by Staci Hart
“Well, if I can help, I will. Are you heading down to the charity division now?”
I took a breath, reached for that joy, and grabbed it. “I am. We have to take what we can get, right?”
“That’s the spirit. I’ll call down and let them know you’re coming.”
“Thanks, Shelby.”
“Anytime,” she answered.
I made tracks for the elevator, leaving my mother behind me as best I could. But I was left with the unsettling feeling that all of this was to break me so she could remake me in her image. And all I wanted to do was bolt.
But then the elevator doors opened to the charity division of Bower, and I was reminded of all the reasons to stay.
Where the executive offices upstairs were a stoic, impatient array of suits and tidy hairstyles, the charity offices were their humming, happy contrast. It was all smiles, messy buns, and scruffy faces. Music floated around the bullpen. A burst of laughter rose above the murmur of chatter. I even caught sight of denim.
It was a whole new world.
I found myself smiling right back at everyone, light and easy, the tension in my shoulders easing with every step. As I wound my way through the cubicles, a hush fell in my wake. I’d come to expect it—the general consensus was that I was a carbon print of my mother, and everyone either feared my mother or loathed her, some both.
So I made it my mission to prove them wrong.
In the back of the floor, there were no opulent corner offices like my mother’s but instead a row of smaller rooms that housed the upper management of the charity division. And in the biggest of those, I found the person I’d come looking for.
Jess popped out of her chair, bounding around her desk with arms flung wide.
“Maisie!” she said just before launching herself at me.
I caught her with a laugh. “I missed you too.”
She leaned back, looking me over. “I can’t believe she actually let you come down here to hippie alley.”
I sighed. “It wasn’t without convincing. Or a leash.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. Come here and sit,” she said, moving a stack of papers and binders out of a modest chair and onto a similar pile on the shelf behind her. “God, I can’t believe you’re actually here.” She took a seat, her face alight.
“And I can’t believe you’re running the place. I always knew you’d do it.”
She laughed. “It’s all thanks to you. If you’d never gotten me hired at Bower, I wouldn’t be working my dream job.”
“Being the boss’s daughter sometimes has its perks.”
She scoffed. “Steep price, if you ask me.”
“Not if it gets the perfect people to run the best department.”
“Flatterer,” Jess said with pink cheeks. “God, I’m so glad you’re back. I feel like I’ve been waiting a lifetime to see this day.”
“I didn’t think it’d ever come, if I’m honest.”
Her smile faded. “Another steep price?”
“Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. But I’m here, and that’s what matters.”
“So what’s your plan?” she asked. “We got word that our budget is expanding and the request that we allot resources in whatever direction you choose.”
“Well, that’s where you come in. I’d like to start with a new center, I was thinking in Hell’s Kitchen. We can use the model for the first, train some new people, take our best to the new center to get it up and running. Start recruitment. What do you say?”
Jess smiled, a broad and honest and beautiful expression on her face that filled me with hope. “I’d say, when can we start?”
7
Settle Down
MARCUS
“Again,” I said flatly, glancing from my mother to the legal pad in my lap.
“I don’t see why any of this is necessary, Marcus,” she blustered, adjusting the drape of her cardigan.
“It’s necessary because you will be in a room with Evelyn Bower, answering deposition questions under oath. If you’re not prepared, we’re all in trouble.”
“And Evelyn will have a field day,” Luke said from my side.
I ignored him. “Now, let’s try it again. When you signed the contract with Evelyn Bower, were you of sound mind and body?”
“You know very well that I was,” she answered, nose in the air.
“A simple yes or no will do. Keep your answers short. Don’t elaborate. Yes or no?”
She gave me a look. “Yes.”
Luke snickered from my side, covering it with a cough, which bought him his own glare.
“Did you have legal counsel regarding the contract?”
Her cheeks flushed, lips flattening. “No.”
“Did you read through the conditions of the contract?”
A hard swallow. A moment of silence. “It was a very long contract.”
“Did you read through the conditions of the contract?”
Her brow quirked. “There were a lot of clauses and sub-thingies and—”
“Yes or no?”
She drew a fiery breath. “No! I didn’t!” Her eyes shimmered with tears, her chin wobbling. “I was foolish, and I can barely admit it. How will I say the words in front of h-h-her?”
The ache in my chest twisted. “I know, Mom,” I said softly, setting my pad on the chair as I stood, moving to kneel at her feet. I captured her gnarled hands with mine. “But they’re going to ask these questions, and in preparation, you have to say these words until they don’t hurt. Evelyn Bower will be in that room. She will witness and delight in every word you speak. So you’re going to have to find a way to swallow your pride. It’s happening whether you want it to or not. It’s up to you to decide if you want to handle it with grace or vanity.”
She sniffled, turning her hands in mine to hold them. “You’re right. You’re always right, you know. What would I ever do without you?”
“Oh, you’d figure it out. You always do.”
“No, I don’t. Even when you were little, you seemed to always know where to find my keys or my other shoe or my coat when I needed it. You knew better than I did when I needed to pick someone up from soccer practice or baseball tryouts.”
Luke scoffed. “Well, after you left me there the sixth time, somebody had to step in.”
She ignored him with practiced skill. “I never once had to tell you to clean your room. Tell me where you got that gene because I’d truly like to know.”
I chuckled. “I liked knowing where things were, that’s all.”
“And being helpful. You always liked being helpful,” she said, removing her hand from mine to cup my jaw.
At that, Luke snorted a laugh. “You mean he liked to be a know-it-all.”
“Well, if you could find your ass in the dark, I wouldn’t have to be,” I shot over my shoulder.
He shrugged. “I’d argue, but you’re not wrong.”
“No, he’s not wrong at all,” she said. “It’s lucky for all of us that you’re here. Otherwise, we’d be in far more trouble than we already are.”
“We would have had to close Longbourne,” Luke added.
“Well, I haven’t saved it yet,” I said. “Are you ready to go again, Mom? I’m afraid there are harder questions than this to answer.”
Her nose wrinkled in distaste, her eyes flicking to the door. “I could use a cup of tea, couldn’t you?” She stood, nearly knocking me over. “Yes. I’ll go make some tea, and we’ll do this later. After, I mean.”
I sighed but smiled, sliding my hands into my pockets. “Thirty minutes,” I called after her.
“Hmm? Chai Rooibos?” she asked over her shoulder as she left the room, her voice disappearing down the hallway. “No sugar, just like you like it! Anything you want, dear!”
Luke shook his head from the armchair where he lounged. “She’s a mess.”
“It’s genetic.”
His smile faded. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to let her answer questions? I
can’t see it being anything but a disaster.”
“We don’t have a choice.” I did my best to curb my impatience. “Her signature is on the contract.”
“How many months do you have to get her ready?” he joked.
“Depositions start next week,” I said anyway. “And hers is the name they’re waiting to destroy.”
He loosed a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe they’ve called everyone. Even Dean, and he only delivers supplies. Tess is freaking out. She’s had me drilling her for the last two days.”
“They didn’t stop there. A few women from the garden club are even on the list, and I can just about guarantee they won’t be there to support Mom. Not with Evelyn running the club and especially not after last week.”
A dark look touched Luke’s face. “God, I hate Evelyn Bower. Our grandma started that stupid garden club, so what right does Evelyn have to stage a coup?”
“To be fair, I’m surprised Evelyn didn’t oust Mom years ago.”
“The look on her face,” he said quietly, staring at nothing. “When she came home with that look on her face, I swear to God, Marcus. I could have burned that place to the ground so none of them could have it.”
“It’s been the bright spot in her life since she was a teenager. Damn Evelyn for taking that small joy from her too.”
“Can you imagine growing up in a house like that?” he mused. “That whole family must be a pack of wolves. They don’t eat turkey for Thanksgiving—they eat each other’s livers.”
My heart flinched at even the sidelong mention of Maisie. “Well, there’s no avoiding them. Her—Evelyn, that is. She’s on the hunt for our livers at present, and if we don’t get Mom in order, I may as well hand her a—”
“Bib with a lobster on the front?”
“I was going to say a knife, but that works too.”
“I heard Mom saying Evelyn was dragging Margaret around with her to all the legal happenings. Is that right? Have you seen her?”
I stilled all the way down to my veins. “Yes.”
Luke didn’t notice. “What’s she like? A little clone of Cruella? I bet she’s a toady, all Botoxed and superior and precious.”
“She’s …” I didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t think she’s anything like Evelyn.”
He frowned. “No? I don’t know how that’s possible with a mother like hers. She’s got all the warmth of a lizard. Think Evelyn is grooming her? Think Margaret wants to throttle her mom in her sleep, or does she have a shrine of Evelyn in her closet? And most importantly—is she cute?”
“Don’t ask me questions about her, Luke,” I snapped. “How the hell should I know?”
He made a face and held up his hands in surrender. “Jeez, sorry. I’m just curious, is all.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s fine,” I grumbled, taking my seat again and pretending to scan the questions on my notepad in an effort to avoid looking at him. “How’s Tess? Haven’t seen her around much lately.”
“She’s good, just busy working on her book. Plus, we got another editorial feature for Longbourne, and we’ve been working on designs for the windows. The rest of the time, she’s at home with her dad.”
Home wasn’t just Tess’s—Luke had moved in with Tess and her dad a few months ago. Other than a weekly family dinner and visiting them at the shop, we didn’t see much of him.
Luke wasn’t the only one. Kash had moved in with his girlfriend a few blocks away, and he was the one I’d thought would never leave home, having never left in the first place. The rest of us had left the roost after high school—Luke moved to California, Jett moved uptown, and Laney ended up in Texas of all places. But Kash had stayed right here, working alongside our father in the greenhouse. And when everyone had come back to help save Longbourne last summer, I was the only Bennet not under the roof.
Though I might have moved out, I didn’t go far, buying a brownstone a couple doors down. I ended up at the house for dinner almost every night under the pretense of duress. That my mother could be very convincing supported this pretense without question.
Of course, the real reason I hadn’t gone far was this—I worried over my parents, my mother especially. I’d spent my childhood taking care of her, from the smallest things, like having constant tabs on her keys, to the bigger ones, like sifting through the mail for bills I’d make sure to put directly in her hand. And so I had a deep-seated compulsion to make sure they were all right, so deep that I feared if I wasn’t close by, some disaster would strike that I could have stopped.
When I’d worked as a trader on Wall Street, I’d commuted downtown. I found a way to check on Mom every day, even when my day was eighteen hours strong. It was easier once I took my F-you money earned through investments and left Wall Street behind me, keeping my income steady and high. I had enough padding to get me comfortably through a jobless decade, and after a few years of day trading, I’d doubled my money and invested that too.
Laney and Jett were the only ones left at the house, but the two of them were an impenetrable unit. I figured it was a twin thing, the same sort of thing Luke and Kash had even though they were of the Irish variety. Jett spent his free time—which was sparse, considering he’d become Mom’s hands around the house—uptown at the book bar he managed, Wasted Words. And Laney … well, Laney made herself scarce whenever she could, on account of the sticky business of her inheritance.
A Bennet woman had run Longbourne for nearly a hundred seventy-five years, never taking their husbands’ names in order to pass the Bennet name down. Dad was so committed to the cause, he took her name. When Mom had a girl right off the bat, she’d been thrilled. But where the rest of us were happy in the greenhouse, cultivating green thumbs, Laney was in her room, fingers smudged with graphite and a sketchbook in her lap. It just wasn’t her thing, and to her credit, Mom didn’t push. She was a big proponent of letting us grow on our own, providing all the sunshine and water she could to allow us to do what we would.
But a quiet contention, though joked about and purportedly forgiven, was a very real shadow over them. And as such, Laney kept herself busy. When she wasn’t working on the marketing for Longbourne, she was running around with her old friends or skipping off with Jett to Wasted Words.
As much as I hated to admit it, now that all my family had come home, I’d miss them when they left again. There was a comfort in their chaos, a steadiness I found in anchoring them. I could be helpful, useful to the people I loved most in the world.
For the foreseeable future, the only people I loved in the world.
My last real girlfriend had been in college. Post that, my life was too busy to fit anyone in but the occasional date, usually with a convenient colleague, and my family. By the time I’d managed to slow down, I’d extricated myself from social circles for no other reason than lack of time. Any friends I had left were either still killing themselves in the Financial District or were married and having kids, and the only single guys I knew were related to me. Knew being the operative word. The only one left was Jett, and with Laney as his wingman, I had no practical use.
Mom used to set me up on dates with the daughters of her one-percenter garden club friends, and they foamed at the mouth for a shot. Not at me, I’d realized quickly, but at my money.
Now that I’d sunk all my money into Longbourne, I was no longer appealing. I wasn’t even mad about it. Those girls could never be my person. It seemed impossible to think my person could ever exist in that sphere.
Maisie flitted through my mind, as she so often did. God, how I wished I were anyone else, just for a chance to know her. I’d been unable to shake my incessant wondering over what could have been and the frustration that came along with it. I hated not having answers, hated walking away without even trying. I hated not having a choice, and I hated the loss of possibility.
I hated that I couldn’t just sneak around and do it anyway. That was what Luke would have done.
A book whistled toward me, hitting me sq
uare in the cheek with a smack when I turned to the sound.
“What the fuck, Luke?” I snapped, snatching the book and chucking it back at him.
He caught it like a jerk. “What? You weren’t listening.”
“Giving me a black eye before I have to represent our goddamn inheritance won’t help any of us.”
“Nah, but it sure would be funny.”
I would have whipped another book at him had one been within reach.
“What were you even thinking about? I thought your eyebrows were going to merge into one big super-brow.”
I weighed my words carefully, weighed the burden on my mind, and found a gray enough answer to say aloud. “How’d you do it? Date without any expectations. No attachments.”
Luke’s face quirked. “That is not what I expected you to say.”
I laid an unamused look on him.
He sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. Partly, I think I just wanted to eat the whole world, see it all, experience it all. You know?”
“I don’t.”
A chuckle. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. It’s … I don’t know how to explain it,” he started, pausing to think. “It’s like … a hungry sort of search. Like I couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t slow down, but I was hunting a ghost, chasing a thing I couldn’t name. I had to try everything, collect experiences. Find the one thing that would satisfy my insatiable thirst.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was, but it was fun too. Point is, I never wanted to settle down, not really. Not until Tess.” The earnestness from my cavalier brother disarmed me, his eyes soft and voice prone. “So, really, if you don’t want to be casual, you won’t. And when you find the right girl, you can’t.”
I sighed. “That wasn’t particularly helpful, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But I want to know why you asked.”
“I bet you do.”
“Oh, come on, Marcus. I answered your question. My turn.”
“I didn’t agree on an exchange.”
He held up the book like a gun, closing one eye as if he were looking down a sight. “I can give you that black eye if you really want it.”