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?”