He's a cynic. She's a romantic. One deal, one wedding, and one gigantic secret stand between them.
**
Harper Lane wants to believe in true love. After her parents split, she began photographing evidence of it. Couples holding hands. Valentine's Day...
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This, Lawson thought, was his idea of hell.
The sleek white kitchen was overrun with dishes. Silver bowls were piled in the sink, sticky with salted butter, and wooden spoons littered the marble countertops. Even the fruit bowl — overflowing with mango, bananas, and what Lawson suspected was a pink pineapple — had managed to get covered in cookie dough.
Moira stood in the center of all of it, a determined conductor, wearing a frilly apron with flowers that hadn't seen the light of day in at least 10 years. It wasn't that his mother was fussy, Lawson reasoned — heaven only knew, she spent most of her days in the garden, getting dirt caked under her fingernails.
No.
It was that Moira hated baking.
And yet, here she was.
Baking.
His father had joined them too, which only confirmed Lawson's suspicion that someone tipped Moira off about their arrival; Anthony Hale spent every Saturday morning golfing at the local sports club. He cancelled his tee-time only if someone had died, was actively dying, or if the country went into a state of national emergency.
Or, apparently, if Harper Lane was visiting.
Lawson looked at the girl in question. Harper was examining the framed photographs on the wall, toying absently with the end of her braid. Several strands had come loose, curling around her face. She tapped a photo of a scowling brunette girl in Mickey Mouse ears.
"Is this Paige?" Harper asked.
Moira smiled. "Yes. Wasn't she darling?"
"Oi!" Paige scowled, looking uncannily like the photograph. "I still am darling. And I still hate mascots, too. They're just so creepy."
His sister was seated at the kitchen table, a book on Monet's greatest works propped open in front of her. She was sitting cross-legged — a habit that Moira always chided her for — innocently pretending to read as she studied Harper. And Lawson knew that Paige was pretending; his sister hadn't flipped a single page since their arrival.
Moira shrugged on an oven mitt. "Does anyone want a lemon biscuit?"
"Not if there's lavender in them," Paige said immediately.
"There's always lavender in them," Lawson warned, turning to Harper. "Lots of it. Just as a heads up."
Harper winked. "I'll take my chances."
Lawson drifted closer to the table, examining the jumble of glossy photographs. Moonlight-coloured freesia. Dutch tulips. Buttery roses. He hadn't doubted that Harper was talented, but to see it was a whole other thing.
"These are beautiful, Harper," Anthony said.
His father had moved closer, his green eyes — so like Lawson's own, according to most of their acquaintances — roaming thoughtfully over the collection. Harper flushed.
