Pride and Papercuts

by Staci Hart

  Margaret Bower.

  Margaret fucking Bower was Maisie, and nothing in my universe made any sense.

  I hadn’t seen a photograph of her in years. She’d tucked herself away in college on the West Coast somewhere and afterward, she left for England to work in their British division with her aunt. I only knew because my mother knew, and my mother’s favorite topic of gossip was the Bower family. I knew Evelyn wanted to pass Bower on to her daughter, and we all assumed she was ready and willing to take over, if Evelyn ever let go of the reins.

  Although I figured it would be more of a cold, dead hands situation than a willing turnover.

  Either way, the Margaret I’d created in my mind had been groomed for this. She had studied and trained and was back in New York to take her place at her mother’s side. But the cruel, evil duplicate of Evelyn I’d expected Margaret to be wasn’t even in the same neighborhood as Maisie.

  She wasn’t even in the same solar system.

  But that fact didn’t change our circumstance. She was the heiress to Bower Bouquets. And I owned Longbourne, which her mother had set out to destroy. In fact, there was a very high likelihood she would.

  Heavy dread settled me, steadied me, anchored me to the ground like a stake. The future of the flower shop and my family hung in the balance. And it all landed on me.

  I’d known when I put all my savings into taking over Longbourne, its debts and its waning business, that it was a risk. And I was risk averse. Not in the sense that I didn’t like a good gamble—years on Wall Street and day trading couldn’t be stomached without a desire for a thrill—but my gambling came only after ensuring my security with heavily padded investments. Never would I have bet the farm. Until this. Until now.

  My family needed me—their livelihood depended on it. So I did what I could by taking the wheel. We’d turned the shop around, finally climbing toward the black after years of empty pockets and bad accounting.

  But I should have known things were going too smoothly.

  If only she’d told me, all of this could have been avoided. If she’d come to me when the shop fell into decline, I could have stepped in. I could have managed the business better, fired her accountant, invested their money. I could have patched the holes to keep the ship afloat.

  I could have stopped Mom from signing that contract with Evelyn Bower.

  Now it was my responsibility to set things right, and I didn’t take that lightly. I was the only one equipped with the tools to save them, so I rolled up my sleeves and dove in headfirst.

  I’d be goddamned if I saw my family laid to waste when there was a chance I could stop it.

  Even if Evelyn Bower had made it her mission to ensure we wouldn’t succeed.

  And at her right elbow was her daughter.

  Her daughter who I’d just kissed.

  Her daughter who I’d only see in boardrooms and, if Evelyn had her way, in courtrooms.

  Her daughter who I wanted to take on a date. And another date. And more. So much more.

  It was beyond reason, and I struggled to accept it.

  When the cab pulled to a stop in front of my family’s home, I had no answers. But I’d pulled myself together, and that was saying something.

  As I climbed the steps to our old Victorian brownstone, a wave of worry washed over me. This house—which we just might lose—had been in my family for a hundred eighty years when my independently wealthy ancestors migrated from England to try their hand at American capitalism. They bought a handful of properties in Greenwich Village, all in a row on Bleecker, built a greenhouse in back, and turned one into Longbourne. Through the generations, the shop had been passed down to the women of the family, finally landing on my mother.

  But Mom had no head for business, as she was accustomed to saying, and somehow, I hadn’t known how bad things were. I counted it as one of the failures of my adult life, not picking up on the trouble she was in.

  The first hole in the boat had been the internet, and the second had been Bower Bouquets.

  The rise of e-commerce and online flower orders flummoxed my mother, and either out of denial or fear, she pretended like it wasn’t a thing, like it didn’t exist. Slowly, business waned, and she’d thought it would work out, that it was a fad. So she flat-out refused to participate, probably because the thought of figuring it out was all just a bit too much.

  Evelyn Bower didn’t. She’d embraced the new avenue of business, investing heavily and buying into internet distribution. And in what felt like a snap, Bower was a household name.

  Bower and Longbourne had been rivals for all of living memory, though how the feud had started was up for debate. Gram never liked to talk about it, only said they had questionable morals and an abundance of unkindness. But Mom loved to dish, and in her story, the Bower women were cursed, unlucky in love and left with bitter hearts to show for it.

  It had begun with my grandfather and Felicity Bower, a notorious prig and debutante with a family tie that had them promised to each other practically from birth. It was expected of them, written in stone as far as their parents were concerned. But on some fated night, as Mom liked to say, he met my grandmother at a party, and with little more than a look, he was a goner.

  The jilting of Felicity Bower became the topic du jour of their elite high society, and publicly humiliated, Felicity set out on the warpath with my grandmother in her sights.

  Of course, my grandmother was an industrious, resourceful businesswoman—my mother attributed my head for business and sums to her—and as such, Felicity had no impact on Longbourne, no matter how she’d tried to interfere. It was a shortcoming her daughter, Evelyn, made up for.

  Felicity married a man who would let her have her little shop and all it encumbered, and in turn, she left him to his dalliances. They were, by all accounts, perfectly content in their misery. Evelyn did no better. I’d met her husband enough times to know that I liked him, which left me wondering what the hell he was doing with the devil’s daughter.

  Margaret I’d never formally met.

  I’d seen her across the room a few times at the big parties our families used to attend, before the Bennets fell out of fashion and favor. But I never would have connected that the teenage girl in the corner with her nose in a book was the vibrant, blushing girl who’d just barreled into my life.

  The one girl in a million.

  The girl who hadn’t just caught my attention.

  She’d commanded it.

  Of all the shitty, unjust luck, I thought with a sigh as I unlocked the door and stepped into the warm foyer.

  The house was a living thing, powered by the ample energy of my family. And it had always been this way. The grand entry had greeted dozens of Bennets over the years. The polished staircase had weathered many a thundering footfall from the small army of children who had lived here over the decades. The paneled walls and parquet floor spoke of an era long gone—elegant and stately and timeless.

  It was also an unholy mess.

  Baskets and paper bags stood like footmen on the stairs. Shoes and backpacks and bags lay strewn over that shining parquet like casualties of a lost battle. The hooks lining the wall were laden with layers of coats and hoodies and hats from every season. I’d bet good money none of them had ever seen a closet.

  The mess had always disturbed me on some deep and elemental level. As the middle child of five Bennets, I’d somehow ended up with my own room, which had always been the only clean room in the five-thousand-square-foot house. Every other room, hallway, and staircase revealed a hodgepodge of scattered things, not enough to constitute hoarding or an embarrassment. Just enough to feel forever untidy—a result of so many Bennets in one place.

  It had gotten worse since my siblings came home to help save the shop. Though we were all adults, I was still the only one who actually put my clothes in the hamper and my dishes in the sink. Not that my mother had ever been tidy. And not that anyone blamed her, especially since rheumatoid arthritis had gnarled
her hands to near uselessness.

  I gave up looking for a clean spot in the entryway and set my briefcase next to the door. My family’s voices carried into the foyer, happy, cheerful, laughing voices filling a room that I was about to suck all the joy out of.

  Such was my role in our family. Forever the bearer of bad news.

  I followed the sound, finding them in the kitchen where I’d known they’d be. Dad had foregone his dining room seat—a preferred spot for the small amount of solitude it provided—in favor of a seat at the smaller table in the kitchen. Surrounding him was the rest of my family. Laney at his side, eternally Daddy’s girl. Luke and Kash at the end of the table, ganging up on Laney, if I had to guess by her expression. Jett stood at the stove, occasionally chiming in as he stirred something in a pot. Tied around his neck and waist was an apron the color of a lemon, dotted with big white daisies.

  And my mother sat at my father’s left hand, holding that hand with her eyes on his wedding band, curiously quiet. It was not in her nature to be silent, nor was it in her nature to look so solemn, so worried.

  When she looked up and saw me, I knew her quietude was a direct result of what I was about to drop on them.

  The room hushed when I entered. Kash met my gaze and held it, his face instantly grim.

  “What’s the news?” he asked for everyone, knowing none of them actually wanted to know.

  “Evelyn Bower has no plans to back down,” I answered as simply as I could.

  The room deflated.

  “Damn her,” Mom hissed, but her voice shook. “There’s only one reason she would do this, and it’s to end us.”

  I nodded. “Seems that’s the goal. Ben believes we can win. But Evelyn seems to be set on putting us in the ground once and for all, and she has some of the best lawyers in Manhattan.”

  “If she’s not backing down, neither are we,” Laney started, straightening up. “She’s wrong. This whole thing is wrong, and any judge would agree.”

  “What’s right and fair doesn’t matter with the right lawyers,” I said. “Nothing is a sure thing, not until it’s done. And we are a long way from being done.” I couldn’t bring myself to sit, not with dread simmering through me like bubbling poison. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, and I don’t know what it’s going to cost in legal fees. If we lose, we’ll lose everything. The greenhouse. The shop. The house. Everything. And so I can’t make this decision alone. Because if we fight, we risk it all.”

  “We have to fight,” Luke said without hesitation. “We won’t lose.”

  “You don’t know that,” I noted.

  “What happens if we roll over?” Kash asked.

  “We either close Longbourne’s doors, or we comply to the terms of the contract—grow flowers for Bower alone, turn our profits over to them, and continue to take our monthly allowance. But the truth is, we can’t survive on that allowance. We can’t repay our debts and rebuild our business under these terms, and Evelyn knows it. Any way we look at it, giving in means losing everything.”

  “Then we have no choice,” Kash said darkly. “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

  “We’d still have to file bankruptcy if we lose, but yes. If we win, we win big.” I turned to Mom. “What do you want to do?”

  She was straight in her chair, her blue eyes filled with regret and tears. “I don’t know that I have a say, not after putting us here in the first place.”

  “Of course you have a say,” Laney said gently. “You have the biggest say. What do you want, Mom?”

  “To go back in time. Is that an option?”

  Quiet laughter filled the room.

  Mom sighed. “I’d like to fight. I feel that I owe it to all of you to fight. But I want you to decide. I’ll leave my fighting with Evelyn for garden club. At least there, I have shears to defend myself with.”

  “Does anyone object?” I asked, scanning their faces.

  But they shook their heads in dissent just like I’d known they would. Because if there was one thing Bennets always did, it was stick together. Thick or thin. Rain or shine.

  Especially when it came to our opposition to Bower Bouquets.

  And to my sorrow, everyone in it.

  Including Maisie Bower.

  4

  Bitter Pill

  MAISIE

  “I cannot believe you showed up to that meeting like this,” Mother said, gesturing to the length of me.

  “You’ve mentioned.” I turned my gaze out the Mercedes window as we pulled away from the curb. “Would you have preferred me to go home and change first? I was late as it was.”

  “I would have preferred you not disobey me. This was not part of the agreement—you were to go to and from work with me, live under my roof. One year, Margaret. You have one brief year to prove you’re responsible enough to do what’s asked of you, and you’ve already failed.”

  “You were the one who refused to take me with you this morning.”

  The temperature dropped several degrees. “That meeting was none of your concern. And you should have listened to me—if you had, you wouldn’t have ruined your dress. I’d ask when you were going to learn I know best, but we both know you likely won’t.” She ignored my sigh. “At the very least, you could have gotten a cab. But the subway?” She shuddered in my periphery.

  “Millions of people take the subway.”

  “You are not one of them.” She smoothed her skirt. “I’d almost say you got what you deserved, if I wasn’t so appalled at your display this morning.”

  My heart lurched at the thought of Marcus and the ghost of his kiss even though I knew that wasn’t what she meant. It was just that it was the only thing on my mind. The only thing that seemed to matter, if for no other reason than my mother stood in the way of something I wanted. Again.

  “Of all days, Margaret,” she huffed. “You know how important this is to me.”

  “Taking down a tiny flower shop just to be petty doesn’t seem all that much of a priority. You run a multibillion-dollar company. Why you’d spend your time sinking the poor Bennets is beyond me.”

  My bitterness was unmistakable, and I couldn’t have schooled it if I tried. Her inexplicable, small-minded dedication to the destruction of Longbourne was the reason I would never speak to Marcus again. And as a result, I had nothing charitable to say to her.

  Her voice lowered an octave, sharp as a razor’s edge when she answered, “Because the Bennets take things that aren’t theirs. They believe themselves to be above their station, and I’d like to put them back in their place.”

  I couldn’t even look at her for certainty I’d say more than I already had, which was too much.

  “I can’t see why you care,” she said as stiffly as her back. “The Bennets have never been anything to you.”

  And thanks to you, they never will be.

  “They’re human beings,” I said, knowing it was useless. “Isn’t that enough reason for compassion?”

  “Compassion? For the Bennets? Your grandmother just rolled over in her grave.”

  I watched out the window as it began to rain again. Fat droplets hit the windows and streaked like comets across a glassy sky, and I wished on one of them that I could go back to England. Having an ocean and a five-hour time difference between me and my mother had become a crucial necessity in my life. One I hadn’t fully realized until I came back.

  Of course, that was its own necessity. England had been a respite, a temporary stay of execution, and we’d all known it.

  My mother had made herself a household name, hitched her wagon to 1-800-ROSES4U, and cashed in big. Bower Bouquets could be found in strip malls all over the country, and we distributed flowers all over the world. There were Bower books on floral design with my mother’s face on the covers. The floral magazine Mother had started in the nineties was one of the largest on the market, sitting right next to Star and US Weekly in the checkout line, and unsurprisingly, she featured herself on every cov
er. Making appearances on the most popular talk shows and national morning shows was just a regular Tuesday, and she hobnobbed so successfully that she received annual invitations to all of the awards shows and the Met Gala.

  Evelyn Bower was a force of nature so powerful, she single-handedly fueled an entire corporation on her energy.

  And then there was me.

  The great disappointment of my mother’s life was that I wasn’t a duplication of her, complete with a matching French twist and superior tilt of the chin. Though it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. In fact, until a few years ago, I had been the model daughter, doing all she asked in the hopes that I’d win her approval.

  But my mother was no fool—she knew without question that I was nothing like her. Perhaps she thought me weak for wanting to please her so badly. Or the tenderness of my heart, which she so often criticized me for. It was no secret that I was disinterested in notoriety or fame, and I had zero desire to appear on television or write books or wear dresses to an award show that cost six times what most people spent on their monthly mortgage. But I did as I was told with a genial smile and a wish that maybe if I did things right, she’d be the mother I’d dreamed of when I was a little girl.

  Two years ago, that dream had died in a fiery crash that left nothing but truth and ashes.

  Evelyn Bower didn’t care about anything but herself.

  I’d come to Bower after college, bright-eyed and idealistic about my future at our family company. Proud of my legacy and honored to be in the line of women who had inherited it. There was good to be done in the world, and Bower had all the resources to do it.

  In my hand was a project I’d come up with in school, an idea that took root in my mind and the foundation of my heart. The concept was simple—the center was a community outreach program that turned vacant lots into parks with gardens. And not only for flowers.

  For food.

  The vegetables we grew were then used in a soup kitchen we ran, and all of the landscaping, cooking, and management was done by volunteers and the homeless people the soup kitchen served. We taught skills and connected the homeless we served with jobs—the landscaping and construction companies hired half of the workers who volunteered in production. After that first year, some of our volunteers even ended up in management of the kitchen and groundskeeping.