by Staci Hart
The warmth I’d felt for my mother’s shocking display of maternal protection cooled. “So it was about the legacy.”
“Everything is about the legacy, Margaret,” she said as if I were tedious and exhausting.
“Yes, I suppose it is.” I took a long pull of my drink, and when it was gone, I extended a hand for the bottle.
“Oh, don’t sound so disappointed. The reason doesn’t make it any less true.” She handed it over. “You’ve got it all. Everything. The company lies in your capable hands. I no longer have a say. So congratulations. You got what you wanted.”
“It’s not what I wanted. It’s what you wanted.”
“And it seems neither of us had a choice in how it happened, no matter how we thought we did. The keys to my kingdom are yours. Do try not to waste the opportunity.”
“Silver linings and all that.” I poured two fingers and set the bottle on the ground between us.
Silence fell. We drank.
“What will you do?” I finally asked.
“Go to jail,” she said on a dry laugh. “Sell the house. Pay my debts so they don’t get any worse. Move to Paris. Join a garden club. And for the sake of Bower’s future, stay away.” She paused, then sighed. “For decades, we have shaped this company with biblical Bower law. My grandmother always fell second to the Bennets—sometimes by fortune, sometimes by perception. My mother didn’t fare much better. I built an empire under their doctrine and set fire to my spoils. The most I can hope for is that you'll better than we did.”
It was almost a compliment, almost an admission, but she’d said it with a snide sort of arrogance, as if she knew I wouldn’t.
I was a Hail Mary. A long shot.
But she’d underestimated me my whole life. It would be silly to believe anything should change now, even though, for the briefest moment, I naively had.
I kicked back my drink and set the glass next to the bottle. When I stood, my gaze shifted from my grandmother to my ruined mother.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
Pride and pain flashed behind her eyes. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
When she looked away, it was a dismissal. Whatever thread we’d been holding fell.
So I turned. I walked out of that room. Out of that house.
And I stepped into a brand new world, closing the door on my past.
A curious feeling settled over me, a quiet and calm sense of … I didn’t know what. It was all the things left over when the tsunami receded. Bits of proof nestled in wet sand, touched with sunlight for the first time. There was acceptance, smooth from years of wear. The broken shell of the life I’d known, jagged and sharp.
But there, amid it all, was a glimmer of gold, a burst of color. A treasure lay, visible only in glimpses, waiting for me to dig up each jewel, uncover every gem. Bower was mine. My father was free. My mother would be gone. And as I brushed the sand from each beautiful thing I discovered, I came to the greatest treasure of them all.
Marcus was a diamond, faceted and transparent, unbreakable and rare. He was blinding. Dazzling. Breathtakingly brilliant, his strength forged in the fire of the earth.
He was, without question, the most valuable of all the riches in the world.
As I appraised all that I’d discovered, I saw for the first time how they all fit together. I understood what I wanted to do, what I was meant to do.
And filled with purpose and hope and love, I set about doing just that.
30
A Family Affair
MARCUS
“It’s not that simple,” I huffed.
Luke gave me a look from where he sat in the study, draped in one of Mom’s armchairs like a king. “It seems pretty simple to me,” he said.
“That’s because you’re simple.”
“And you make everything more complicated than it has to be. The way I see it? You love her, and she loves you. So she was an asshole. It’s been three days, and I’d like to note that you weren’t much better—”
“Why, because I didn’t lie to her?”
“No, ding-dong. Because you didn’t stop her.”
“She stormed out.”
“And there wasn’t even one tiny little opportunity to stop her?”
I said nothing.
“Exactly. But listen—if you think you’re going to get through any relationship without both of you occasionally being an asshole, you’re delusional.”
“That’s true,” Kash said from behind me as he entered the room, flopping into the chair next to Luke. “Everybody’s an unintentional asshole from time to time. What matters is how you handle what comes after.”
“Not you too.” I laid my own look on the two of them. “It’s not like she did something trivial or small. She accused me of ratting her mother out to the FBI, for God’s sake. She didn’t even consider my side for a single, solitary second. She decided I did it. What I don’t understand is how the hell none of you understand.”
“Understand what?” Jett asked, dropping onto Mom’s chaise and crossing his ankles.
“How right he is about Maisie’s wrongness,” Luke said.
“Ah,” Jett answered with a smirk.
“Look,” Kash started, “I get it. I really do. I’d be mad as all hell, but after everything Maisie has done? After all she’s given up, I don’t see how you couldn’t just accept her apology outright.”
“Because,” Luke clarified dramatically, “someone has very high moral standards.”
Jett folded his hands behind his head. “She apologized. Do you really think she didn’t mean it?”
“Of course I believe she meant it. That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” Kash asked.
“The point is, she threw me under the bus the second the wind changed.”
“And immediately apologized,” Jett added.
“Yes, but—”
“What are we talking about?” Laney asked as she entered the study.
“About how Marcus is being a brat,” Kash answered.
“What’s new?” Laney snorted a laugh, stretching out on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Somebody hand me a pillow.”
I handed her one as hard as I could fling it, and it hit her in the face with enough force to knock her back.
“Spoilsport,” she said on a laugh, propping herself up on the pillow.
“Know-it-all,” I shot back.
She stuck her tongue out at me.
“You love Maisie,” Kash said, reeling us back in. “How many woman have you loved in your life?”
“Besides Mom,” Luke added.
A collective groan sounded, and Jett flung another pillow, this time in Luke’s direction.
“None,” Laney answered for me. “He’s never even brought a girl home for dinner, but he brought Margaret Bower home to meet Mom. If that doesn’t say commitment, I don’t know what does.”
My siblings turned their gazes on me and, for once, said nothing.
I swallowed hard, wishing they would. “I do love her.”
“Enough to forgive her?” Kash asked somberly.
“Little enough to let her go?” Laney added.
“And here I thought you were violently opposed to the idea,” I said, raising a brow in her direction.
She sighed. Shrugged. “But I’m even more violent opposed to your unhappiness. Maisie makes you happy. Happy enough to whistle.” A chuckle rolled through them at my expense. “She messed up, but I think you know her well enough to know her character, her heart. Don’t make her pay for her mistake too long. And don’t deprive yourself of happiness because of your pride.”
I looked around the room, assessing them. “Not one of you thinks I should be upset?”
“No,” they answered nearly in unison, along with another voice from my shoulder.
Mom walked around the couch and sat next to me. “Did you ever know,” she began, adjusting the pillows to her comfort, “I always worried you would be the ch
ild to miss love?”
I frowned.
“Oh, not because you’re unlovable or that you’re incapable—you, Marcus, are capable of more love than perhaps all of them.” A couple of potshots were mumbled, but she continued on, “But because I feared that somehow, it would find you, and you wouldn’t recognize it. Or worse—you’d reject it on the grounds of some defied principle. You’re hurt, and you should be. What she did was unfair and unjust, and she broke your faith. So there’s only one question to answer—can you look beyond that hurt to forgive her?”
“Can you imagine your life without her?” Luke added.
“Or will you spend the rest of your life wishing you had?” Kash tacked on.
“Well then, three,” Mom said. “Three questions with your happiness on the line.”
“And your grandchildren,” Laney popped.
“Yes, and that,” Mom noted. “If I’m not swimming in grandchildren within the next five years, I’m arranging marriages for the lot of you.”
Jett groaned. “Garden club babies.”
But Laney laughed. “Thank God there are no men in garden club.”
“Oh, but there are plenty of sons,” Mom snarked, and Laney put on a spectacular grimace.
I, however, was lost in thought.
It wasn’t so much that I had to consider what they’d said—they were right, and I knew it. I’d known it all before I sat down on this stupid couch. I’d known it for three long and silent days. I’d known it since the second I last saw her.
None of this was news.
As hurt as I was and as unsure as I thought my feelings were regarding forgiveness, there had never been a future without Maisie. Was it just my pride as they’d said? Or was I afraid? Afraid of being hurt again. Afraid of being heartbroken by the only person I’d ever let see that heart, the only one who’d ever held it in their hands.
Was it my vulnerability that scared me most of all?
She had shaken my belief that she’d protect my heart as I would hers. That she would sacrifice anything to protect mine. Because I would.
Except I hadn’t.
The realization struck me like an arrow. She had protected mine. She had sacrificed more than I ever could. She’d given up everything simply because she loved me.
And I’d rejected her first fault just as devoutly as she had accused me without grounds.
But I didn’t realized my mistake.
I didn’t apologize.
I didn’t beg her forgiveness.
“I’m an asshole,” I breathed, leaning into my hands until my face was covered.
“Like I said,” Luke mentioned.
Kash punched him in the arm.
Mom laid her hand on my back, shifting it in slow, familiar circles that made me feel safe and loved. “We all are. What matters is how you make it right.”
“Like I said,” Kash said, and Luke returned the favor with a sock to his arm.
They rubbed their biceps, scowling at each other.
“So, how are you going to make it right?” Laney asked.
“An apology would probably be a good place to start,” Jett noted.
“Not just for making her wait so you could lick your wounds, but for not accepting her apology on the spot,” Kash added.
“Probably wouldn’t hurt to grovel a little,” Luke said. “Always works for me.”
“Just talk to her.” Mom smiled, lips together and eyes soft. “If you’re ever going to marry her, she’d better know you’re good at apologizing. So the grander the better, I say.”
Laney rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever think about anything other than us getting married?”
“Of course I do.”
“Or grandchildren?” Laney’s brow climbed.
“Oh. Then, no. That’s the bulk of it.”
They laughed, but I didn’t.
I was wrong, and I had to tell her.
I had to show her.
I bolted off the couch so fast, they leaned back as if I’d blown them that direction.
“Whoa, I don’t think anyone meant to go now,” Laney said.
“I think I’ve waited long enough.”
With a smirk on my face and the wind at my back, I flew out of the house too fast for anyone to question me.
Because I knew of one undeniable way to swear my fealty to Maisie.
And it ended with forever.
31
Pocket Change
MARCUS
Forty-eight of the longest hours of my life ticked by.
The second I’d left my family, I’d texted her asking to meet, and for the rest of that day, that message went unanswered, my voicemail box painfully empty, my screen black as pitch, disturbed only by my siblings. Every time they texted the group chat, my heart stop-started with hope enough times that I nearly turned my phone off. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I’d spent a long night wishing I’d shown my cards, laid it all on the table when I’d seen her last. I could have begged. Pleaded. Told her that I loved her and apologized. I considered a telling her right there in a message. But for all I needed to say, a text would never do. A voice message could never suffice.
The only way was face to face.
At six the next morning, she answered.
She agreed to meet the following afternoon to talk. And I’d practiced my speech every minute since, all the way to right now, waiting impatiently for the message that she was free.
I only hoped I wasn’t too late.
Enough had happened in the last few days to keep me occupied. Yesterday, a long meeting with Ben informed me of the most shocking revelation of all—Evelyn Bower had given Maisie full control of the company. It was a deduction made when the call came in from Thompson that the lawsuit had been dropped. But not by Evelyn.
By Maisie.
There was much to do in the wake of that disclosure. Paperwork to sign, meetings to attend.
But she wasn’t at any of them.
Last night, we had a proper Bennet brouhaha, complete with enough booze to put down a rhinoceros and one of the more lavish meals Jett had ever made—beef Wellington and trimmings, the whole of which had taken him nearly eight hours to complete. Everyone was there, including Tess and Lila on the arms of my brothers, and we had such a night that it ended well after midnight when the slow dancing in the dimly lit living room turned to canoodling.
Jett, Laney, and I hurried away and didn’t look back.
The night was a success for them. For me, it only served as a reminder of what I’d lost. And I started to wonder if I’d ever get it back.
Late last night, I sat in the armchair in my room, lit by a solitary lamp at my elbow, writing a letter I didn’t know would ever be read. But the words were too much to live only in my heart, too painful to hold in those four chambers. So I let them go, poured them onto a page by way of my hand. And once I released them, I was left empty, exhausted. Rumpled and worn, I’d turned off that light, casting the world in darkness again.
I stood in the kitchen, hip resting on the island, staring at nothing as I turned the velvet box around in my pocket where it had been since I escaped the Bennet ambush. And I waited.
There was nothing else to do.
When my phone buzzed in the other pocket, my heart gave its familiar lurch of hope. My expectation was my siblings. My wish was Maisie. But instead, it was a text from Ben.
Have some papers to sign for the lawsuit. Meet me at your mom’s.
I frowned at my screen as I texted him back.
Shouldn’t we meet at the office?
I was in the neighborhood, so I’m already here, he answered. See you in a few.
With the dismissal, that was that.
I hauled myself off my couch, feeling older than my years. Creaky in the bones, worn to weariness. I wondered as I slipped on my suit coat if it was the result of fading hope, draining joy. But I brushed the thought away. Because I wasn’t ready to give up, not yet. I’d give her time. But I’d f
ind a way.
I had to find a way.
The day was warm and cheerful, a cloudless spring afternoon that whispered summer’s beginnings. Leaves had sprung from their buds, rustling in the breeze and dappling the sidewalk as the Village bustled around me. And I walked toward Longbourne with my hand cupping that little black box, wondering why Ben hadn’t just come over. Maybe there was something for Mom to sign or go over, by which I meant for me to go over on her behalf. Of course, nothing about us was conventional, so it didn’t strike me as too odd. Just enough to question.
Until I walked in the front door.
A host of whispers and shuffling around floated toward me from the dining room, followed by an extremely loud Shh from, if I had to guess, my sister.
I closed the door, knowing I’d just walked into some sort of trap. I just had to figure out what it was and how to get out of it.
Mom appeared in the hallway, her face flushed and smiling. “Ah! You’re here. Ben is just this way. How are you?” she rambled, shuffling over. “Here, let me take your coat. It’s warm outside, isn’t it? Oh, I’m just so glad winter is over. Felt like it would never end.”
I eyed her as she hung up my suit coat, still babbling.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
She scoffed and tittered, but her cheeks flushed another four degrees of red. “Why would you think something was going on? You’re so suspicious. Don’t you trust your mother?” she asked, taking my arm.
“No.”
But she laughed, pulling me toward the dining room and hissed whispers. “Silly. Ben just has some papers for you to sign. They’re very important papers, so you see, we had to do it right away. Why go to the office?” Another nervous laugh.
I stopped. “Have you taken your medicine today? Do you feel feverish? You haven’t come in contact with anyone carrying malaria, have you?”
“A mother can’t ask her son over?”
“Ben asked me over.”