that Janet has just shown them and kiss her senseless and the nauseating knowledge that he’s missed another chance to tell her the truth. 

“Down here is the basement.”

They’re led down a creaky set of stairs and into a small, drab room that’s depressingly dark and smells distinctly of damp.

“It’s not a bad size,” says Kate and Anthony can hear the forced enthusiasm in her voice as she examines the gloomy room. 

“It could be a great space for your workshops,” Janet tells her. 

Anthony had sent a brief out to some of his contacts in property development, listing what Kate was looking for, and Janet had clearly paid attention to it but he can tell that this isn’t the place where Kate can visualise bringing her business to life again. 

And yet, she examines the cramped room carefully and he can almost see her trying to make the space what she needs it to be.

“If it’s not right,” he says, standing close to her as they make their way back upstairs and inhaling the delicious floral scent that is so very Kate, “we can move on to the next one.”

“It could work.”

To his ears, she sounds unsure but he can’t force her to give up on the space if she thinks she can make it work; it’s her business, not his. 

Janet moves away to take a phone call and Anthony hops up onto the counter that dominates the back half of the shop. 

“Tell me again what you’re looking for.”

He pats the space next to him and Kate hesitates for a moment before lifting herself up and sitting beside him. They’re close enough that his right leg presses against her left and he bites back a smile when she shifts closer to him rather than moving away. 

“I still want the bookshop to be the main focus of the business. I want room for lots of shelves and seating. I want the books to be what draws people in.” He watches her as she looks around at the dark shop, the steady thrum of the bass from the tattoo shop next door vibrating through the walls. There’s a small frown on her face and he is certain that this place isn’t right. He’d included it because it is comfortably within her budget but the pictures had made it look brighter and bigger than it is and he can sense Kate’s disappointment. “I want a small cafe area and seating too. Maybe even seating outside as well. And space for events and workshops.” She sighs. “This isn’t that.”

“No, it’s not,” he agrees and he hops down from the counter before holding his hand out to her. 

She makes a show of rolling her eyes but she still slips her hand into his and allows him to assist her down. 

“Janet, we’re ready to move on to the next property,” he says and the estate agent makes no attempt to argue, simply leading them outside and over to her car. 

Anthony pretends not to notice that Kate doesn’t let go of his hand until she slides into the back of the car. 

He’s pretty sure she pretends not to notice when he forgoes the front seat to sit next to her in the back instead.

And, as Janet chatters on about London traffic, property prices and whatever else she thinks they have any interest in talking about, Anthony allows his hand to rest on the middle seat, Kate does the same and they both pretend not to notice how their little fingers reach towards one another.

The delight on Kate’s face is easy to read when they reach the next property. 

The moment they step out of the car, she lights up as she takes in the brick building in front of them, just like he knew she would.

The large bay window dominates the front of the former sandwich shop and he can practically picture the display that Kate is already visualising creating there.

“Follow me,” Janet says, unlocking the door and leading them through into the main space. 

Unlike the dark, cramped feeling in the first property, this one is bright and airy while the exposed brick wall adds character to the large space. A serving counter runs along the left side of the room and even Anthony, with his admittedly limited creative skills, can imagine colourful bookshelves lining the opposite wall and Kate’s beloved children’s corner nestled under the bay window. 

“It’s beautiful.”

A small smile creeps across his face at the wonder in her voice and when she looks at him, her eyes bright and practically sparkling, the way she’s smiling at him makes his own smile bloom under her warm gaze. 

“There’s a storage room through the door at the back and a small kitchen behind the counter,” says Janet, gesturing around the store. “However, there’s no additional space like there was at the first property.” 

Kate surveys the large room and Anthony can practically hear her mind whirring as she brings her idea to life. 

“I could hold events here. It’s large enough that we could stack seating out of the way and open up the space for art workshops, open mic nights, book readings. I think it could work.” She turns to Anthony. “What do you think?”

He knows she isn’t just asking him for the sake of being polite. 

Whenever Siena had asked for his opinion, he had always seemed to have a knack for saying the wrong thing before he realised that what she was looking for was for him to reaffirm her own viewpoint. She didn’t actually want to know what he thought. 

But Kate is looking over at him expectantly, her eyes focused on him, waiting to hear his honest opinion, good or bad, and the faith she has in him feels wonderful and yet guilt churns in his stomach at the knowledge that her trust is based on a deception.

“Kate,” he sighs. He has to tell her. “I-”

“You don’t think it would work?”

Her smile collapses into a frown as she misreads his response and she looks away from him, turning to look around the store instead to try and spot whatever flaw she thinks he’s spotted in her idea. 

“No, I do,” he says. Kate turning away from him feels like he’s suddenly standing in the shade after hours in the sun and he hurries over to her. “It’s a great idea. Honestly. You’ve got plenty of room for events and you could keep the cafe running during them to turn extra profit. You could even set up book displays linked to the event so people can buy books tied to their interests.”

Kate’s attention is back on him now, the frown gone in place of an expression that he’d dared to say suggests she is impressed. “Poetry books for poetry readings, art guides at workshops. That’s smart.”

“I have been known to have some smart ideas from time to time.”

“You’ve had one smart idea,” she says. “Don’t get cocky.”

“It’s due to go on the open market on Monday,” Janet tells them, clocking Kate’s obvious interest. “I’ve been instructed not to show it to anyone else prior to that if you are interested.” 

Janet's annoyance at her inability to schedule more viewings is obvious and Kate looks over at Anthony who grins at her. 

“The building is owned by an old friend of my parents. She’s offering you first refusal.” He steps closer to her and leans close, lowering his voice for no other reason than to watch the effect he can have on her. “I knew this one would be your favourite.”

She shivers and he leans back so she won't see his smirk.

“I don’t know if I should trust another big corporation,” she says and although her tone is teasing, when he looks at her, he can read the uncertainty in her eyes. 

“It’s not a corporation,” he assures her. “Charlotte owns a few properties around London as part of her investment portfolio. My dad sold her a couple of our renovations years ago but that’s the extent of TBG’s involvement.”

“Investment portfolio.” Kate laughs. “The lives of the wealthy.”

Her teasing is more obvious this time and she bumps her shoulder against Anthony’s but it still takes him a moment to breathe properly. 

Is The Bridgerton Group always going to be a barrier between them?

He’s trying his best to make the company better. Danbury is helping him work on his proposal to the board and he’s presenting the idea for the foundation to them in a week’s time. But his company will always be the thing that took something precious away from Kate and he can’t change that. 

“What about the rent?”

Kate’s question draws him out of his worries.

“This place at open market value is out of your budget but Charlotte also values loyal tenants. She’s willing to negotiate with you and find a deal that works for both of you.”

He wants to leave it there but Kate Sharma is too smart to accept when something seems too good to be true. 

She raises an eyebrow. “She’s willing to take a drop in rent, probably a sizeable drop in rent, because I’m a loyal tenant?”

Her scepticism is clear. 

Tell her what’s really going on. 

Simon’s voice echoes in his mind and he pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration at his subconscious seemingly having decided that Simon is the voice of reason these days. 

“Charlotte is my godmother,” he admits after a moment. “I told her that you’re a friend of mine and that I messed up and I’m trying to fix it. Which I am. I can’t undo what’s happening to your shop but I can help you keep going somewhere else. I know here isn’t the same as the building you love but it can be the start of something new and if getting you a good deal on rent can help make that happen, I want to do it. Please.”

She doesn’t speak and he can’t tell what she’s thinking but, after what feels like an eternity, she nods. 

“Okay. If your godmother will give me a decent deal on rent then that would be a big help.”

“Really?”

He can feel the smile creeping back onto his face and he watches as the same happens on Kate’s face.

“Yes. Thank you.”

She’s quiet but the sincerity and gratitude in her voice brings back the all-consuming urge to kiss her. Unfortunately, Janet with her knack for excellent timing interrupts them with talk of leases and contracts and all manner of things that really aren’t conducive to his desire to push Kate back against the counter and finally kiss her. 

They don’t get another quiet moment until Janet is hurrying away to her BMW and the two of them, having politely but firmly refused her offer of a lift, are sheltering in the doorway, rain splashing down around them as street lights do their best to brighten the darkness of the November evening.

“I didn’t bring an umbrella,” Kate sighs, peering out of the doorway at the heavy rain that’s leaving the dark street deserted. 

Anthony makes a ridiculous show of patting his pockets, earning a laugh from Kate when he sighs despondently. “I didn't either.”

She glances at her phone. 

“Well my Uber will be here in two minutes.” She pauses. “You’re welcome to join. We could go get a drink or something." She looks over at him, her eyes focused on him with an intensity that makes him remember all the things he's dreamt of doing to her. "You know, since we're friends.”

Her voice is quiet but the flirtatious tone accompanied by the quirk of her brow makes it very clear that Kate doesn't want to just be his friend.

The invitation hovers in the air between, the promise of a step forward into something else, and Kate is watching him, body tense like she’s ready to bolt at the first sign of rejection in spite of her confident offer.

“Yeah.” His voice chokes in his throat and it comes out hoarser than he intended. He swallows and tries to summon the charm and confidence that seems to have taken to abandoning him in Kate’s presence. “A drink would be good. Or something.”

“Great.”

The two of them share a secret smile and the anticipation for what comes next seems to fizzle between them as they stand in the doorway and listen to the rain while Kate tracks her Uber on her phone and Anthony searches for the perfect bar to take her to. He knows the conversation he needs to have with her before this goes any further, before they have any chance of becoming something, but maybe, if he can find the right spot to take her to, he can find a way to keep it from being a complete disaster.

There’s a rooftop terrace bar that Daphne loves only a short drive away but the weather app informs him that the rain isn’t going anywhere any time soon. And then Anthony notices the small ominous symbol hovering underneath seven o’clock.

Trying his best to swallow his disappointment, he says, “On second thought, you probably want to get home before the thunder hits.”

He notices Kate stiffen out of the corner of his eye. 

“What?”

He holds out his phone to her and points to the thunder symbol that’s less than an hour away. 

“You’re scared of storms, right?”

Silence. 

And then Kate says nine little words that make his stomach drop. 

“I never told you I was scared of storms.”

Chapter Text

“I never told you I was scared of storms.”

If this was a badly written romantic comedy, one with a cheesy pop soundtrack and poorly written dialogue, then this would be the moment when the music swelled and Kate fell into Anthony’s arms, entranced by the depth of their connection which had allowed him to sense her fear of the impending weather. 

However, this is not a romantic comedy, cheesy or otherwise, and Kate is a rational person.

As a little girl, she had loved fairy stories and make believe. As a teenager, she had dreamt of travelling the world and sending Edwina postcards from far flung places. But then she had been forced to learn the meaning of phrases like pulmonary embolism and her dreams of what her future might be had been boxed away in favour of trying to make sure her grief-stricken mother ate dinner and her devastated little sister made it to school every morning. There was no room for dreams and magic in her new reality.

All of that means that she knows it can’t be a magical coincidence that Anthony knows about her fear of storms. 

There has to be a logical explanation and her mind races to find it. 

She knows she hasn’t ever mentioned her fear to him.

Edwina and Mary are aware of her aversion to storms, although she does her best to hide the true depths of her terror from them, and when a storm had hit the same night that she was meant to accompany Tom to his work Christmas do, he had kept her entertained and distracted with far too many games of Dobble instead of leaving her to charm the partners into giving him the promotion he wanted. 

Beyond them, the only other person she has confided her fear of storms in is wrong number guy, partly as a silly joke to lighten the mood the night of his sister’s accident and partly as a vulnerable offering of her own after he had shared about his panic attacks. 

And as she watches Anthony’s face pale, those odd little moments that had niggled away at her during the last few weeks, the ones she had brushed aside because there was always a reasonable explanation, suddenly don’t seem so innocuous anymore. 

“I-”

“How could you know I wouldn’t want to be out when there’s a storm?”

“I wanted-”

He’s floundering and the panic on his face is apparent. 

“I can count on one hand the number of people who know I’m scared of storms.” She trails off as the dots start to connect and when she speaks again, she’s talking as much to herself as she is to him, the events of the last few weeks becoming clear in her mind. “Your sister had that accident… And when you came over last week, I was sure for a moment that you didn’t want to give me your number.”

Anthony says, “Kate, listen-” but she holds up her hand, cutting him off mid sentence. 

“You were even in the bar when I was meant to meet him.”

It all makes horrifyingly clear sense. She wishes it didn’t but it does.

“He didn’t show up but you did.”

For a split second, she thinks that Anthony will ask her ‘Who?’ and it will turn out that there is some other explanation, one that doesn’t leave her questioning everything that has happened between them in the last two months. 

However, he doesn’t. Instead, his face is crestfallen and with that, she knows. 

“You’re him.” 

His phone is in his hand and she can see the brightly lit screen illuminating his face, most likely still open to the weather app, and she snatches it from him. He makes no attempt to stop her. 

“Kate,” he says but she doesn’t reply. 

Instead, she taps open his messages and scrolls past numerous conversations, eyes skimming over the various names and messages until she finds what she is looking for - the recognisable digits of her phone number and her last message to wrong number guy, the final one in a collection of texts that had gone unanswered which, at the time, had left her feeling hurt and ignored. 

That feeling is nothing compared to the ache she feels when she opens the conversation and scrolls back through it. There are countless messages back and forth, her own familiar words, each one ensconced in a small grey bubble, and the replies she had eagerly anticipated from wrong number guy in bright blue: Anthony.

“Please let me explain.”

He moves forwards and reaches out to her.

She steps back.

For a moment, his hand hovers and then it falls and as it does, something between them, the tentative thread of their building connection, shifts…breaks.

“How long have you known?”

“I wanted to tell you…”

“How long have you known?”

Had that first supposedly missent text even been real or had Anthony already known back then exactly who he was talking to? Her phone number would have been accessible to him from the moment The Bridgerton Group had taken over her lease and her cheeks burn in embarrassment and fury at the realisation that he may have been manipulating her from that very first text. 

He shifts from one foot to the other and his shoulders slump slightly as if he knows the response his answer is going to elicit from her. “That night at the bar in Soho. I didn’t know who I was going to meet but when I got there and you were waiting, I realised who I’d been talking to.”

Her eyes flutter closed for a moment and that night comes rushing back to her. She can picture the way Anthony had stood at her table, a smug smirk on his face, and teased her about her book choice and the date that she had been waiting for. She also remembers volleying back with her own sharp comments about the sort of man she was meeting - one who was kind and thoughtful and nothing like Anthony Bridgerton. But now the memory of that moment changes because what she had thought to be a cutting remark, one designed to sting the man she had found so aggravating, now seems horrifyingly embarrassing. She had been talking about him and he had known just that. Had he laughed at her afterwards, amused by her naivety? 

“And you didn’t say anything? You stood there, knowing it was you that I was waiting to meet, and you said nothing.” 

She feels like an absolute fool.

“Fuck you.” The insult flies from her mouth without a second thought and her words land with a visible wince from Anthony, one that only increases when she shoves his phone at his chest. Somewhere inside, she feels a twinge of guilt but it’s dampened by the hurt and the anger and the shame that is consuming her from within. “Did you think it was funny to make me think I’d been stood up? Did you have a good laugh about it afterwards?”

“No. It wasn’t like that.” His tone is emphatic but it washes over her, no match for the hurt she is feeling.

“Were you ever going to tell me the truth or was this all just a big joke to you? Ruin my business, mess up my personal life and move on with some good stories to tell your Oxford mates at your next fancy party?”

His jaw twitches and his eyes flash with a burst of fury. “Is that what you really think of me?”

“It turns out I don’t know who you really are so how should I know what to think?” She doesn’t realise that she is shouting until an old lady hurrying to get out of the rain startles at her volume. She lowers her voice but it does little to lessen the impact of what she says next. “Maybe I was right that day in your office after all: you are an arsehole.”

Whatever fight there had been in Anthony, whatever desire he had to defend himself and try to persuade her to hear him out, seeps out of him and he droops in front of her eyes. “Right.”

Outside the doorway, the sound of the relentless rain pounding on the pavement almost completely drowns out the rumble of traffic as Londoners do their best to navigate their way through the city in spite of the miserable weather. However, in their sheltering spot, there’s nothing but silence. 

Her own anger seeps away too and, to Kate’s horror, it is replaced by the telltale sting of tears beginning to build behind her eyes. It takes all of her might not to cry and she wonders if the tears are due more to the pain of Anthony’s deception or the loss of what might have been between them. 

She had begun to believe that they could be something, despite their difficult start. Because the truth beneath all of the embarrassment and hurt and anger that this revelation has brought is that she likes Anthony Bridgerton. She likes him a lot. Except the Anthony Bridgerton she found herself falling for isn’t a liar and she never would have thought he would deceive her. 

It turns out she doesn’t really know him at all, does she? 

He is still silent, standing opposite her with a crumpled brow and his gaze fixed on the ground beneath his feet, but he looks up when a car pulls to a stop beside them. 

Kate’s phone buzzes in her hand with an alert for her Uber’s arrival and it seems to startle something in Anthony, a visible sign that time is up, and he’s gripping her hand in his before she can even register what is happening. 

“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I need you to know that. Please.”

The desperation in his voice is obvious and she can imagine what she would see if she looked in his eyes - despair and pain and regret - and it unnerves her that she finds herself unsure of whether she would be strong enough to not relent at the sight of it all. So she refuses to look up; instead, she tugs her hand away and forces herself to look at the car rather than him. 

“Don’t come near me again.”

It’s only a few short steps from the doorway to the car but she can’t find it in herself to hurry even as the rain soaks her skin and her hair. This is the end of something, something that never even had the chance to really begin, and the weight of it slows down every step she takes. 

Once she finds herself in the car, the reprieve from the miserable weather barely registers. Nor does her driver’s greeting or the warmth that’s blasting from the car’s heating. Instead, all she can focus on is compelling herself to stare at the headrest of the seat in front, eyes fixed on it as she studies the dark fabric with an entirely unnecessary intensity. It’s a task that she succeeds at until the car finally pulls away from the curb. Only then, as her driver fiddles with the radio and the rain bounces off the roof, does she finally allow herself to give in and look back. 

The street is dark in the November evening but the light from one of the lampposts casts a glow onto where she was just standing, making Anthony a startlingly clear vision amongst the autumn gloom. He’s standing just beyond the doorway so the rain is cascading over his head and shoulders, hair plastered to his forehead, but he hardly seems to be aware of the water soaking him because he is staring straight at her and his gaze is so intense that it feels almost as if, in this moment, nothing else matters to him - nothing else exists to him - but her.

And it’s that sight that ultimately pushes Kate over the edge. 

Turning away, her face crumples as the first strike of lightning flashes across the sky. She buries her head in her hands and she finally allows the tears to fall.

They don’t stop for a very long time.

“So you just let her leave?”

If Benedict is making any attempt to hide his incredulity, he’s doing an incredibly poor job of it. 

“What was I supposed to do? Block the doorway so she had no choice but to listen to me? I’m sure that would have been a rousing success.” 

While this is certainly not a high point in Anthony’s life, having his brother judge the mess that he made is definitely not helping. 

(The fact that this conversation is taking place as he lies on the floor of his childhood bedroom drinking a bottle of wine smuggled from his mother’s wine cellar is also not helping.

Granted it is a bottle of ‘95 Châteauneuf-du-Pape but drinking it out of bright orange plastic cups leftover from Greg’s Halloween party probably cancels that out.)

“I’m simply saying that it doesn’t sound like you did a particularly good job of defending yourself. Of course she left.”

“She called me an arsehole.”

“It’s not the first time.”

“But this time she was right.” Anthony thinks on it. “She was right the other time as well but it’s different this time.”

“Because she got to know you and still came to that conclusion. Therefore you’ve managed to convince yourself that you really are an arsehole who’s meant to die alone and doesn't deserve another chance with Kate Sharma.”

It’s aggravating how accurate Ben’s statement is and Anthony comforts himself by swigging wine from the garish cup lying beside his head before beckoning for his brother to toss him the packet of cigarettes that’s resting beside him on the window seat. 

“You don’t smoke,” he says but he throws it anyway and Anthony’s lets out a small “oof” as it thuds against his chest before quickly being followed by Ben’s favourite lighter. 

“I do tonight.”

He lights the cigarette with a well-practised ease and the first drag immediately sends him hurtling back to late nights and early mornings in Oxford. The packet of Marlboro Golds that sat in his coat pocket had been his saving grace whenever juggling the stress of university, his family, his inheritance, his mother’s grief and his own grief had become too much and while it’s a habit he has long since left behind, he thinks one is justified after the evening he’s had.

“I messed up.”

“Yes.”

“The shit thing is that I was going to tell her. She asked me to go for a drink and I was planning to tell her before anything happened between us.”

He raises his head before letting it fall backwards, satisfied by the dull pain that reverberates when his skull hits the floor.

“As much as it pains me to admit, you and Simon were right. I should have told her the truth.”

“You were going to tell her. That counts for something.”

“Does it?” He takes another drag and watches the smoke swirl up towards the ceiling. “She hates me just like I thought she would and it turns out she doesn't think very much of me at all."

“She doesn’t hate you.” 

Ben’s tone is disproportionately confident and Anthony shifts so he’s sitting up, reclined on his forearms and staring at his brother inquisitively.

“How did you reach that conclusion?” he asks, cocking a brow and waiting for an explanation as to how on earth he has come to that interpretation of today’s events.

“If she hated you, you never would have got to the point where she was asking you out for a drink. Your company is the reason her business has to close down.”

“It’s my company now, is it? Funny how it's our company when people want to have a say in my decisions. And her business isn’t closing down, not anymore.”

Ben waves a hand. “Closing down, moving - it’s still because of you and it wasn’t a decision she appreciated. She would have had every right to never talk to you outside of a professional capacity. Instead, she flirted with you every time you were in her shop.”

“How do you know that?”

“Hyacinth.”

Anthony shakes his head, half in amusement and half in annoyance. “Of course.”

“Kate likes you. She wouldn’t have flirted every time she saw you and invited you into her home and gone property hunting with you and asked you out for a drink if you didn’t.  She’s incredibly mad right now and entirely entitled to call you an arsehole and far worse. Don't judge her for what she said in anger."

"You weren't there. She outright said that she thought I'd done all of this as a joke for my own amusement." 

"And you've never said anything to any of us when you're mad that you didn't regret later?"

Anthony remembers being fifteen and telling his father he hated him and being twenty-two and calling Benedict a lazy git and being twenty-seven and yelling at Colin for being an entitled twat.

Benedict smirks in satisfaction.

"Giving her some space is probably a smart idea. But, brother, I am willing to bet that she does not hate you, not really.”

Anthony lies back down and resumes his original position of staring at the ceiling but he allows Ben’s words to linger, turning them over in his mind as he remembers his confrontation with Kate.

She had been furious. 

(Even though he was the target of her anger, he’d selfishly allowed himself to drink in the way she somehow looked even more beautiful in her visceral fury, her eyes glinting and her presence demanding every ounce of his attention.

If that was the last time she ever allowed him anywhere near her, he wanted to ensure he remembered every single detail.)

To believe that that fury wasn’t shrouded in hatred is difficult for him to grasp. 

“You don’t always need to be a martyr, Anthony. You don’t have to believe that you’re always destined to be miserable or the one of us who doesn’t get to be happy. You made a mistake, a colossal one, and you need to fix it. No one will argue with you on that. You might have missed out on one shot at that but you’re a fool if you decide that that was your only chance to make things right.”

“When did you get so smart?” asks Anthony as he pours himself more wine and leans back against the bed that his mother keeps in his old bedroom just in case he ever wants to spend the night.

“Right around the time I realised I had an idiot for a big brother.”

Giving him the finger, Anthony chucks the abandoned lighter at Benedict’s head but, aggravatingly, he catches it deftly before it can connect with the intended target.

“Now do you want my advice about what you need to do?”

“Not particularly but I sense you are going to offer it anyway.”

“May I remind you that it was you who followed me over here wanting my advice.”

“I don’t think I ever mentioned requesting your advice in my original text.”

Before Benedict can offer whatever retort has a smirk dancing across his lips, there’s the sound of creaking floorboards followed by a whispered curse and a loud sigh from outside the bedroom door and the two men inside have just enough time to stub out their cigarettes and toss them into one of the plastic cups before the door swings open and Hyacinth appears. 

“What are you doing up?”

“Were you eavesdropping?”

Rolling her eyes at her brothers’ questions, Hyacinth doesn’t bother to ask for permission as she closes the door behind her and settles herself on Anthony’s bed.

“I want to help.”

“I’ve got this,” Benedict says at the same time that Anthony points out that he has neither asked for help nor does he need help, a response that earns simultaneous eye rolls from both his eldest and his youngest siblings.

“Kate is awesome and you need to fix this,” Hyacinth says, completely ignoring his dismissal of their offers to help. “I can’t believe you messed it up. I made it so easy for you.”

“How did you help in any way?” he asks incredulously.

“I am adorable.” When her brothers snort at that, she glares viciously at them. “I was adorable every time we went to her shop because Kate was into you. What woman isn’t going to be into a guy she fancies showing up at her bookshop to buy books to make his adorable little sister happy?”

“What do you know about what women find attractive? You’re twelve.”

This time, the look that Hyacinth gives them is a terrifyingly judgemental sneer as if they are both idiots. “I’m a pre-teen girl. Romantic comedies and unattainable crushes are everything to me. And while the idea of anyone finding any of my gross brothers attractive is ridiculous, I know that Kate fancies Anthony and that her face got gooey every time we were in her bookshop. And you,” she jabs her finger in Anthony’s direction, “got all smiley around her. She makes you happy and I don’t want you to miss out on that. I want you to be happy.”

She trails off with a sheepish shrug and Anthony scrambles up from the floor to sit beside her. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and he’s pleased when she doesn’t reject his offer of a hug. Instead, she curls into his side and leans her head on his shoulder. And when Benedict joins them, sandwiching her between them, she doesn’t even roll her eyes when he slips her hand into his. 

“Thank you,” says Anthony quietly. “I know I can be a grouch but I love you both.”

“Love you too,” Hyacinth mumbles into his arm and Benedict squeezes his shoulder. 

“You really think she’ll forgive me?”

It seems too big a dream to even voice out loud. Kate has every right to never want to speak to him again after how he’s behaved and it would be entirely his own fault. But if there is a way for him to earn her forgiveness, he’ll do it, no matter how long it takes. 

“She will,” Ben tells him. “You need to give her some time and some space and then you need to tell her how you feel and grovel until she decides to forgive you."

Hyacinth gasps. “You need to show her. A big romantic gesture.” She sits up in excitement. “You need to chase her down on the Manhattan Bridge or declare your feelings at a press conference.”

“You’re watching too many rom-coms. Also we live in London and I think the board would take issue with me using the Financial Times for my love life.”

He’s rewarded with an unimpressed scoff from his sister. “I was giving some examples for inspiration.”

“I don’t think Kate would appreciate anything like that.”

“It’s not a terrible idea,” says Ben, surprising Anthony who had assumed he would have an ally in dismissing Hyacinth’s attempts to make him live out a real life Hugh Grant movie. “Not the big gesture part,” he continues. “But a gesture is a good idea - something personal that would mean something to her. Give her time to process what happened - and to stop you rushing in and making it all worse - and then show her how you feel with your actions and your words.”

Anthony nods. He has never been famed for his romantic gestures, one of the many reasons his relationship with Siena fell apart so spectacularly, and although the vulnerability such gestures will require is usually something he would desperately seek to avoid, he knows without question that Kate is worth it. And maybe with Benedict’s idealistic romanticism and Hyacinth’s terrifying tenacity in his corner, he might just succeed. 

“You need to fight for her,” Hyacinth says, her voice sleepy but determined. “Fight for her and be happy.”

“I will. I promise I will.”

However, before he can find it within him to push his own feelings to the forefront and selfishly fight for Kate, who has every right to never want to see him again, there’s something else he needs to do for her first.

The remainder of November passes in a blur for Kate.

After that first night when Edwina crawls into her bed in the middle of the night and holds her tight as she cries, her tears drowning out the sound of the storm raging outside, she refuses to discuss Anthony or what happened any further. 

Sometimes she overhears Edwina and Tom whispering about it in the kitchen when they think she’s not paying attention as they prepare their snacks for another movie night but she never follows them in and offers them the chance to turn those whispers into a conversation.

(They let her pick the movie every time and act like it’s a coincidence that they both don’t have any other plans every Friday rather than it being their sweet attempt to distract her from her bad mood.)

Mary tries to bring Anthony up unsubtly over their third family dinner in a week and a half, probing questions that make the biryani turn sour in Kate’s mouth and leave her scrambling for any other topic rather than the mess that is her personal life.

(She sends Kate home loaded up with leftovers to keep her fed from now until her next visit, her way of making sure Kate actually eats at the end of the work day rather than eating a dinner of peanut butter on toast for the fourth night in a row.)

Even Penelope oh so casually comments on Kate’s search for new premises and her recent property hunting adventure with Anthony but the brusque response she gets has her scurrying off to sort stock in the backroom. 

(After her lunch break, she returns with a chocolate croissant from Pret which she silently leaves on the counter for Kate. She tries not to wonder what she might have heard as a family friend of the Bridgertons.)

Kate cannot bring herself to confide in anyone about the embarrassment and hurt that haunts her every time she thinks back to that moment she realised the truth. Anthony had made her feel like a fool and she can't think about it without wanting to cry.

And then there is the shame that she is too embarrassed to tell even her sister about, the shame that comes when she relives the accusations she had thrown at Anthony and the way he had slumped in defeat when she had questioned his character and hurled insults at him. She had been so angry but her appa had always warned her that her tongue was far sharper than she realised and sometimes a quiet little voice wakes her up in the early hours to wonder if she wasn't slightly out of line too.

On top of that, her disastrous personal life is accompanied by the mess that it has caused for her professionally. 

The property she had fallen in love with comes on the market a few days after she walks away from Anthony and her heart sinks when she reads the listing and sees the neat little print underneath the pictures of the bay window and exposed brickwork informing her that, even if she stretched her finances to the max, the rent is far beyond her budget. A week later, the listing is removed from the website and the loss of her dream property on the back of everything falling apart with Anthony feels like another failure which sends her mood spiralling from bad to worse.

With only a few weeks left on her lease, she finds herself having to face the possibility of packing up the business and placing everything in storage until she can come up with some way to keep it all going. And the worst part of all is that the only person she wants to talk about it with is Anthony. 

She hasn’t been able to bring herself to delete their conversation - either of them - from her phone and she finds herself reaching to message him more times than she would care to admit. However, every time she does, the mess that had been the last time she saw him comes careening back to her and her messages go unwritten and unsent. 

Another part of her, the part that aches every time she remembers his face staring back at her as she drove away, wonders whether he is doing the same. Does he want to message her or has he forgotten about her already? She had been so sure that he felt the same attraction and connection that she did but now her memories have become distorted by the foolishness she feels whenever she remembers how he had deceived her. She thought she knew him but he had been lying to her; maybe the flirting and the longing looks had all been a lie too. Because, if he really had felt about her the way she felt about him, wouldn’t he be doing everything he could to try and fix what he’d done? 

Don’t ever come near me again. 

Her final words to him ring in her ears as she despondently browses through RightMove for the hundredth time that week, hoping that the perfect property in her price bracket will somehow appear. She had made her feelings clear - she winces at the memory of his face when she had called every moment between them into question - and the rational part of her knows she has no right to resent him for respecting her wishes or for deciding he never wants to see her again either.

However, the irrational, hurt part of her wishes he cared enough about making amends - and seeing past the harsh words she had said in anger - to ignore her request and do something. 

To her surprise, her irrational side gets its wish two days later on the final Friday of the month. 

It’s a quiet afternoon with a couple of elderly customers browsing more to get out of the rain than anything else but Kate doesn’t mind. As her time here comes to an end, she relishes the little things that used to bother her like the sticky front door and the old ladies who treat the place like a shelter from the rain rather than a shop. 

She’s just unboxing a new delivery of Carrie Soto is Back when the bell above the door chimes and an impeccably dressed woman strides into the shop, shaking her umbrella so drops of rain scatter across the floor. Kate doesn’t know if she’s more entranced by her curly lilac beehive that would rival vintage Adele on her best day or the way her presence immediately seems to fill the small shop in a way that makes Kate feel like she should be sweeping into a curtsey. 

(It would be ridiculous to curtsey but there’s something undeniably regal about the woman in front of her.)

Paying no attention to the books or Kate’s carefully crafted displays, the woman makes her way over to the counter, eyeing Kate with an obvious interest as she glides through the shop. 

“Kate Sharma?” Kate nods, baffled as to how this woman has any clue who she is. “Good. I am Charlotte Amarteifio and I have been very interested in meeting you.”

She holds out her hand and Kate shakes it, trying to hide her confusion at what could have brought Charlotte here to meet her of all people.

“Um…How can I help you?”

“I believe you expressed an interest in renting one of my properties.” 

While her search for somewhere new to begin the bookshop again has become one of her regular daily routines, her searches have produced little success. The only property she’s shown any real interest in was the one near Wandsworth Common. 

Suddenly the familiarity of Charlotte’s name falls into place and the penny drops.

“You’re Anthony’s godmother.”

“For my sins. I care for the boy but he’s as much of a fool now as he was when he was seven. Agatha has always had a secret soft spot for his idiocy but I do not tolerate it.”

“I won’t argue with that,” mutters Kate down towards the counter but she looks up again in time to see Charlotte give her a knowing nod. 

“He informed me of what he did and I will make no attempts to explain or excuse his stupidity. If he wishes to rebuild the relationship between the two of you then that is his responsibility.” 

Relieved that Anthony would not be so idiotic as to use his family connections to try and earn her forgiveness, Kate is still unsure as to exactly what has brought Charlotte here. 

Thankfully the older woman must read her confusion on her face because she takes pity on her.

“Might I suggest you close the shop for a short while and allow us to talk properly?”

That suggestion is how Kate finds herself sitting at the small dining table in the backroom sharing a pot of chai with a woman who considers Princess Mary of Denmark a close personal friend.

(While the chai is brewing, Kate Googles her and immediately regrets that the only mugs she has on offer are the ones from Tesco that are decorated with custard creams.

Her search also brings up a picture of Charlotte on the red carpet at a Harry Potter premiere with a delightfully small and awkward Anthony who can’t have been any older than ten and who has not yet grown into his ears. She immediately saves it to send to him before remembering that they’re no longer talking. 

She can’t bring herself to delete the picture.)

“When Anthony paid me a visit last week and explained what had happened between you, he was not seeking my advice as to what he should do nor was he looking for me to help fix things between the two of you. Instead, he was quite concerned that his stupidity might have cost you the opportunity to lease a property that he tells me you had fallen quite in love with.”

“He shouldn’t have spoken to you.”

“I suspect he knew you would say as much as he was quite adamant that I should only meet with you if I felt the proposal he suggested was worth my consideration and not out of any loyalty to him. In fact, he requested I not mention his involvement at all. I believe he thought you would refuse to listen if you thought this was not an honestly earned offer, a trait I can admire.”

Kate knows Anthony is right. His offer to negotiate her rent due to his role in her losing her current premises was one thing, a fair exchange to make up for the pain his business has caused, but if he saw his godmother as a way to win Kate’s approval, if he thought she could be so easily bought, then that would be unforgivable. 

“He didn’t want me to know he spoke to you?”

“Demanded it in fact. It’s sweet that he believes he has any control over what I do. As I said, he is something of a fool. However, I must admit that he laid out a rather convincing argument for why you would make an excellent tenant, even with a significant reduction in rent, and his proposition of an extended lease with regular renegotiation clauses dependent on your annual turnover is one of his better ideas. And your business proposal is smart and something that the area could use. Anthony has great faith that it will be quite the success as do I after doing some research of my own. You’ve kept this place running by yourself?”

Kate nods. “My sister helps out and I employ a grad student part-time but otherwise it’s just me.”

“Ever since your father died?” Kate nods again. “Impressive. I pride myself on working with and investing in women who value hard work and will fight to succeed in a world that is not designed for our success. I suspect that describes you rather well, Kate.”

Kate’s first response is to open her mouth to dismiss Charlotte’s words. She’s done what she needs to to ensure her father’s business continues and her family are alright. Being praised for doing what needed to be done sits uncomfortably in her chest but Charlotte’s authoritative tone leaves no room for disagreement and to have a woman like her impressed by what Kate has done - what she has achieved - makes her close her mouth and sit a little taller in her chair. However, she’s unsure how to respond to such a compliment.

She finally settles on a simple thank you and Charlotte nods but the glint in her eye suggests that she’s impressed that Kate chose not to minimise what she has achieved since she was eighteen.

“I would like to lease the Wandsworth property to you at a reduced rate. There would be biannual meetings to negotiate rental rates based on your business’s takings and the lease would need to be significantly longer than you might be used to so as to ensure it is worthwhile for me to take a reduction in rent.”

“I thought the property was leased? It was removed from RightMove.”

Kate doesn’t think Charlotte has ever looked at RightMove in her life.

“Brimsley, my assistant, removed it after I met with Anthony and reviewed your business idea. If you are not interested in my offer, it will be back on the market tomorrow.”

“But why would you even want to lose money by renting to me? I could afford only half of what you could get from someone else.”

“Kate, Madeleine Albright once said that there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

If a pub quiz ever asked for the source of that quote, Kate would confidently answer with Taylor Swift but she decides not to mention that. 

“I am in a position to help you start your business over and build something that you are proud of. A reduction in rent means little to me but I gather it would mean a great deal to you. Let me help you.”

And that is how Kate finds herself being handed pages filled with lease agreements and rental rates and potential renovations with an agreement for her to take twenty-four hours to think it all over before she signs. 

However, before Charlotte leaves her to attempt to wrap her head around everything that has just occurred, she looks at Kate with her intimidatingly penetrating gaze and says, “May I offer you one piece of advice before I go?”

Charlotte does not strike her as the sort of woman to ask for permission so she senses the advice will be given whether she wishes for it to be or not but she nods anyway. 

“I must confess that I am something of a romantic. It is a trait my husband has always found endearing and my friends foolish.” She busies herself pulling on her coat and fussing with her umbrella as she continues. “Anthony requested I not mention his involvement in bringing your business to my attention, most likely out of fear that you would refuse my offer if you thought he was using it as a chance to convince you to forgive him. However, I chose to tell you because, while I will make no excuses for what my godson did, the way he spoke about you would have moved even the coldest of hearts. He wanted to help you, not for his own gain, but because he believes in you and your business. I am telling you this because I think you deserve to know that you have someone in your corner fighting for you, someone who is choosing to do that with no expectation of anything in return.”

Opening the door, she looks back at Kate one last time. 

“Take it from someone who has been around far longer than you: that is a very rare thing indeed.”

With that, Charlotte sweeps out of the door and into a waiting car as quickly as she had arrived, leaving Kate standing in the middle of the shop a little stunned and utterly unsure of what she is supposed to do now. 

Chapter Text

After twenty years, we will be closing our doors on Saturday 17th December.

We have loved being part of your lives.

We hope you will pay us one final visit before we say goodbye.

We look forward to welcoming you to our new bookshop and cafe at 26 The Pavement, SW4 0JA in the new year.

After Charlotte’s visit, it takes significantly less than twenty-four hours for Kate to decide that she would be a fool to refuse her offer and walk away from the shop in Wandsworth. She signs the lease agreement and each time she scribbles her name feels like a monumental step towards something new. By Wednesday, the keys for the new property reside on her keyring and her tentative idea for her future is rapidly becoming a reality.

Her life quickly turns into an endless medley of to-do lists, plans and phone calls and while there’s an undeniable excitement about her new business, it’s also horribly bittersweet because a new bookshop is a stark reminder that the end of Off the Shelf is no longer a vague event in the future but something that’s very close and far too real.

The shop’s closing date is officially set for two weeks’ time, long enough to reap the benefits of the Christmas rush but leaving her with enough time to focus her attention on the new shop so it can be ready to open in the new year. Penelope helpfully prints off a poster announcing the shop’s impending closure and puts it up in the window; Kate does her best to ignore the way her stomach jolts every time she sees the neatly printed date that seems far too soon or when a customer seeks her out to offer their commiseration at the shop’s closure.

One morning, when Penelope’s university schedule and the usual quiet of a weekday morning means Kate is running the shop solo, a young dark-haired woman spends almost half an hour browsing before she sidles up to the counter, barely glancing at Kate from beneath her hood and not even bothering to remove her headphones as she tosses a box on the counter.

“Delivery for Kate Sharma,” she says before also pushing a copy of Everyday Sexism in Kate’s direction for her to ring up.

“That’s me.” The girl looks up and scrutinises Kate for a moment before nodding and resuming her disinterested air. “Do you need a bag?”

A shake of the head is all she gets and the girl leaves with a mumble that might have been a goodbye or thanks and a final glance at Kate over her shoulder.

Inside the package, there is a small white box containing macarons from Laduree, a luxurious treat that Kate can rarely convince herself to indulge in, and a beautiful copy of Little Women, one that contains handwritten letters as if created by the March sisters and Laurie themselves. It’s a gorgeous book and she loses herself in reading a letter from Laurie to Jo before remembering to check for a note.

It’s a printed one, one without a company logo or return address:

I know the next two weeks are going to be difficult so I wanted to send you something to make you smile.

Kate does smile. Edwina is away in Greece for another week and this is the exact sort of thing her little sister would think to do, offering her support when she can’t be there for her in person. The last time Kate treated herself to macarons, it was for Edwina’s birthday back in September and she can’t resist indulging in a chocolate one now even though it’s barely ten o’clock in the morning.

i’m assuming it’s acceptable to eat these for breakfast

don’t expect any of them to be left when you get back

love you x (the jo to your amy)

I’ll just make you take me there once I’m home.

Hope you’re doing okay.

Love you too, didi xxx

(I thought I’d made it clear that I’m Meg not Amy)

sounds like something amy would say

Her sister’s thoughtfulness eases the stress of the next few days. Penelope’s exams limit her ability to pick up shifts and Kate does her best to juggle running Off the Shelf, overseeing the renovations to the Wandsworth shop and avoiding all the emotions that do their best to crop up whenever she lets herself think about saying goodbye to a building that’s practically her second home.

There’s also the fact that she’s determinedly not thinking about Anthony or Charlotte’s parting words to her, both of which are something she is unfailingly ill-equipped to deal with.

She has no choice on Friday but to close the shop for a couple of hours so she can meet with the workmen who are installing the bookshelves and painting the cafe wall for her (emerald green - a shade she finally decided on after staring at paint samples for the best part of three hours on Tuesday) and she watches as her new shop starts to transform from its former life as a sandwich shop into something new which is totally hers. Then one of the workmen asks whether she wants the smaller shelves that she’s purchased for the children’s section installed by the bay window when she had envisioned them or towards the back where there’s more room and Kate’s instinct is to want to ask her father what he would do. The loss of him, of his advice, of his solid presence in her life, hits her the way it always does, even after eight years, and she excuses herself shortly after. Her Uber driver politely pays no mind to her tears in the backseat and it takes more strength than she expects to force her wave of grief to recede.

When she gets back to the shop, there’s a girl in a dark blue hoodie leaning against the window, nose buried in a book, and it takes a minute before Kate recognises her as the delivery girl from a few days ago.

“Got another delivery for you,” she mumbles, attention still primarily focused on the book, as Kate unlocks the door.

She trails in behind Kate, either not noticing or not caring that the shop is not officially open yet nor that Kate is still visibly teary with mascara smudges under her eyes, and she hands her another box before wandering off in the direction of the non-fiction sections.

When she opens the parcel, Kate’s mouth begins to water as a delicious scent wafts from inside. In a paper bag that’s printed with the Bread Ahead logo, there are two, still warm doughnuts, one filled with raspberry jam and the other lemon curd. Beneath them, wrapped in brown paper to protect it from the sugary warmth of the doughnuts is The Comfort Book by Matt Haig. It’s something she stocks here and she’s even recommended it to various customers but it’s not a book she has ever taken the time to read herself.

There’s another note as well, typed once again:

Some comfort food, perfect to go along with a comforting book.

It’s true that doughnuts are something she loves when she’s in need of cheering up. When she’d been dumped the day before her birthday by a guy who she is now mature enough to recognise was a truly terrible boyfriend, she had sat in the empty bathtub of her childhood home and demolished a five-pack of raspberry jam doughnuts from Tesco with terrifying speed before Mary had found her sobbing. She’d hugged her and been kind enough not to mention that her face was a mess of tears, snot and granulated sugar.

However, the phrasing of the note gives her pause. Unlike the first message, something about this one doesn’t sound quite like Edwina. Plus her sister will be back in the UK in a matter of days meaning she could simply deliver the doughnuts and book herself rather than outsourcing it to one of London’s grumpier delivery services. And when she scrolls back to her original text about the first delivery, she realises that Edwina never actually confirmed that the gift was from her.

Leaving her sole customer browsing the shelves, she boils the kettle and makes herself a cup of chai, pondering over the parcel, the message and the sender, and when she settles herself on the stool behind the counter, she tucks into one of the doughnuts and reads the message again.

It’s practically cryptic in its shortness, as if the sender assumes she’ll know who they are and why they are sending her the gift. There’s no explicit words of support like the first note yet the entire package is one designed to offer her comfort as she prepares for this chapter of her life to come to a close. She’s hardly the only woman in the world to consider the winning combination of fried dough and jam to be a comfort food but something about this feels personal and intentional.

The discarded packaging catches her eye and she stares at it. It only takes a moment for it to become glaringly obvious what is unusual about it: there’s no address. Instead there is simply her name in small block capitals and nothing else - no address, no stamp and no delivery label.

It must have been sent by someone nearby. It must have been sent by someone who knows both the things she loves and how much she is going to need people there for her as she says goodbye to Off the Shelf, as she says goodbye to her appa all over again. It must have been sent by someone who wants to be there for her, someone who knows how much Kate will value the comforting simplicity of people simply being there.

And despite her rational mind having done its best in recent weeks to keep her from giving in to the longing and wanting that have tried their hardest to steal their way into her thoughts, Kate’s traitorous heart still leaps at the idea of who could be the mysterious gift giver, reaching out to her through small packages designed to bring her a little bit of joy.

“This please.” The delivery girl has made her selection - Invisible Women, a book Kate remembers Edwina reading a couple of years previous.

“This package and the other one,” she says, ensuring she takes her time ringing up the purchase. “Who are they from?”

“Dunno,” says the girl, not bothering to look at Kate. “I’m just delivering it.”

“But there’s no address. How did you know where to bring it?”

“They told me the address.”

“Who?”

She cringes at the obvious desperation that manages to seep into one little world.

She shrugs and says, “Some woman.”

“Oh.”

Her optimism vanishes. Whoever might be behind these deliveries, it’s not him. Logically, she knew it was unlikely that he would be reaching out after the way everything ended between them but that doesn't stop a cloud of despondency draping itself over her while she hands over the young woman’s purchase and lets her leave without asking any further questions.

The last time she spoke to Anthony, she had questioned whether she really knew him at all. She had called him an arsehole and told him, in no uncertain terms, that she never wanted to see him again.

It seems silly that she could have had any reason to hope that he was reaching out to her after that. After all, she had made her feelings towards him incredibly clear. He might have been kind enough to talk with his godmother so that their fight didn’t ruin her business too but that doesn’t mean he wants to see her anymore.

She told him to never come near her again.

She can hardly be disappointed that he’s respecting her wishes.

The final few days of Off the Shelf are everything Kate expected them to be: hectic, emotional, nostalgic and exhausting.

Customers past and present make an effort to visit the store to buy one final book, share their memories of the place and inquire about what is next for Kate. Plenty of them promise to visit the new shop once it’s up and running and Kate chooses to hope that they will.

(She’d made the mistake of searching to find out how many new businesses fail and she’s going to do whatever she can to make sure that the new shop isn’t one of them.)

The amount of customers who remember her appa is joyous but it also leads to Kate crying in the stockroom more times than she chooses to admit. They seek her out to tell her about how kind he was, about a particular book he chose for them that they still love today, about how much they loved chatting with him whenever they came in. Each conversation has Kate on the brink of crying again until one particularly customer approaches the till.

“Milan was Off the Shelf,” Mr Jenkins, an elderly man who used to love spending hours chatting to her father, tells her when he hands over his stack of books.

Most likely, he meant it to be a passing sentiment, one that offers Kate a moment of comfort before she carries on with her day, but it niggles at her for the rest of the day. It’s only when she’s trying to sleep that night, the sentence still swirling around in her head, that she works out why it’s stuck with her.

In the years since her appa died, Kate has done her best to keep the shop running in his memory. She has added her own small touches over time from her bright, colourful displays to the magical storyteller’s hat but, at the heart of it, it’s remained just as it was when Milan Sharma stood behind the counter. Off the Shelf is his and it always has been, even now that Kate’s name sits on the lease and she has spent years serving customers who never met him.

Saying goodbye to it, to the shop and the building that is more familiar to her than almost anywhere else in the world, is going to be horrendous. But Mary’s words from weeks ago come back to her: You can find somewhere new to start the shop again and you can make it your own.

Off the Shelf was never hers, not really. She’s kept it going in her appa’s stead but it’s still his shop.

Maybe it's true that she hasn’t failed by allowing Off the Shelf to close. It’s survived for twenty years, first under her father’s hand and then hers, and Mary is right that he would be so proud of everything she achieved. But it’s time for her to build something that belongs to her.

Saying goodbye is going to be so incredibly hard but maybe it’s also going to be okay.

Off the Shelf is Milan Sharma.

It’s time for Kate Sharma to create the place where she belongs.

“Your father recommended this when my son was little,” another customer tells her the next day when she brings a copy of The Book With No Pictures up to the counter. “He always knew the perfect book so I thought I’d buy a new copy for my daughter.”

And this time, Kate doesn’t feel the urge to hide away in the stockroom and cry, overwhelmed by familiar grief. Instead, she smiles.

“He really did. How old’s your son now?”

“He’s twelve and he hates reading these days,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “His teachers are always pestering him to read more.”

“Give me a moment.” Kate hurries over to the children’s corner and comes back with a trilogy of graphic novels under her arm. “Try the Username series. I bet he’ll love them.”

“I don’t know I can afford-”

“They’re on the house,” Kate offers. “Times are tight for everyone right now. Consider them a gift from my father for loving his recommendations so much.”

The woman tries to protest again but eventually she gives in and accepts Kate’s gift. She insists on coming round the counter to hug her and Kate sends her on her way with a smile, one that doesn’t fade away as more customers share their memories of the shop, stories about her father and promises to make the journey to check out her new shop in the new year.

And as the day continues, the world seems to keep finding ways to give her another reason to smile.

That afternoon, while she’s helping a customer select the perfect book for a Christmas present, the woman tells her, “My daughter loves to bake. She’s always making a mess in my kitchen, baking and sending out orders to people online. She even has an Instagram. She’s desperate for somewhere proper to sell her baking. If you need someone for your cafe, my Maggie would love it.”

Before Kate knows what’s happening, the woman is pushing her phone towards her:

And because Kate is in a good mood, and thinking about finding someone to actually ensure their cafe can offer food has been worryingly low down on her list of her priorities, she takes Maggie’s number and promises to call her.

Another customer offers her his van to help move stock between the two premises, a thank you for remembering the series of books that his wife has been determinedly making her way through for the last year and a half and locating the next in the series. And Harley, a five-year-old boy who has been a regular attendee of Kate’s storytimes for the last three years, hugs her tightly and promises he’ll be the first one there at her very first storytime.

(His mum apologises for the snotty, tearful stain he leaves on Kate’s jumper and echoes his promise that they’ll be there for storytime.)

There’s even another delivery. The same delivery girl as before, head down and headphones in, hands her the package, buys I Am Not Your Baby Mother and leaves without a word. Inside are red velvet cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery, a go-to favourite of sixteen-year-old Kate during her sixth form lunchtimes, and The Hunger Games, also a favourite of teenage Kate.

Some nostalgia because this week is bound to be filled with memories.

This time, she chooses not to question who the gift is from. Maybe it is Edwina deciding to be purposefully mysterious for fun, or Mary finding new ways to support her during this emotional time, or Tom being a good mate but not wanting the credit.

(A tiny part of her, that little voice fuelled by romantic comedies and fairy tales, still hopes that someway, somehow, someone else is behind them after all.)

Whoever it is, she’s grateful for their thoughtfulness and their efforts to add some joy to her day.

It’s a very good day. It might be one of her last days working in this place that she knows so well but it’s certainly a good one.

And then a familiar voice shouts across the shop.

“Newton!”

If her customers are bothered by the sight of a twelve-year-old girl racing through the shop, throwing her undoubtedly expensive school blazer on the floor and lying on it so she can cuddle the corgi who barely blinks at the disruption to his busy afternoon of napping and eating, they don’t show it.

Hyacinth Bridgerton clings to Newton, burying her face in his fur and shrieking with excitement when he licks at her face.

It’s been weeks since Kate last saw her. The loss of her connection to Anthony also meant losing Hyacinth and she’s delighted to see her again.

It wouldn’t have felt right to close Off the Shelf without one final visit from Newton’s biggest fan.

However, every visit Hyacinth has made to the bookshop over the last three months has meant the presence of someone else too and the suddenness of Hyacinth’s entrance doesn’t allow Kate the time to process how she feels about seeing him again because she finds that she is already turning to look towards the door and him. 

Except he’s not there.

There is a tall man with dark hair standing in the doorway but it’s not Anthony.

She might have been unsure about how she felt at the possibility of seeing him again but the disappointment that immediately churns in her stomach at his absence is answer enough.

“Hyacinth, please don’t sprawl on the floor like that,” says an impeccably dressed woman as she follows the man through the door and into the shop.

“Sorry, mum,” she calls over her shoulder but she makes no actual effort to sit up.

Mum. Hyacinth’s mum. Anthony’s mum.

Kate studies her face. She looks vaguely familiar from the engagement party that Tom dragged her to, a night that feels like a lifetime ago, but then she shakes her head in bemusement at her daughter and Kate’s breath catches because the expression is an exact match for the look she’s seen on Anthony’s face directed at her countless times.

She steals another glance at the door but it remains closed.

“He doesn’t know we’re here,” the man says and now that he’s standing closer, Kate can see that he has the same dark eyes as Anthony and the same straight nose. “I’m his favourite brother, Ben.”

“Nice to meet you.” And then she adds, “I thought Greg was his favourite.”

Ben laughs. “Greg wishes he was. We just tell him that so he won’t feel left out being the littlest brother.”

“There’s eight of you, right?”

“Yes. Our house was rather like the old woman who lived in a shoe growing up. You know Anthony, obviously.” Kate flushes at the knowing tone he adopts. “Then there’s me, Colin and Daph. Eloise and Fran are in the middle and Greg and Hyacinth finish things off.” Kate opens her mouth but Ben interrupts. “Yes we’re alphabetical and yes, before you ask, between us, we’ve heard every joke possible.”

“I just wondered if it was a family rule that you have to name your children alphabetically. Surely you’d all end up running out of A names,” she says, sipping her chai to hide her amusement.

“No rule, although Daph already has her heart set on her and Simon continuing the tradition. And I wouldn’t put it past Greg to be lazy enough to just copy our parents. But no need to worry, you and Anthony won’t need to think of a dazzlingly unique name that begins with A.”

It was the wrong time to take a drink and she chokes on it, coughing inelegantly while Ben smirks.

“Your brother and I aren’t together.”

He drums his fingers on the counter. “Not yet.”

There’s a knowing glint in his eye that is worryingly ominous and Kate has the distinct sense that this Bridgerton visit has nothing to do with buying books and everything to do with Anthony.

“Did he ask you to come?”

She doesn’t know if she wants the answer to be yes or no.

“Like I said, he has no idea we’re here. In fact, he’d kill me if he knew I’d brought mum. I believe there were explicit instructions for her to never be allowed in this bookshop.”

Kate frowns. “He didn’t want his mum to know about me?

“No. Oh bollocks,” he groans. “I’m making this worse, aren't I? He didn’t want our mum to come here because mum is-”

“Mum is what?” asks a voice from over his shoulder and Ben blanches at the same time that Kate spots his mum standing behind him.

“Mum is lovely and very very nice and never gets mad at her children.”

He turns to look at his mother with a hopeful look and she rolls her eyes, clearly used to him and also clearly charmed by him. He kisses her cheek and she smiles warmly before turning her attention to Kate.

“You must be the famous Kate. I’m Violet.”

There is no reason for Kate to be intimidated. She’s met boyfriends’ parents before but it’s not as if this is that. Anthony is not her boyfriend. He is not anything to her anymore. Violet Bridgerton is practically a stranger and it should be no more intimidating than meeting any other potential customer who walks into her shop.

She wishes that her palm wasn’t so sweaty as she shakes Violet’s hand and that she had put more thought into her outfit choice this morning rather than wearing the same jumper she wore the day before.

(She's not sure if the splodge of yesterday’s pasta sauce on her left sleeve or Harley's tearful snot stain on her shoulder is more unfortunate.)

“Famous? Anthony told you about me?”

She dreads to think what he might have told them in the aftermath of their fight.

“No, he didn’t mention you.”

The coordination between Kate’s disappointed “oh” and Ben dropping his head into his hands with a groan is perfect.

“What did I say?” Violet asks her son.

“You’re making it sound like Anthony doesn’t care enough to tell you about her.”

“Oh. It’s quite the opposite. My son is fiercely private and the quieter he stays about something, the more he cares about it. It’s a very unhelpful trait of his.”

“Oh.”

It would be wonderful if she could think of something to say that was more than one syllable.

“I had to rely on my other, more helpful children to find out anything about you. Anthony even forbade me from coming here.”

“Right.”

Another monosyllabic response.

“But I wanted to meet you for myself. Benedict is quite certain that my son has fallen for you, and you’ve got two rather enthusiastic fans in Hyacinth and Gregory, so I refused to wait any longer to meet you.”

“Okay.”

She swears she’s not trying to sound like she’s incapable of speech. It's just that it’s all…

“This is a lot,” Ben interrupts, mimicking her thoughts perfectly. “On reflection, Anthony may have had a point about not wanting any of us coming here.”

“It’s not that you’re not welcome.” Kate celebrates finally having regained the power of speech. “But Anthony isn’t falling for me; we haven’t even spoken in weeks.”

“That’s why he’s been so miserable,” Hyacinth interjects. She has Newton under one arm and she’s staring up at Kate with big eyes that immediately make her feel guilty although she has no idea why. “Ever since you found out he was who you’d been messaging, he’s been a right grump.”

“She’s not wrong,” adds Ben. “He misses you and we’ve all been waiting for him to come to his senses and do something about it but it’s been a month and he’s still miserable.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything left to rebuild.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” says Hyacinth, and Kate tries not to think about how surreal it is to be having this conversation with her not-her-boyfriend’s little sister. “My brother did something stupid. It’s not the first time and it definitely won’t be the last. But I saw how he looked at you. It’s how Simon looks at my sister and how Greg looks at cheesecake.”

“I believe that what my children are trying to say is that Anthony still has feelings for you. He made a mess of things and I will not make any excuses for his foolishness but when he tries to fix things between you, I hope you might at least consider listening to him.”

After exchanging a look with his mother, Ben gently tugs Hyacinth - and Newton - away, leading her towards the children’s corner with the promise of allowing her to buy a pile of far too many books for Christmas.

“It’s not my intention to corral you into forgiving my son. He would be furious if I even tried and I suspect you wouldn’t appreciate it either.” Kate nods. “I suppose, all I want, is to know that he hasn’t ruined things with you. He was so horrendously protective over you. If it wasn’t for Ben, I wouldn’t have even known you existed. Anthony is like his father in the way he’s so desperate to protect the things he loves, and I think that’s a trait that’s only gotten worse since Edmund died. He wouldn’t have lied to you to hurt you. He would have been trying to protect what you had and been terrified of ruining it by telling you the truth.”

“But he ruined it anyway,” Kate says quietly and Violet reaches for her hand, squeezing it gently, a gesture that makes it feel as if they have known one another for years.

“Something I know he will have been berating himself for ever since, far worse than anyone else would have. He made a mistake and you are entirely within your right to choose to never forgive him. All I hope is that when he does try to earn your forgiveness…”

“You don’t know that he will try,” Kate tells her, giving voice to the quiet fear that has been gnawing away at her for weeks. “He lied to me, he broke my trust and I made it clear that I didn’t want to see him again. And, after the things I said, I’m not sure he’d even want to try.”

“Trust me,” Violet says, squeezing her hand again. “My son is stubborn and it can take him time to admit his mistakes but he’s not a hypocrite. He’s spoken out of frustration more times than I can count and I know he won’t hold that against you. He’s like his father; he fights for the things that are worth fighting for so I know he’ll try and earn your forgiveness in the end. Because you are worth it.”

“You hardly know me.”

“I know how highly my children speak of you. I know how happy Anthony was when you were in his life. I know how similar you are to him, how many of the qualities I love in my son you possess too. You are most definitely worth fighting for, Kate.”

It’s one of the loveliest things anyone has ever said to her and she finds herself squeezing Violet’s hand in her own and doing her best not to end her good day with tears.

Thankfully, Hyacinth chooses that moment to return, staggering under a pile of books that she hands to Violet who doesn’t even grumble at the size of her daughter’s selection and happily poses for Benedict with the tower of books in her arms,

Kate rings through the purchase, letting Hyacinth select a tote bag of her choice to carry her early Christmas presents home in.

“Will I get to see Newton again?” she asks in a small tearful voice when it hits her that this is her farewell to Off the Shelf.

“You’re welcome to visit him in my new shop,” Kate tells her because, no matter how things go with her big brother, Hyacinth will always be someone that she wants to see. “He’d miss you if you didn’t come back.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

She hugs her before letting her say a final goodbye to Newton.

“My brother’s a good guy, even if he doesn’t always believe it,” says Ben. “Don’t write him off just yet.”

Violet hugs her too.

“I look forward to getting to know you better, Kate.”

Kate sees where Anthony gets his determination from. She has the sense that Violet is already imagining Kate joining them for Sunday lunch as if the issue of Anthony and Kate not actually being on speaking terms is nothing but a mere blip that will soon be overcome.

Kate wishes she had her confidence.

The three Bridgertons file out of the shop with a chorus of goodbyes, waves and one final tearful, brief hug between Newton and Hyacinth (tearful on her part, brief on his) and then they’re gone and the shop somehow feels far more empty in their absence than it did before they arrived.

Considering the fact that Anthony spends the majority of Thursday being grilled by members of the board on his proposal for the creation of a new foundation, one that has the potential to make a real difference beyond simply lining the pockets of shareholders, the last thing he wants to do is meet with Colin for a drink. While alcohol does sound appealing, his preference would be to drink scotch alone in the solitude of his flat rather than having to listen to his younger brother’s plans for his next adventure which will inevitably lead to an explanation of exactly how Anthony could be of help by giving him more money. However, Colin’s texts increase in both frequency and desperation over the course of the afternoon until he successfully manages to guilt Anthony into saying yes.

That is how he finds himself standing in the obnoxiously named Callooh Callay bar in Chelsea, waiting to be served something that isn’t an equally ridiculously named cocktail. Drumming his fingers absent-mindedly against the bar, he waits for Colin to make an appearance or for one of the seemingly incompetent barstaff to register his presence and actually serve him. There’s a mild throbbing beginning to increase in intensity behind his eyes and he has enough self-awareness to recognise that his patience is running in short supply.

He would like to place the blame on some combination of his very long day, the incessant questions the board had fired at him from all angles, the prospect of Colin’s minor tantrum if Anthony refuses his inevitable request for money and the loud music that thrums from the speakers overhead but he knows the root of it most likely has more to do with the same person that’s been running through his mind for longer than he would care to admit: Kate.

He’s done his utmost to respect her request and keep his distance in spite of his overwhelming desire to do something ridiculous like actually listen to his baby sister’s advice. If she was in charge, he would have already taken a leaf out of Richard Curtis’s book and done something horrendously embarrassing like chasing Kate down in the rain or running after her in an airport.

(He had spent Sunday helping Greg prepare for his upcoming Maths test and Hyacinth had demanded they keep her company in the den while they studied, despite the impracticality of her request.

Anthony had pretended not to notice her unsubtle film choices - Four Weddings and a Funeral followed by Love Actually. Notting Hill was cut short by Violet announcing dinner and he managed to feign an excuse and make his escape before Hyacinth could manipulate him into finishing it with her.)

When he had come up with his plan, fuelled by a late night scotch and Eloise grumbling about how hard it is to survive on the allowance Anthony gives her each term - as if she’s not an insanely privileged university student who will never need to rely on a student loan or a Saturday job to pay her way through UCL - it had seemed a good idea. He’d thought he’d found a way to show Kate that he cares while still respecting her request to never go near her again but it’s been a fortnight and he’s starting to worry that, somehow, Hyacinth might have been right.

Maybe a grand gesture really did need to be grand.

Maybe he had been too subtle.

His phone buzzes on the counter at the same moment that a barman drifts past to take the order of the women next to Anthony rather than Anthony himself and he’s not sure if his subsequent eye roll is due to being denied the opportunity to finally order a drink at a bar he doesn’t even want to be at or the content of the text that Colin has sent:

will’s offered me his spare ticket to edinburgh tonight. catch up next week instead?

Anthony’s reply is succinct:

jon stewart? gifs? it’s not 2009 anymore, ant.

He’s tempted to send a reply along the lines of another similar gif but he knows he’ll get far more satisfaction by refusing Colin’s plea for a larger withdrawal from his trust fund when he finally gets his act together to meet with Anthony face to face.

(There’s less than a year to go until Colin has free rein over his own trust fund and Anthony’s genuinely terrified of the damage his brother will unleash once he’s no longer in charge of the purse strings.

Last Christmas, he caught him searching how much it is to sail around the world and he swears he woke up the next day with five new grey hairs.)

Of course, that’s when the barman chooses to finally notice that Anthony is waiting for service. He’s about to dismiss him and make his exit when the all too familiar notes of Black Opium’s coffee and vanilla scent wafts over him and an all too familiar voice says, “He’ll have a glass of the Monkey Shoulder scotch, no ice, and I’ll have another Beauvoir cocktail please.”

He doesn’t need to look to know who the voice belongs to but he turns his head anyway.

It’s been almost two years since he last set eyes on Siena and she looks just as effortlessly confident and put together as she always did. However, since the last time he saw her ended with her delivering some harsh home truths - which he had spent the following six months dissecting in therapy - and slamming her front door in his face, he’s surprised when she greets him with a smile.

He’d always assumed that any future meeting between them would have involved an icy stare or even her blanking him entirely.

Instead, she kisses him lightly on the cheek and perches on the stool next to him.

“I wouldn’t have expected to find you somewhere like this,” she says, gesturing to the menu board that’s decorated with a variety of absurd cocktail names and their absurd prices with an amused smirk.

“It was Colin’s choice.” Siena and her low tolerance for bullshit means she doesn’t even bother to look around the bar and pretend that she would have any ability to recognise his brother - it’s not as if he ever brought her along to Sunday lunch to meet the family - but he explains anyway. “And then he bailed of course.”

The noise that Siena makes, nothing more than a murmur really, somehow speaks volumes and Anthony instinctively feels himself tense at the sound. If there was one sound that echoed throughout the final days of their abysmal attempt at a committed relationship, it would be that quiet judgemental vibration.

“What?”

He might restrain himself from rolling his eyes but it’s still audible in his tone. It unnerves him how easy it is for them to fall back into the old rhythms that defined the end of their relationship.

However, she proves to be the more prudent of the two of them because, although she opens her mouth to say whatever was on her mind, she shakes her head and clearly thinks better of it, choosing to sip at her freshly made drink instead.

“Let’s not fight, shall we? It’s none of my business anymore anyway.”

Once, he might have expected to hear disappointment or regret when she said those words but there’s not a trace of it to be found. The Siena who wanted to be in his life is long gone, a faded memory that he’s not sure ever really belonged to him.

“How are you?” she asks, eyes scanning his face in the unnervingly shrewd way of hers.

“Good,” he tells her automatically. “Colin’s off to Edinburgh tonight and Benedict’s taken mum out for the evening. Hyacinth broke her arm a few weeks ago but she got her cast off last-"

Siena’s unsubtle eye roll stops him mid-sentence.

There’s more bite in his tone this time when he asks, “What is it?”

“I didn’t ask how your family was, Ant.” Her tone is careful like she’s a skater gliding closer to the middle of a frozen lake - one wrong word and the delicate truce that allows them to have a polite conversation will crack and shatter around them. “How are you?”

He tries again. “Work is going well. We’ve just completed…”

Another eye roll.

“You asked how I was.”

“You. Not your family or your job. You. How are you?”

The question stumps him and the worst thing of all is that Siena doesn’t seem remotely surprised.

"Do you remember what I told you that night we ended things?"

Of course he does. 

"You told me I was lost."

“Right. When I told you that, this is what I meant. There were lots of reasons why we didn’t work but one of the biggest was because your family and your job always came first. They came before our relationship - if you could even call what we were that - and they came before you as well. You didn’t know who you were outside of your job and your family’s expectations. I don’t think you had a clue the entire time we were together.”

He opens his mouth to correct her but he closes it again at the realisation that she’s right.

“I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m saying it because you deserve to be happy. We all do. I’ve found my happiness and you should find yours. What do you want? What makes you happy?”

In another time, Siena would have sat with him and tried to help him through. Of course, in another time, he would have shut down her offer of vulnerability and bottled it all up, the exact thing that sent their relationship careening off a cliff and him into his therapist’s office again. If they were different people, she might have sat and talked with him about his life and shared with him about hers. However, they aren’t those people so she doesn’t stay. Instead, she kisses him on the cheek, nothing but a faint brush of her lips, and disappears to find whoever she is meant to be meeting, their meeting simply a fleeting moment in whatever her life is without him.

His identity beyond being CEO and the eldest brother slash surrogate father to seven chaotic siblings is the sort of existential crisis he’d normally only face while sat in front of his ludicrously expensive therapist; instead, he’s grappling with it in a bar he has no interest being in with only a glass of very average scotch for company.

Taking another sip, he settles for abandoning his drink, sliding a tip under the glass out of politeness rather than appreciation for good service, and prepares to leave. As he stands, he spots Siena at a booth in the corner, sandwiched between two women he doesn’t recognise who are hanging on to her every word and laughing in delight at whatever story she’s telling them. An uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability crawls up his spine at the idea that she’s telling them about him, the ex who almost dragged her down with him (his therapist had had a field day with that), but, a moment later, one of the women kisses Siena, soft and quick, and the delighted smile that flits across her face tells him that he’s the furthest thing from her mind.

He departs without another look in her direction but with her words ringing in his head - What do you want? What makes you happy?

He’d dismissed his driver for the night, assuming he could share a ride with Colin because he’d been meaning to stop off at Bridgerton House to help Fran with her politics homework, so he requests an Uber and, as the grey clouds overhead start to turn the December evening from cold and grey to drizzly and wet, Anthony darts into the nearest open shop to wait.

It turns out to be a bookshop, a second-hand one with shelves filled with an impressive medley of all different genres of books. Eloise would be in heaven here and Kate could probably spend an entire morning wandering the aisles.

The image of her browsing the shelves and offering him her opinions on whatever books catch her eye is startlingly clear in his mind. He can practically hear her grumbling in the classics section about why so many of the books are only declared classics because white men said so and he instinctively reaches for his phone to send her a photo of the cluttered shelves before he remembers that he lost that privilege the moment he lied to her.

He misses talking to Kate. He misses her silly late night messages, her appreciation for his enjoyment of gifs and seeing her number pop up on his phone at all hours of the day.

He wants Kate here with him. He wants to know what books she’d pick for herself and he wants to argue with her over who pays for them. He wants to take her to Callooh Callay just so she can roll her eyes at the absurdly named cocktails and insist they go somewhere else. He wants to know what side of the bed she sleeps on and what she looks like first thing in the morning and to finally know how it feels to kiss her.

He wants a chance with Kate.

He doesn’t know if he deserves one but he knows he wants one more than he wants anything else.

He’s about to leave and make some attempt to formulate a new plan when he opens the Instagram app, more out of boredom than habit, and Benedict’s latest post causes him to stop in the middle of the classics section.

It’s a photo of his mother holding a ridiculously large stack of books and Off the Shelf is helpfully tagged in the caption.

His phone is ringing before he even registers that he’s dialled Benedict's number.

“What did you do?” he hisses down the phone the moment his brother picks up.

“I assume you’ve just checked Instagram, dear brother.”

“It’s not funny, Ben. You took mum to her shop. You let her meet Kate.”

“Yes we did and Kate was delightful. Mum loved her and we had a good chat. She’s lovely.”

It might be childish but Anthony can’t control the jealousy that grips him at the fact that he’s alone and miserable while his family have been spending time with Kate who won’t even speak to him.

“I told you all to leave it alone.”

“If we left it alone, you’d still be miserable and missing her fifty years from now.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Eloise mentioned your scheme that you got her involved in.” Anthony curses his sister and her inability to respect him enough to keep a secret. “I swear we weren’t trying to make things worse or meddle.”

“Yet you did anyway.”

Benedict doesn’t acknowledge Anthony’s frustration. “Go and talk to her. Tell her you messed up and apologise. You want to fight for her then you can’t keep hiding behind gestures; you have to tell her. Actions need words too."

“And if she turns me down?”

There it is. The reason that’s kept him hiding behind anonymous gestures while respecting her request for space. With those, there’s no chance of rejection; he still has the possibility of a chance with Kate. However, the moment he talks to her and lays all his cards on the table is the moment that she can take that possibility away with one little word - no.

“You didn’t tell her who you were because you were scared of how she would react and it blew up in your face. Don’t make the same mistake again. You tried hiding and it didn’t work. Try something new.”

He hangs up, his brother’s words circling in his mind, and then he sees the book that’s in front of him on the shelf: an illustrated edition of Robinson Crusoe.

Benedict is right. Fear hasn’t gotten him anywhere. He needs to be brave, no matter how terrifying the idea of failing might be.

However, as he takes the book up to the man behind the till, he thinks that Hyacinth might just be right too.

There’s nothing wrong with a grand gesture. 

After all, aren’t those some of the bravest and most vulnerable moments of all?

His Uber driver barely blinks when he changes the destination and they head off across London, the copy of Robinson Crusoe in his lap and he scrolls through his contacts, looking for one particular person.

“I need your help again,” he says when they answer. “Are you at home?”

December evenings feel never-ending and even the comfort of her Spotify Christmas playlist and the twinkling lights she can’t bring herself to pack away for the move just yet aren’t much comfort against the darkness outside, especially with the rain that has been falling for the last couple of hours.

Kate’s weather app assures her that there’s no chance of storms but she’s been misled before and she’s determined to get home before the weather gets any worse.

There are two days left until Off the Shelf closes its doors for the final time but she has already begun the process of packing up what she can. The keys are due to be handed back to The Bridgerton Group over the Christmas period and she’d rather not spend the end of December boxing up a shop that’s a ghost of itself.

However, boxing up stock, ready for the move to Wandsworth at the end of the month is both mind-numbingly boring and never-ending. Every time she turns around, she swears there’s a new pile of books that weren’t there before.

Halfway through sorting through the cookery books, while Michael Buble croons about a Blue Christmas, she becomes aware of a banging noise from downstairs.

Acutely aware of the fact that she is alone, she grabs the heaviest book to hand - a hardback copy of A Storm of Swords - and tentatively makes her way down the stairs, the third step creaking underneath her feet like always.

The shop is empty. However, the light above the front door is on and standing there, in the pouring rain, a book in one hand and a tupperware container in the other is a thoroughly soaked Anthony Bridgerton.

Chapter Text

The shop is empty. However, the light above the front door is on and standing there, in the pouring rain, a book in one hand and a tupperware container in the other is a thoroughly soaked Anthony Bridgerton.

If asked, Kate will deny it until the moment she takes her final breath (and beyond that if necessary), but she has imagined this moment more times than she is willing to admit to anyone, even herself. The sequence of events that follows Anthony showing up at her door varies depending on her mood and the moment that has set the daydream in motion: being driven to boredom dealing with the minutiae of getting the shop’s new premises set up typically ends with her imagining slamming the door in his face; the emotional rollercoaster of boxing up Off the Shelf and diving into years worth of memories involves picturing the passionately angry tirade she could unleash upon him; and nights when sleep eludes her tends to lead to dreams involving far less passionate anger and far more passion of a different variety.

But now those daydreams are an actual reality and she finds herself frozen to the spot, unable to quite process what she is seeing.

Anthony must be freezing, standing there as the rain cascades down upon him. It’s December and the country has been in the grip of an icy spell for days now, and, like the fool he is, he isn’t even wearing a coat. His hair is plastered to his forehead and the weather shows no signs of relenting but he doesn’t even blink, as if the downpour is simply occurring around him while he remains impenetrable to it. Instead, while she stands there staring at him with what is almost certainly a gormless, dumbstruck expression upon her face, he simply smiles, waves the tupperware at her and waits. 

His unfazed attitude even as the rain continues to soak him is enough for her to regain the ability to move and she hurries towards the door, swinging it open and pulling Anthony into the warmth of the shop before he can get drenched any further. 

His hand is warm and large in hers and the sudden feeling of his fingers brushing against her own is enough to send her thoughts skittering wildly and she abruptly pulls away, not letting herself look to see how he responds. Instead, she busies herself with closing the door and spending far longer than anyone should locking it behind them. 

She is nervous. 

In her fantastical daydreams of this moment, she is poised, confident and says exactly the right thing. However, to her frustration, she feels the exact opposite of any of those things. Her heart is pounding in her chest and she’s hyper aware of Anthony’s proximity to her. 

She does not appreciate his ability to fluster her after more than a month apart. 

(She doesn’t want to think about what it means that he can leave her flustered so easily after only a few seconds in his presence.)

But Kate didn’t go through the loss of her appa and everything that came with that - abandoning her university dreams, coaxing Mary out of bed on her worst days, battling to keep Off the Shelf afloat, helping Edwina with her homework and making sure dinner was on the table while her friends were busy off experiencing the thrill and excitement of freshers’ life - to not have gained a significant amount of gumption so she steels her spine and turns to face Anthony. 

“Hi.”

It reassures her that he looks as nervous as she herself feels. 

“What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t intend her tone to be as blunt as it comes out but he has the decency to look sheepish, an expression that only increases as he holds out the tupperware she had seen through the door. 

“I brought you this,” he says, shoving the plastic container into her hands before scratching at the back of his neck, an air of awkwardness enveloping him as he does so. She notices that the tips of his ears are tinged with pink and she gets the sense she’s not the only one uncertain of how to navigate what comes next. 

“Thank you.” She takes it without even glancing at its contents. “If that’s all-”

“Wait,” he says before her hand has even reached for the lock. “Kate, I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

She stills and turns back around to look at him. Whatever she had expected from Anthony’s arrival, it wasn’t for his obstinate, arrogant self to offer her another apology after she had walked away from him, leaving whatever might have been between them in the dust.

(Her continuing attraction to someone that she describes with those chosen adjectives is something she has given up trying to explain to even herself.

If asked, Edwina would unhelpfully point out it’s because those qualities are ones that Kate is intimately familiar with.

There’s a reason Kate hasn’t raised this particular issue with her sister.)

“I should have been honest with you from the start,” he continues. “I’m sorry for lying to you, Kate. You deserved far better.” 

It’s not difficult to see how uncertain Anthony is, standing in front of her with his usual arrogance replaced by an uncharacteristic nervousness. 

And while Kate may have found some satisfaction in the tirades that she unleashed upon her imaginary version of Anthony, she is far less inclined towards anger now he is in front of her, apologetic and apprehensive. Also, his bedraggled appearance as water droplets drip intermittently from his dark hair and his soaked jumper clings to his distractingly attractive arms makes it even harder to summon up the rage that had fueled the hypothetical versions of this scene. 

Because the reality, the truth that fuels her next decision, is that she has missed Anthony. In a short time, he - both wrong number guy and the in the flesh version - had become such a large, essential part of her life and the void his absence left behind is one that Kate has no appreciation for. 

So while there may still be a part of her that wants to shout at him again and shove him out of the door without so much as a backward glance, she knows with a terrifying certainty that that chain of events would be the end of this, of them. 

So instead of pushing him out of the door and reasserting her desire to never see him again, she holds the tupperware up and examines what is inside. 

It’s chicken saag and rice, one of her preferred dinners on cold, rainy days. The smell immediately takes her back to childhood days when her appa would cook it for her while the rain thundered down outside and she smiles softly. 

“Why don’t I get us some forks and we can share this and…talk?”

Clearly Anthony had expected more of a battle to win the chance for her to hear him out because his eyebrows lift in surprise but she can’t fail to notice the spark of hope that lights up in his eyes too. 

It doesn’t take her long to rustle up some forks from the small staff kitchen in the backroom, along with a tea towel and a cheap bottle of wine left over from the Halloween storytime event, and when she returns, Anthony is browsing absentmindedly in the children’s section. 

“I would consider buying a gift for Hyacinth,” he tells her, gratefully taking the tea towel and doing his best to rough dry his hair, “but I gather that she has already been rather spoiled in this shop today.”

“I think the stacks of books she left with might have been taller than her.”

“That sounds about right.” He looks at her sheepish once more. “I didn’t ask them to come.” 

“I know.” 

“I wouldn’t-“ 

“I know.”

His shoulders sag in relief as if he expected her to think the worst of him.

“Maybe I was right that day in your office after all: you are an arsehole.”

Her words on that fateful evening ricochet in her mind. Perhaps it isn’t so surprising that he would assume she holds such a poor opinion of him after all.

With as much grace as she can muster, she drops down onto the colourful patterned rug that is a favourite of both her younger customers and Newton alike and gestures for Anthony to do the same. He does so and once he’s settled next to her, she pries the lid off the container and holds out one of the forks to him. However, rather than taking the utensil from her, he simply looks at her. 

“Kate,” he starts, his tone heavy and serious. “I’ve missed you.”

It’s an achingly vulnerable statement and it hangs in the air between leaving Kate to decide how to respond.

It’s a crossroad moment; she can feel that in her bones. If she chooses to, she can shut his admission down with only a few words, closing the door firmly to whatever she might have once thought could have existed between them. She can protect herself - her heart - from the danger of ever free falling into what more with Anthony could become. She can relegate him permanently to the realm of friend or acquaintance or nothing at all, sharing this food with him and sending him on his way with no risk of him ever being able to hurt her again. Anthony Bridgerton can become an embarrassing story she shares at dinner parties years from now, twisting the pain of his betrayal into a lighthearted tale about wrong numbers and dual identities. 

Pushing him away once and for all by denying that she has missed him as much as he has missed her would shield her from any risk of the heartbreak and pain that he might bring her way. 

It would be the safe, sensible option. 

But the words - It’s too late. It’s not enough. I can’t forgive you - stick in her throat, heavy and thick and wrong. Because Kate is tired. She is tired of pretending that she hasn’t missed Anthony every single day since that cab drove her away from him. She is tired of always being the one who makes the sensible, practical choices, the ones that involve no risk to herself or anyone else. She is so very tired of living for everyone else instead of doing something for herself. 

“I’ve missed you too,” she says, not quite able to look at him when she speaks but, when she does risk a glance up, it’s as if the sun has come out, a warm smile spreading across Anthony’s face and leaping over onto her own.

“Good.” He pauses and clarifies, a jumble of words stumbling off his tongue. “Not good in that I wanted you to be sad…not that you were sad…I meant that it’s good…”

She cuts him off. “Anthony. Eat.”

Rambling wasn’t something she would have thought he was capable of but it’s as amusing as it is endearing. 

Clearly appreciating her interruption, he finally takes the fork and scoops some chicken, spinach and basmati up before she does the same. 

The burst of flavours on her tongue is delicious; however, the mix of aromatic herbs and spices - cumin, coriander, a hint of turmeric - tickles at something in her mind and she quickly reaches for another mouthful. This one she savours and, when her eyes flutter close for a moment, she can vividly picture her appa standing at the stove, carefully adding each ingredient one by one and humming along to the radio horrifically out of tune. 

It’s a taste that’s familiar in a way that goes beyond pure nostalgia: she knows this meal. She’s eaten this before. She’s cooked this. She’s the reason this dish has been a staple in the Sharma household for twenty years. 

Her eyes fly open, her brow crinkles, and she looks over at Anthony who has regained the same sheepish expression he wore when he arrived. 

“You didn’t make this.”

“I did.”

“That’s not possible.”

It’s not possible that he’s brought her this let alone cooked it. But then he reaches for his phone and when he holds it out to her, she sees the last thing she expected: Edwina’s Instagram. 

What must be her most recent post is displayed - a photo of this exact dish and a caption pronouncing their father’s belief in the power of food and books to win someone over. And below that is a sentence that Kate has to read twice to believe: we’re putting that theory to the test @abridgerton. 

Kate blinks disbelievingly before swiping to the second picture in the post and she can’t stop the confused “ What?” that escapes her when she sees what is clearly a selfie of her sister and Anthony, faces pressed together in Kate and Edwina’s kitchen. Anthony’s holding the tupperware that’s now resting on the floor between them and Edwina has her fingers tightly crossed, an excited grin on her face. 

“I did have some help,” Anthony says, pulling her attention away from his phone screen but all Kate can do is stare at him in confusion. 

“I need you to start explaining what is going on.”

Her head is starting to hurt and she mindlessly takes another bite of the chicken saag, too distracted to even properly enjoy it. 

Anthony and Edwina haven’t ever met.

“You don’t even know each other.”

“We met at the Halloween event.”

Right. Edwina had somehow convinced Anthony to step in as the designated storyteller at Spooktacular Stories. 

(The photo of him in her handmade wizard’s hat is still in her hidden folder, one of the many survivors of Kate’s failed attempt at wiping Anthony Bridgerton’s existence from her phone.)

“And when my siblings started talking about romantic gestures, I eventually realised I was going to need some help so I waited at that coffee shop near your flat one afternoon until I saw Edwina, which she pointed out was a bit creepy, but she was willing to hear me out and then, eventually, she agreed to help me.”

He is rambling again and Kate thinks she might be more confused than she was at the start.

“Romantic gestures?” 

She really wants to understand what is going on but it feels like she is missing a key piece of the puzzle. 

This time, Anthony doesn’t say anything. He simply picks up a book from behind him, one she remembers him holding as he stood outside in the rain, and hands it to her. 

With a worn and faded cover, its age is apparent but the cover is still easy to read with the words ‘Robinson Crusoe’ printed in neat gold lettering above an illustration of the eponymous character. 

Kate’s first instinct is to laugh and the same instinct must be running through Anthony’s head because the two of them burst into laughter at the exact same time. 

“I saw it in this little secondhand bookshop in Chelsea and thought that no one else would appreciate it in quite the same way that you would.”

She laughs even harder. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it always.”

Jokingly, she clutches it to her chest and then she can practically feel the puzzle pieces finally beginning to slot into place. Her gaze flits between the book and the container of food before she suddenly snatches up his phone to re-read Edwina’s caption. 

To Anthony’s credit, he doesn’t say a word. He simply waits while she puts it all together, the confidence of his smile only betrayed by the nervous jiggling of his knee. 

“You brought me food and books.”

He nods. 

“My appa always said that those were the two best ways to win anyone over.”

He nods again and then adds, “I didn’t actually know that when I started this. Your sister was the one who told me after I filled her in on my plan and it felt like…”

He trails off but Kate fills in the blank in her head.

It felt like a sign. It felt like fate.

Then she mulls over what Anthony has just said.

A plan. One he started before he even spoke to Edwina. 

Kate wills her brain to hurry up and connect the final few dots.

(It would be nice if she could not be the one on the backfoot at some point during this conversation.)

And all of a sudden the naive hope that had sparked in her chest at the first couple of anonymous deliveries is back. It’s small and quiet but it’s there, alight somewhere deep inside of her, fluttering at the possibility that she had originally dismissed as ridiculous.

“The deliveries: the macarons, the doughnuts, the books.” The question balances precariously on the tip of her tongue and she is almost too afraid to ask it out of fear of disappointment but it tumbles free anyway, too important a question not to be asked. “Was that you?”

“Yes.”

A simple answer but the relief and hope that rushes through Kate’s body is anything but simple. It’s a torrent of emotion and confusion and promise.

“But I asked the delivery girl and she said it was a woman sending them?”

Anthony’s lips quirk into a wry smile. “That would be Eloise trying to preserve my identity. I had told her that the deliveries were supposed to be anonymous and it seems she actually listened to me for once.”

The name rings a bell from Benedict’s visit earlier. “Eloise is another one of your siblings, right?” 

“Yes. Although I suspect she only made the deliveries due to the nice boost to her allowance that I offered her rather than any appreciation for romance.”

It’s only when Anthony’s knee bumps against hers, making her breath hitch and goosebumps burst across her skin, that she realises that he’s subtly shifted closer to her. He’s near enough now that she can see the warm flecks of hazel and gold in his irises and the dark shadow of stubble that is beginning to creep across his jawline as night approaches. The deep, rich scent of his aftershave - notes of bergamot and sandalwood - is impossible for her to ignore when he’s this close and her heart begins thumping so loudly in her chest that Kate is sure he must be able to hear it. 

(He can’t. Just like she can’t hear Anthony’s heart pounding in the very same nervous rhythm.)

“I remembered you talking about those macarons when we first started talking.” There’s a flash of shame in his eyes before he looks down and rephrases his words. “When you started talking to somebody you thought was someone else.”

Kate desperately wants to allow herself to get wrapped up in the sweetness of his gifts but his words are an important reminder of the deception that caused them to be necessary in the first place. 

“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth that night in Soho?”

He doesn’t rush to answer. Instead he lets the silence between them linger while he carefully weighs his words as if he knows just how crucial it is that his next words are the right ones. 

(He does. He’s rehearsed a hundred different explanations lying in bed and sitting in meetings and on the taxi ride here. He knows he has to get this right. There won’t be another chance.

He knows these next words are a fork in the road for him and Kate - the difference between him being shown the door and never seeing her again or him maybe, somehow, against all odds, getting one more chance to be worthy of her.)

“I was afraid.” It’s vulnerable and honest and Kate knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that it’s the truth. “I’m the reason you’re losing this shop, your father’s shop, a place that you love so much. I assumed the only outcome would have been you hating me more than you already did.”

“You could have trusted me enough to let me decide how I felt, but instead, you lied to me.”

He ducks his head, a sign of the shame that he is feeling, and says, “I know.” Then he raises his head and his dark eyes look straight ahead into hers. “I am so sorry, Kate. I should have been honest with you. I should have trusted you. I can’t change what I did but I need you to know just how sorry I am.”

For a moment, she thinks he is going to leave it there, closing the door on whatever they might have become with a much-needed apology. 

Then he speaks again. 

“Sometimes I wonder…” 

She waits. 

“If I had been honest from the very beginning…or if I’d never even signed off on buying this building in the first place and you and I had met some other way, a way that meant you never hated me, what might our lives look like by now? Because I know that no matter when or where we met, I would have had no choice but to get to know you better. I wouldn’t have been able to wait twenty-four hours before asking you out to coffee and then dinner and then drinks and then anything and everything for…”

He cuts his sentence short, not willing or not able to share the end of it with her just yet. 

(It will be another year and eight months exactly before the seven words that complete that sentence will finally travel from Anthony’s lips to Kate’s ears - her stunningly beautiful in her red lehenga and him unfairly handsome in his morning suit while Mary and Violet try and fail to hold back their tears side by side - but they are most definitely worth the wait.)

“I’m not asking you to feel the same. I just need you to know how I feel, and know that ruining things between us will always be my biggest regret.”

Kate can feel the heaviness of what he is saying even though the weight and meaning aren’t truly comprehensible to her just yet.

(It will take months of late night conversations, ones that will take place encased in the darkness of Anthony’s bedroom when his exhausted head rests on her shoulder, for her to finally appreciate the weight of those words, to understand just how many regrets have burdened his shoulders at one time or another.)

He doesn’t stare at her expectantly or sit back and wait for her to reply like she thought he might. Instead, Anthony simply nods his head, stands up and begins to turn away from her, preparing to make his way back outside before Kate has even registered what he’s doing. 

He has said his piece with no expectation of anything in return, just like he had gone to Charlotte to fight for her without her even knowing. 

In that moment, Kate knows that Charlotte was right - that is a very rare thing indeed. 

And Anthony might be a fool - a ridiculous, arrogant, wonderful fool - but she would be just as much of a fool if she allowed herself to lose him now.

Before she has truly registered what she is doing, her arm reaches out and she grabs onto his wrist, anchoring him to her - keeping him with her. 

“Wait.”

It’s one little word and yet there are a hundred others carried within it. Don’t go. Don’t walk away from me again. I heard what you said. I accept your apology. I feel the same too. 

She might not say all that but the way Anthony looks at her, his gaze desperate and longing, lets her know that he hears every single word. He sees it in the same desperate, longing expression she knows is writ large across her face too because this man - this infuriating, aggravating, amazing man - has somehow become someone she needs in her life. It’s mad and ridiculous and there are a thousand and one reasons why she should let Anthony Bridgerton walk out of her life for good but the truth is simple and obvious: she doesn’t want him to. 

Kate has tried life without Anthony and she can truthfully declare that she is very uninterested in living like that ever again. 

He is a man of words, eloquent speeches and declarations that have left her heart racing, but as he moves closer to her, imposing into her space until all her senses are nothing but his aftershave and his piercing eyes and the heat radiating from his body, she knows he is most definitely a man of action too. 

“The gifts…” she says, trailing off as Anthony traces her cheek with his thumb, a burst of goosebumps dancing down her arm as he does so. 

“Yes?”

He’s so close that his nose is brushing against hers and every nerve in her body is humming in anticipation. 

“I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.”

It takes barely more than a minute movement, a simple, effortless lean, for Kate to kiss him, tasting the warm softness of his mouth that she has been craving for so long. Raising her hands up to cup his face, she feels the satisfying scratch of his evening stubble beneath her palms at the exact same moment that his arms wrap around her, pressing her body tight against his. 

He pulls away only long enough to say, “Finally,” the word little more than a whisper before they are kissing again, Anthony chasing her mouth with his and deepening the kiss, sliding his tongue against hers until her entire body is thrumming with electricity and desperation and want.

If this was a movie, this would be the moment where the music would begin to swell, her foot would pop and the credits would roll. But real life is so much better and Kate suddenly has nothing to do but finally indulge in the wonderfulness that is kissing Anthony Bridgerton and that is exactly what she plans to do for as long as she possibly can. 

“Stay,” she whispers as she pulls him back down onto the rug beside her. 

“Always.”

As if it was that simple. 

And the truth is, for Kate and Anthony, finally, it was.

I think my speech is crap.

you think or you know?

I know it’s crap. Absolute rubbish.

it’s not.

You don’t know that. You’ve not heard it.

i have. you’ve started reciting it in your sleep.

listen.

[audio recording 00:34]

KATE!

Delete that immediately.

nope.

it’s adorable.

you’re adorable.

You’re more adorable.

obviously

but you are adorable and your speech is not crap

it's perfect

your dad would be very proud of it and you.

You think so?

i know so.

this foundation and the speech and you - he’d be so proud of it all

just like i am

Thank you.

you’re welcome

now leave me alone to finish getting ready

i’ll see you at the gala

i’ll be the one in the crowd looking proud and adoring throughout your speech

I love you.

i love you too. 

i’ll also be the one fantasising about getting you out of your tux later tonight

just so you know