Pride and Papercuts

by Staci Hart

  That, and potentially put us out of business for good.

  Ben and I didn’t speak as we rode the packed elevator to the eighty-fourth floor, and by the time the doors opened, I was prepared for battle. Bower might have pulled one over on my mother with this ridiculous contract, but those days were done.

  I’d be damned if she made a fool of me.

  We marched past the lawyer’s receptionist and into the boardroom where we’d been directed. Hellfire licked my heels and roared thunder at my back, though I knew I looked calm and unaffected. That impassive mask was always in place, the cool demeanor my armor. My family was reactionary, wearing every emotion not only on their sleeve, but on their faces and lips, and I was the steady one. The sensible one. The logic and reason to anchor their abundance of feeling. But that mask also kept everyone out, led them to assume I was dispassionate when I was just as excitable as the rest of them.

  Let Evelyn Bower think I was unmoved. Let her think me passionless. Because my control and restraint would be her undoing.

  The door handle was cool in my hand, the battle before me plain and clear, my focus singular, my resolve unwavering.

  Until I opened that door.

  Because sitting next to a snidely smiling Evelyn Bower was Maisie.

  My thoughts slid and clicked like pins in a lock as Maisie and I stared, dumbfounded, across the room. I heard the words from Evelyn’s mouth as if from some great distance, one sticking, then repeating on a loop as it dawned on me exactly who the girl at her elbow was.

  Maisie, the human pinball. Maisie, the sheep whisperer. Maisie, the thunderbolt.

  My Maisie was Margaret Bower.

  The daughter of my enemy.

  2

  Knock On Wood

  MAISIE

  Everything went on around us, but Marcus and I were caught in a moment, just like we had been in each other’s arms in the rain. Only this time, there was no magic. No shimmering possibility, no blossom of warmth. Just cold, hard realization.

  The man I’d just stumbled into in the rain was Marcus Bennet. The son of my mother’s sworn enemy.

  The reason for the feud was a mystery to us all. Beyond some long-standing dispute between our grandmothers, there was no reason for my mother’s dogged tenacity to ruin Longbourne and the Bennets. It wasn’t as if they were competition—their shop had been in decline for a decade or more, run aground by a drought orchestrated by my mother. On her way to build an empire, she had set out to raze the Bennets to the roots.

  And she’d succeeded. Stealing accounts. Tarnishing their name. She’d sink to any depths to make the Bennets feel small.

  Of course, this lawsuit business was low, even for her. That she’d taken out a contract to buy flowers from Longbourne was its own curiosity. But recently, the Bennets’ shop had started making money again, and Mother tugged on the chain she’d used to bind Longbourne, with the intent to heel them.

  Heel and geld, if she could manage it.

  My stomach turned over as Marcus and I stared at each other across the chasm that was the boardroom table between us. Of all the men in all the world, the sliver of hope I’d found in the drudgery of my life was a Bennet.

  “Your hair is a mess,” Mother said under her breath as everyone sat down. “You could have put in a little effort, Margaret.”

  “I can’t control the weather, Mother,” I answered, barely able to think with Marcus sitting across from me, his face cold and closed, flat but for the slightest crease between his brows.

  It was then that I realized the door to him—the one I’d only just opened—was firmly shut. And locked. And that he’d thrown the key into the Hudson.

  Our lawyer began to talk, but I didn’t hear a word he said over the thundering of my heart. This room was hell on a good day, but today, it was so deeply unbearable, I fought the urge to get up and walk out just to put a block between my mother and me.

  If Bower Bouquets was our religion, my mother sat on a throne in the clouds, frowning down at all of us, with her blonde hair coiffed into a flawless French twist and cool eyes unforgiving as she cast her judgments and delivered the consequences.

  And I was her favorite subject to exact her power on.

  I had been a disappointment to her for all of my living memory. As a child, I was too messy and loud. As an adult, I was naive and unambitious. My hair was too short, my appearance never to scratch. A little lipstick wouldn’t hurt, I’d been told. Heels would make me taller, more elegant, I’d heard.

  I was under no illusions—I would never please her, and I’d stopped trying. I would have wondered why I was here if I hadn’t known it had nothing to do with support and everything to do with control. The thing my mother wanted most in the world was to fashion me after herself. Once upon a time, I’d done as I was told. But thanks to my father, I was nothing like her, which served only to intensify her determination to restrain me. To force me into the box she’d built for me before I was even born.

  And she’d use every tool in her arsenal to make her dream a reality.

  The failure of her life was that I’d rather work in the charity division of Bower than the executive suites, a point that had prompted her to send me to England and subsequently lure me back to New York, where all the things I didn’t want awaited me.

  Little had I known there would be someone else waiting too. One I wanted badly and without question couldn’t have.

  Marcus sat silently across the long table, his eyes locked on Mother’s lawyer and mine locked on his.

  I should have known who he was when I saw him. I’d thought the familiarity I felt was magic, a chance meeting, a fated beginning. It had been too perfect for words. After a solitary, lonely life, something had flipped on, illuminating me. It was a glimpse of another world, one brighter and happier than the one I inhabited.

  And I’d floated away from him with the hope that maybe New York wouldn’t kill me after all.

  And then he’d walked into this room and shut off all the lights in my heart.

  Fate had intervened all right. Just not in the way I’d hoped.

  I tucked my hair behind my ear, the locks wavy from the rain. Mother wasn’t wrong—I looked a mess. The second I’d walked in, her jaw had come unhinged, but there hadn’t been enough time for a true dressing down. I’d get one—of that, I had no doubt—but I didn’t care. I didn’t care what she thought or about this stupid meeting. I didn’t care about the frivolous lawsuit or her absurd vendetta with Longbourne. All I really cared about in that moment was what the man across the table thought of me.

  Half an hour ago, he’d held me in his arms in the rain, the topography of his lean, rugged body leaving an impression against mine that I could still feel. I’d lost myself in the blue of his eyes, in the damp locks of his hair, black as a raven. He was majestic, his features touched with aristocratic grace. But those elegant lines were strong and square, proud and striking, the only incongruence his nose—the bridge flat near the top and shape that of a Spartan general, a Greek archer, a lean, battle-worn ancient. And he was just as mysterious, carrying a quiet air of command, of certainty and confidence that hadn’t only struck me then, but clung to me like the ghost of a scent.

  There in those arms, I’d felt inexplicably safe. Sheltered by his body as we ran for cover in the rain, I’d somehow known he wouldn’t let anything hurt me. It was such a rare thing, to feel protected. Perhaps nothing more than a testament to the power he emitted even now as he sat both feet away and a world apart.

  Even now, he drew the authority of the room without having to speak or even move. His eyes were stony, his jaw set in a determined line. Something in the way he sat in that chair, as if it were his throne and he were king of us all.

  That he could even come close to dominating a room with my mother was a feat of its own. And the fact that he hadn’t said a single word was a testament to that authority.

  My mother, however, had barely stopped talking. My guess was that she felt that sh
ift toward him and was grappling to get it back on her.

  “I think we can all agree that this lawsuit is frivolous and unconscionable, Mrs. Bower,” the Bennet lawyer said. “You took advantage of Rosemary Bennet when Longbourne was in disrepair with a deal that you knew would sink them. In exchange for Bower’s monthly wholesale flower purchase, you snuck in a clause that bound them to a noncompete no judge will back up. A noncompete, which is only binding on the loosest of terms. Are you saying you’re going to put your money and weight behind something so trivial?”

  “I’m saying that nothing has changed,” she said before her lawyer could, her back straight and nose in the air. “You called this meeting, but if you really believed you could convince me to change my mind, you’ve wasted your time. Longbourne is under contract with me. You breached that contract and thus damaged my business.”

  “Longbourne is not a threat to you, and it hasn’t been in a decade.” Marcus’s voice was calm, controlled, commanding. “This lawsuit will do nothing but cost you money.”

  Mother’s eyes narrowed. “It will do a great deal more than that.”

  “Is that a threat?” Marcus asked, and his tone sent a chill down my spine.

  But she smiled that smile reserved for the cameras or the cover of her magazine. “You Bennets have always had a flair for the dramatic.”

  Something in him tightened. “You’re suing us for a pittance in the hopes that it’ll sink us. I wouldn’t say we’re the ones being dramatic.” His gaze slid from my mother to her lawyer.

  To the dismay of her lawyer, Mother answered again, “Longbourne was promised five thousand dollars per month in exchange for flowers from your greenhouse. But you were not to compete with Bower. Your little flower shop grossed two hundred thousand in one quarter, which is expressly forbidden by the contract your mother signed. You’ve kept your business running illegally—”

  “Not illegally,” I said over her, “because this contract is unethical—”

  “And so you will pay me the overage or the agreed upon two million dollars for breaking the contract ahead of schedule. We are prepared to take this all the way to the end, Mr. Bennet. So think long and hard about what you’re willing to sacrifice for your honor.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said flatly as he stood, prompting us all to stand.

  Fruitlessly, I willed him to look at me. To make some kind of contact, anything to give me a glimpse into his thoughts. But there was a blank space where I should have been.

  No one moved to shake hands. Mother stood straight and proud, a cruel smile on her lips as she watched them leave.

  It wasn’t until the door closed that Mother and her lawyer sat. I, however, stood numbly at their side, caught in indecision. Because my only chance to talk to him slipped away with every second.

  “Well, that went well,” Mother said cheerily before she and her lawyer launched into their strategy to take down the Bennets.

  “Excuse me,” I muttered, adrenaline zipping through me, the decision made.

  “Where are you going?” Mother asked, her cheer instantly gone.

  “To the restroom,” I lied. “To … clean myself up a little.”

  “Too late for that, dear,” she said with snide superiority. But she turned to the lawyer again, dismissing me.

  My heart climbed up my esophagus and into my throat as I hurried around the table.

  I didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what I’d say as I rushed through the bullpen of cubicles. The open space afforded me a view all the way to the front desk, but I didn’t see him. Panic overwhelmed me. I had to catch him. He would never text me—of that, I was certain. I wouldn’t see him again until we had another meeting. This was it, and I couldn’t seem to stomach letting him go.

  I hurried toward the elevator without a thought, wondering over the likelihood of finding him. And I was too consumed by my thoughts to see the large, long hand reach out from a conference room and grab me by the arm.

  He pulled me into the darkness and closed the door behind us. If I hadn’t known it was Marcus the second he touched me, I’d have picked it up when met with the scent of him—clean soap, a hint of spice, the smell of rain. For a string of heartbeats, we stood there in the dark, his hands still on my arms and mine resting on his chest without knowing how they’d gotten there.

  “Did you know?” he finally said, his voice both tight with suspicion and tinged with hope.

  “I didn’t. I had no idea. Please, believe me.”

  A quiet sigh and a softening of his grip. “I do. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  Neither of us knew what to say. Or maybe we did but didn’t want to.

  “What are we going to do?” I breathed into the blackness, knowing when I spoke how he’d answer.

  “The only thing we can. We say goodbye.”

  Emotion seized me at the truth of it, squeezing my heart out of my throat and into my stomach. “Of course,” I said. “It would never work, would it?”

  The stroke of his thumb on my arm had me wishing with a deep desperation that I could see his face. “I can’t see how.”

  It was unbearable, being so close to him, my senses on fire as I mourned what would never be. I grieved the impossible future of his company, of his kiss.

  The thought struck me, the proximity to him conjuring flashes of imaginings. I wished I’d kissed him before we’d known. I wished we’d had just a moment, just one moment together.

  It was then that I realized I still could. Because this moment wasn’t over yet.

  I drew an unsteady breath. “If that’s all it is to be, can I ask something of you?”

  A pause before he answered, “Tell me what I can do.”

  “Kiss me,” I said with a terrifying bravery.

  His hands found my jaw, my cheeks, framed my face, the shape fitting in his palms as if one were cut from the other. But he didn’t come closer.

  “Please,” I whispered. “If this is all I can ever have, please leave me with this.”

  I could feel the longing in his fingertips, riding his breath, in the warmth of his body against mine. But as the seconds ticked past without an answer, dejection took the place of my hope.

  It was his nose that first reached me, that strong and straight nose brushing the bridge of mine, first one side, then the other. My tingling lips felt his breath, felt the space he occupied without touching as anticipation locked my lungs, fisted my hands around his lapels.

  One moment of indecision or persuasion or both.

  And then he gave up the fight.

  A soft brush of his lips against mine, a drag of connection as if he were charting the topography of my mouth for posterity. And when he was satisfied, those lips captured mine and held them captive.

  It was a kiss thick with hello and desperate with goodbye. It was a long and languid meeting of two people who would never be, a tasting determined to mark every sensation, to commit it to memory. We were a twist, his hands roaming my back, my face, my hair. My hands learned the shape of his jaw, as hard and sure as it appeared. They memorized the feeling of his hair, thick and lush, ruffling under my fingertips.

  For that brief and fluttering span of time, nothing mattered in the whole world except for his lips and mine.

  Though the kiss held no power over us, it was no match for the truth of our circumstance. And as that truth made itself known, our fever broke. Lips slowed, then stopped. Heavy breaths were the only sound in the room.

  Our foreheads met in the dark.

  I was only to feel the brush of his lips once more when he pressed a kiss to my furrowed brow.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he stepped away.

  “Me too,” I whispered back.

  He opened the door and stepped into the slash of light, the visage of him so striking, so right, I took a step toward him. Toward Marcus, tall and lean and beautiful, his face etched with regret.

  And then he was gone.

  With a painful exhale, I leaned against
the table at my back, found in the dark in my desperation to stay upright.

  And it wouldn’t be the first time or the last that I wished I wasn’t who I was.

  3

  Harbinger of Bloom

  MARCUS

  My hands weren’t the only thing shaking as I rushed out of the building.

  A trembling in my knees accompanied a rattle in my lungs, a tremor in my heart, a shuddering of my mind.

  I shouldn’t have kissed her. But I couldn’t help myself, not with her asking me so painfully, so gently, a plea echoed in the chambers of my heart. If we were only to have one kiss, it had been one for the books. That kiss had cracked my rib cage open, exposing me in a bald honesty I couldn’t have hidden, not from her.

  I’d only just realized my general disinterest in relationships had nothing to do with my inability to care and everything to do with the girls I’d considered for the job. I’d been waiting my whole life for a thunderbolt.

  When I met Maisie, I saw lightning.

  But it was the kiss that struck me down to the ground.

  Never once had I been consumed by a kiss. Never once had I lost a part of myself, a piece I wouldn’t get back, in the span of a hundred heartbeats. Never, not in a thousand years, did I believe desire could burn so deep that it could make a mark I’d never erase.

  I’d be crazy to let her go. For a moment, there in my arms, I didn’t know if I could.

  But I didn’t have a choice.

  I stepped to the curb, held up a hand, confused and disoriented and filled with regret. Not for the kiss. But for the knowledge I’d never kiss her again.

  Blindly, I slipped into a cab and gave the driver my address, uncertain I could have made my way home on the subway. My luck, I’d have ended up in Queens. So I sat in the back of the cab as it carried me home, trying to collect myself, which was as sporadic and tedious as picking up spilled marbles on a busy sidewalk.