by Staci Hart
A trembling rage flickered up my spine, down my limbs, to my fingertips. Slowly, I stood with my eyes narrowed and my voice deadly calm.
“Again, you presume too much. You don’t know me, and you don’t know my sister. You don’t know what’s at stake. I know you think you do. But you seem to think you know everything, don’t you? Statistically, how true could that possibly be?”
I didn’t quite realize I’d rounded my desk until I was close enough to catch the crisp, floral scent of her.
With a hard glare, she stepped closer. Heat radiated into me in the shape of her body. “I’m just as certain as you are.”
I pinned her with my gaze, and she stilled beneath the weight of it. “Then that’s where your fault lies. If you think that what you see of me is the sum of who I am, you’re more arrogant than I thought.”
A dry laugh escaped her. I watched her mouth, noting its shape and texture with enough detail to make the nerve endings in my lips spark electric.
“Me, arrogant? You are the most infuriating, relentless—”
Again, my door opened without a knock, and the second of today’s problems blew into the room, shocking us apart with awareness.
Catherine was cold steel, her expression locking into disdain the second she laid eyes on Laney. Those cool eyes shifted from her to me, then back again as we all stood in silence.
“Liam,” she said with the shining edge of a switchblade, “tell me you haven’t stooped so low as your sister, or are the Bennets destined to sully our family from every possible direction?”
“Excuse me?” Laney challenged from behind me.
I didn’t realize when I’d put myself between her and Catherine, but there I was, square-shouldered and braced for a fight as I faced my furious aunt.
“What do you need, Catherine?”
“You know very well why I’m here. Your sister has humiliated us once again, and I cannot seem to understand why you’ve been unable to keep her in check. It’s indecent, her being pawed in a public place—and by a Bennet no less. And now you, nose to nose with another of their kind. Have you no shame?”
A fierce wave of defensive anger rose in me. Laney sucked in a breath at the insult, and I knew without question she was about to say something she couldn’t take back.
“That’s enough.”
Catherine’s mouth snapped shut at the authority in those two little words.
“Neither Laney nor Jett will be held to whatever standard you hold Rosemary Bennet to. You don’t know them, so reserve your judgment. They are intelligent and resourceful and unafraid to speak their minds. Something you have in common, it seems.”
Catherine made a noncommittal noise but didn’t argue.
I took the moment to turn to Laney, who wore an expression of both fury and thanks, her confusion clear.
“Will you excuse us?” I asked. “We can continue our … conversation later.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve said what I needed to say,” she said smartly.
As she left the room, she and Catherine locked eyes, tracking each other until Laney was gone, the door slamming behind her.
“What have you done?” Catherine hissed. “What have you allowed your sister to do?”
“Georgiana is an adult. I don’t allow or disallow her to do anything.”
“Since when?”
I ignored her. “It’s true that I found them at the party, but when I intervened, she was so furious that she defied my wishes and left with him. If you think I have control over her, you’re wrong. And that’s as it should be, I’m coming to realize.”
She stared silently at me as she processed what I’d said.
“Nothing is going on with Laney and me, and nothing ever will be. She despises me. Particularly for inserting myself into her brother’s relationship.”
“Good. One Bennet rat is enough to deal with.”
Again, that defensive flare. “Georgie is determined. She cares for him enough to disregard my concerns.”
“And does she disregard mine too?” The question was a warning or a challenge. Maybe both.
“I suppose that depends. What happens if she continues to see him?”
Without hesitation, she answered, “Do you think I’d keep a traitor in my midst? In my family? She is either for me or she’s against me. And if she’s against me, I’ll strip her of everything in my power. Seeing that bottom-feeding trash violates our company policies. As such, I could relieve her of her shares. Her position. Me. Permitting those people into our family in any context is a mistake, and I won’t allow it.”
The sick twist in my stomach told me what I needed to know, but I asked anyway. “Under any circumstance?”
“None in this world or the next. Tell her to make her choice and accept the consequences.”
“You won’t speak with her?”
Wrath simmered behind her eyes. “She does not want me to speak to her, not about this. I cannot be reasonable. That family ruined my very best friend. Sent her to jail. Stole her business. She has nothing—do you understand that? When she leaves prison, she will have nothing. And it’s all because of them.”
I was silent, my chest still but for my sinking heart.
“Georgiana has a knack for finding degenerates. First a gambler, now the heir to nothing. And he’ll get more desperate for your money, more conniving, as will your little toy. The Bennets have hit some trouble, if you haven’t heard.” Her pleasure at the statement was plain, the shrewd smile it brought to her lips sparking suspicion in me. “It would be a shame if they lost what little they have. And if you don’t think they’ll slither their way into your wallet to save them, you’re mistaken. It’s their way.”
“And what’s ours?”
“We win, Liam Darcy. And they do not. They will not.” Somehow, she stiffened even more, lifting her chin. “Tell Georgiana to decide. And if she chooses that dog over me, she will not be forgiven. And I will not forget.”
The battle of desire versus demand waged in me once more. I desired to shred her ultimatum and send her to hell. But it was demanded that I show deference whether I agreed or not.
I couldn’t summon a single word of agreement, so I offered a solitary nod instead. With an answering nod, she stormed out of my office with all the force she’d stormed in with, leaving me with the task of breaking Georgie’s heart.
And mine along with it.
22
The Blame Game
LANEY
It had been a very bad day.
Kicking it off with a fight with Liam was bad enough on its own. Being spoken to like that by Catherine de Bourgh was a new level of rage and humiliation. But Georgie breaking up with Jett was the absolute lowest of the low points on a godawful day.
I’d left the office after the one-two punch of confrontations, assuming Catherine would be happier with me out of the building, which made two of us. I headed straight for Wasted Words where I could talk to Jett and try to work, which was a wash—it took me four hours to get through what I should have been able to do in one. But it was too difficult to concentrate under the weight of that many feelings.
I didn’t know how I could feel so much at once. How I could want to rip Liam limb from limb and simultaneously wonder what it would feel like to fall into his arms. He’d gotten so close, so unbearably close when we were arguing that he could have kissed me with little more than a shift. And beyond reason, I would have let him. I’d left the office so angry and hurt and shaken, and based on Catherine’s rant, it seemed safe to assume that Georgie and Jett would never be.
Once at Wasted Words, I didn’t tell Jett what I suspected, keeping it strictly to what Catherine had said. But he made his own deductions, sinking into the booth across from me and dropping his head to his hands.
All of that was hard, but when Georgie came in, the heartache was unendurable. There wasn’t anywhere they could truly be alone, but they stepped into the back. I should have looked away, but it hurt so acutely, I couldn�
��t. Not as she cried, not when he held her face and kissed her with longing so palpable, I felt it from across the room. They held each other for a long moment before letting go.
Georgie hurried out, her face bent with emotion.
Jett stood behind her, watching her walk away.
And I was struck by the unfairness of it all. Jett didn’t come back out for a little while, keeping himself busy in back where he could be alone. I shed tears of my own at the utter unjustness, the complete dejection, the sheer indignation of the circumstance. I wanted to hate Darcy for it, knowing he’d played some part, but in the end, it wasn’t him who’d thrown the hammer. It was Catherine.
And because of my family.
Jett told me the whole of it when we left work. The truth of their circumstance was what he’d suspected and feared—she wanted to be with him, but she would have to walk away from her job, her legacy, and her family. And she would do it, she’d insisted.
But Jett wouldn’t let her. So they said goodbye instead.
That was the truth of love—he cared so much for her that he couldn’t bear her sacrifice.
The gesture made the whole thing that much worse.
The last place Jett and I wanted to go was to Mom’s tonight, but dinner had been planned, and there were whispers of an announcement from Kash and Lila. No one had said what—especially to Mom—and though the Bennets were shit at keeping secrets, none of us had to. Somebody was collecting prize money for the next one of the newfangled Bennet women to get pregnant. Maisie and Marcus were first, and Tess would plan her pregnancy down to the hour. So it had to be Lila. Mom was bound to have an emotional equivalent of an aneurysm. And everyone would be over the moon.
Everyone except Jett, and by proxy, me.
Jett barely spoke on the train, only marginally more on the walk from the station. And none at all when we walked into the bustling house full of happy voices. We greeted our family. Took our places at the table. Listened to them talk around us.
But I couldn’t pack my resentment away. I couldn’t listen to Mom go on about nothing, could barely even hear her voice without a fresh wave of irritation with every syllable she uttered. It wasn’t her fault. None of it was her fault. Mom couldn’t manage to take down Christmas decorations, never mind the multimillion-dollar corporation Evelyn Bower had run before her arrest. Evelyn and her horrid friends had always been unnecessarily cruel to Mom—the spiteful, old crows—and when Bower Bouquets tried to sue Longbourne, none of us were surprised. But to know our family’s involvement with Evelyn Bower’s downfall had stopped Jett from having Georgie was just too much to bear.
“And how is your friend?” Mom said knowingly in Jett’s direction, bringing me back to the moment. “The Darcy girl?”
Jett stiffened. “I won’t be seeing much of her anymore. It’s no big deal,” he lied.
“Why not?” Mom asked, pouting a little and blatantly disregarding his obvious hint that he didn’t want to talk about it.
So I answered for him. “Because Catherine de Bourgh hates us and told Georgie to choose between us or her family.”
Jett cut me a look. The table went still.
Mom gaped like a trout, her brows together in confusion. “Whatever does Cat have to do with anything? She and Evelyn have always been friends, but—”
“She’s of the mind that we ruined Evelyn. I mean, she dug her own grave, but we didn’t really help matters, did we?”
“She did this to herself, and she deserves everything she got,” Maisie said quietly. And Maisie would know—Evelyn was her mother, after all.
“Good luck convincing Catherine,” I said, trying to tamp down my feelings without success.
Dad caught my gaze and tried to soothe me without speaking.
It almost worked.
“I just don’t understand how once again, it only took our last name to lose something we wanted. Are we cursed? Did somebody break a mirror or six?”
“Elaine, I hardly think we’re cursed,” Mom said on a laugh. “Look at all the abundance we’ve had.” The gesture to my sisters-in-law stung.
“All the abundance they have had.”
My siblings avoided my eyes but for Jett, who gave me an imploring shake of his head.
I sighed, but my frustration and guilt stayed put. “I’m sorry. You know I’m happy for you all, and I’ll fight Mom in hand-to-hand combat to spoil all of your babies. But getting dressed down by Catherine de Bourgh today and Jett losing Georgie has me twisted. You know how I get.”
A chuckle rolled through them. My default when someone I loved was hurting fell somewhere between snarling rottweiler and a bear with its foot in a trap.
Mom was cowed, her hands fiddling with her napkin in her lap. “Maybe there’s something I could do. Talk to Catherine, perhaps?”
“No,” I answered flatly. “You’ve done enough.”
The table shared a glance before Kash picked up the conversation and turned it in another direction. Jett and I had a silent conversation of our own across the table, the end result being an agreement at our misery and our vow to get out of here the second we could. When enough time had passed to pretend everyone had forgotten my outburst, Kash called everyone’s attention, and he and Lila stood to announce exactly what we’d already known—another Bennet baby would join the brood in somewhere around seven months.
I was happy for them—I really was. My heart was just so tired, left stretched out and sagging from being filled up and emptied too many times. Jett didn’t look much better than me, though he faked it well enough, bro-hugging our brothers and clapping them on the backs. When I got ahold of Lila, I hugged her for a long time and told her how much I loved her. I’d always wished for sisters instead of my dirty, smelly brothers, and the ones I’d finally gotten were everything I’d ever wanted—and without the fighting.
I loved them deeply, every last one of them and their little zygote babies. Kash crushed me in a hug and told me he was sorry—we spent a few minutes apologizing over each other until we were both laughing. Luke pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and bestowed it on me for winning the pool—by two days, I might add—and by the time I curtsied to their applause with money in hand, all was well.
Mom was tucked under Jett’s arm at the back of the cluster of us, and whatever she was saying had a sad smile on his face.
Want me to save you? I asked with my face when I caught his eye.
But he shook his head just a little and rubbed Mom’s arm while she talked.
Dad sidled up to me silently, as he often did. And when he tucked me under his arm, he disarmed me. A lump lodged in my throat, my nose burning, warning me of tears.
I swallowed them back.
“I’m so tired, Daddy,” I said softly.
He squeezed me. “I know. There’s more to it than you said, isn’t there?”
I nodded against his chest.
“Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head.
“All right, Laneybug. But remember—everything changes. Good times, bad times, doesn’t matter. All things are temporary, even if they feel endless.”
He was right, but it felt like chasing a horizon. “I’m so mad. I’m mad at everyone, everything.”
“Of course you are. Someone you love had their choice taken away from them. And our family was the reason. We’re always in some sort of trouble or another, aren’t we?”
I chuckled, rubbing my nose. “Genetic predisposition.”
“From your mother’s side.”
I sighed. “I just wish there was something I could do.”
“Who knows? Maybe something will present itself. If your brother and the Darcy girl want to be together as badly as I suspect they might, they’ll find a way. Look at Marcus and Maisie. No one could have seen a Bennet with a Bower, but they defied everyone’s expectations—and at great cost to Maisie. Time will tell. Think you can be patient?”
I made a derisive noise.
“Didn’t think s
o. But at least try. For me.”
“Only for you.”
He kissed the top of my head and let me go. And with that, I was tapped. I turned for Jett with the intent to punch my time card and almost tripped over Mom.
She had that look on her face—the sad puppy face that was absolutely genuine, but still somehow felt like a minor manipulation.
“Can we talk? Just for a minute,” she added, her cheeks flushing prettily, damn her.
I offered a placating smile. “Sure.”
She took my arm and shuffled us toward the butler’s pantry. Sometimes I forgot just how hard it was for her to get around with her rheumatoid arthritis. In my mind, she was still the unstoppable force, dawdling around in the greenhouse and losing track of time. But we knew that soon, she’d need a wheelchair—the stairs had already become a massive challenge—and then what? They couldn’t leave the house—they just … couldn’t. They had to stay here forever, even if we had to spend a katrillion dollars on an elevator for her.
Once we were alone, she faced me, glancing over her shoulder again to make sure no one was listening.
I frowned. “What’s going on?”
“We need you. Longbourne needs you.”
“Mom, not this again—”
She shook her head, frustrated. “Elaine, listen for a minute and don’t talk.”
I waited but gave her a look.
“Thank you.” Another glance over her shoulder. She lowered her voice. “I heard Maisie and Tess talking earlier about some trouble we’re having. No one ever tells me anything anymore,” she griped. “But if they think I don’t know everything said under this roof, they’ll learn that lesson the longer they’re Bennets.” With a chuckle at herself, she continued. “Maisie said we’re losing staff—they’re being headhunted, and no one knows where they’re going, every one of them mentioning NDAs they were made to sign. And we’re having some supply problems too. Losing clients. I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to help them.”