The back door opened, and suddenly two small children tumbled out laughing.
“Mama!”
Grace hit my legs first. Oliver was right behind her. Both wearing matching little navy coats. Both grinning like they had been holding in a secret all morning.
I dropped to my knees instinctively, hugging them so tightly that Grace squealed.
“Well,” I whispered, trying not to cry. “There are my babies.”
The driver stepped out a second later. Older man, gray gloves, perfect posture.
“Good morning, Miss Carter.”
I stood carefully, still holding Oliver’s hand.
“What’s going on?”
“Mr. Whitmore sent the car.”
My chest tightened slightly.
“Charles Whitmore?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I stared at him.
The twins had spent the night at Charles’s Chicago residence with their nanny while I handled inventory at the bookstore. That part was not unusual anymore.
The unusual part was the Rolls-Royce.
“Why?” I asked.
The driver gave a small, polite smile.
“Mr. Whitmore asked me to bring you personally to Lake Geneva.”
Behind me, Mrs. Delaney from next door opened her curtain so fast I nearly laughed.
Grace looked up at me innocently.
“Mama, are we going to the castle wedding now?”
And standing there in my old Ohio neighborhood, with rainwater still drying on the sidewalks, I suddenly realized something.
Richard Harper had absolutely no idea what was about to walk into his wedding.
The drive from Columbus to Lake Geneva took a little over six hours with two toddlers, multiple snack emergencies, and one stop outside Indianapolis because Oliver decided he absolutely could not continue living without apple juice.
By the time we crossed into Wisconsin, I was exhausted.
The twins somehow were not.
“Mama?” Grace asked from the back seat. “Do rich people have microwaves?”
The driver’s shoulders twitched slightly like he was trying not to laugh.
“I assume so,” I said.
“Then why do they always eat tiny food?”
That one made him laugh out loud.
His name was Walter, and by the second hour of the drive, he had loosened up enough to tell me he had worked for the Whitmore family nearly twenty years.
“Mr. Charles still drives his own pickup sometimes,” he told me. “Drives security crazy.”
That surprised me.
People in Richard’s world loved acting important, but the truly wealthy people I had met through the Whitmores often seemed strangely relaxed about proving anything.
Around four-thirty that afternoon, we pulled through the gates of the Whitmore estate overlooking Lake Geneva.
I had seen photographs before. They did not prepare me for the real thing.
The property looked less like a house and more like a private resort. Stone pathways. Massive white columns. Boats rocking gently near the dock. Hotel staff moving quietly across manicured lawns.
Grace pressed her nose against the window.
“Mama,” she whispered, “this place has too many windows.”
Honestly, she was not wrong.
Walter parked near the entrance, where two attendants immediately opened the doors for us.
The moment I stepped out, conversations nearby noticeably slowed.
I understood why.
A forty-eight-year-old bookstore owner arriving alone in a Rolls-Royce with twins was apparently interesting enough to interrupt cocktail hour.
I almost lost my nerve right there.
For one embarrassing second, I wanted to tell Walter to turn around and take me home. Not because I missed Richard, but because I suddenly remembered exactly how it felt to be judged by people with expensive clothes and polished smiles.
One of the attendants smiled warmly at the twins.
“And who do we have here?”
“I’m Grace,” she announced proudly.
“I’m hungry,” Oliver added.