by Staci Hart
In the big center aisle, I found Kash in front of a wheelbarrow mounded with soil, a shovel in his hands and his T-shirt hanging out of his back pocket.
I filed shirtless brothers under things I didn’t miss about living at home. All of them were towering beasts who were addicted to working out, though each for their own reasons. For instance, Kash’s rolling, brutish muscles came from hauling dirt and shoveling. For funsies, he moved thirty-pound bags of fertilizer from one side of storage to the other. Marcus worked out because he was a little bit of a control freak, so disciplined, I was certain he just enjoyed managing difficult things in his life just as much as he wasn’t happy unless he was living up to an unreasonable standard. Jett did it because it made him feel good to master himself and stay healthy. Luke was just vain.
Kash caught sight of me and dumped the load in his shovel, smiling brightly within the frame of his black beard. His big, dirty hand raked through his hair, which was forever just a little too long, even when he’d just had it cut. The dark locks curled gently around his ears and nape and seemed to always be on the verge of falling into his face.
He leaned on the handle. “Hey, Lane. What are you doing here?”
At the surprise in his voice, I was a tiny bit offended.
“Can’t a girl just come home and pick a few flowers?”
One of his dark brows rose.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m meeting Mom here. We’re going to put together a few bouquets.”
“Look at you, hanging out with Mom.”
“I hang out with Mom,” I defended.
“By yourself.”
“You’re awfully close to convincing me to leave.”
A deep chuckle. “It’s good to see you around here. It’s been a long time since you’ve been in the greenhouse.”
“Too long. Every time I walk in, I can’t remember why I stayed away.”
He folded his arms on the handle and planted a boot on the flat of the spade. “How was your party last night?”
“Don’t ask.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Briefly, I told him what had gone down, from Wickham to Jett and Georgie. Except for the specifics between me and Darcy. I kept that to myself for fear I’d actually combust if I so much as mentioned him.
Luke had walked up—who was also shirtless, his skin peppered with sawdust to match the dusting of dirt on Kash. Unlike Kash and his unruly mane, Luke’s hair was cropped and his jaw clean-shaven. His lips seemed to be in a constant state of smirk. Sometimes, I wondered if he’d end up wrinkled just on that one side, and I shamelessly hoped he would.
Both of them were wide-eyed as they heard about Georgie, and at such an intensity and with eyes that blue, it was almost unnerving.
“I can’t believe that asshole squared up to Jett,” Luke shot, his lips bent in a rare frown. “What is he, the sex police?”
I gave him a look and folded my arms, considering my teenage years. “Brandon Ellis.”
“Listen, Brandon Ellis deserved a bloody nose for kissing you. I’ll die on that hill.”
“He’s not wrong,” Kash added. “You weren’t the only girl he was kissing.”
“What if it’d been me in that dark hallway last night?”
Both of them flinched, wearing matching expressions of disgust.
“Kissing Jett?” Luke asked.
I groaned. “No, not kissing Jett, dummy. Kissing somebody else, someone I wasn’t allowed to kiss.”
Luke paused in thought. “Fine, I would have hit him. Kash would have too.”
I cut a look in Kash’s direction.
He shrugged. “I want to say I wouldn’t, but I probably would have. Or at the very least, roughed him up a little.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I sort of, kind of get why he did it. But I hate him all the same. I’ll burn him down if he gets in Jett’s way.”
“But Georgie went home with Jett, right?” Kash asked. “Sounds like a win to me.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Except I’m almost positive Darcy’s going to throw the hammer, and it’s gonna hit Jett square in the chest. Darcy’s never going to let her see Jett, especially if it means he has to apologize or acknowledge he was wrong.”
“Man, he sounds like such a dick,” Luke said, scratching at his massive pectoral muscle.
My lip curled. “Could you please put shirts on? I’d rather not taste my lunch a second time.”
Laughing, Kash tugged his on—stretched across his chest were the words Plant Lady. Luke just bounced his pecs.
“My shirt’s in storage, sorry,” he said, flexing his muscles both discreetly and pointedly, that shit.
“At least one of you cares about your sister’s health. Or maybe you do want to see the contents of my stomach.”
Luke’s eyes flicked to the glass ceiling. “If you actually throw up, I’ll give you fifty bucks.”
“Anyway,” I started, “there’s a sliver of hope. We’ll know more tomorrow, I think. But if Darcy interferes, I might go ape.”
“I don’t know if I’d fling shit at him at work. That’d really put a ding on your résumé,” Luke said.
“Oh my God, could you be serious for two seconds?”
He nodded. “Nope.”
Another groan, the kind only Luke could get out of me. “Just go easy on him tonight at dinner, would you?”
“Whenever are we not easy on him?” Kash asked.
“I don’t know, ask that kidney bruise of Luke’s.”
Luke twisted around to try to look. “What, that old thing?”
“You should know better than to mess with him for reading Outlander again. He’s still your big brother.”
“Yeah, and he doesn’t let us forget it either.”
“Who doesn’t let whom forget what?” Mom said from behind us, and we all turned.
She was adorable, a slight thing with curly silver hair that had once been as black as her children’s and eyes the same blue, hers wide and innocent. She wore the prettiest smile, and it was damn near impossible to get her down. The only times I’d seen her consistently upset was when my grandmother died and when she was in the middle of the lawsuit with Bower last year.
Of course, that’d almost ruined every Bennet. But Mom most of all.
She’d been part of society once upon a time and attended the same private school with Evelyn Bower, Catherine de Bourgh, and their toadies. My grandma had established a prestigious and exclusive garden club that all their mothers were a part of, and their places were passed down to their daughters. Though Evelyn and Mom had been enemies since high school and their mothers before them, the feud took root when Dad dumped Evelyn for my mom. After that, it was insult, injury, and impediment as a rule. She wanted to destroy Mom, Dad, and everything they held dear, if for no other reason than she could.
For years, poor Mom hadn’t even realized the lengths to which those women would go to humiliate her. But she’d learned that lesson the hard way, thanks to Evelyn.
Mom shuffled toward us, leaning heavily on her cane. I’d picked it out for her a few weeks ago after she came home with some ugly metal thing with a white rubber stopper on the bottom. This one was black with big peach and white flowers on it and a sensible, virtually invisible black stopper.
The three of us smiled and converged on her like hens, and she cooed at our nearness.
“Look at you, all here together,” she said, beaming.
“Laney was just telling us the hot gos—”
I smacked his bare chest with the back of my hand and gave him a look.
“Goslings,” he finished. “The hot goslings in the park. Didn’t you hear about them?”
She frowned, eyeing us. “Shouldn’t they be flying south?”
“Oh, sure, sure,” Luke said. “But these are special geese. They only mate when snow is exactly three weeks off, which they know because they have these tiny little sensors in their beaks—”
“I’m sure it’s just
the breeding pit stop on their way to Aruba,” Kash cut in.
Mom thought about it and shrugged, taking my arm. “Whatever you’re hiding, I’ll find out. I always do.” She turned her attention to me. “So where shall we start, Elaine?”
“I was thinking the ranunculus, maybe some hyacinths? Gardenias for sure, and—”
Mom was smiling, though her brows were pinched, and I realized that track would take us all the way around the greenhouse when she was likely exhausted just from coming down here to meet me.
I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
Luke put on a sparkling smile and said, “How about you give me a list, and I’ll bring you whatever you need?”
Something in her eased along with the crease in her brow. “Sweet boy. Elaine, why don’t we pick out our ranunculus and gardenias, and Luke can get the rest?”
“Sounds perfect.”
She rattled off a number of various fillers and smaller flowers, giving Luke very specific instructions that I knew he’d remember to the letter. And when he headed off in search of a bucket, Mom and I turned for the flower beds we were after. She patted Kash’s shoulder as we passed, and he gave her that look we all did, ripe with adoration and thick with an amused sort of reverence. Because despite her meddling and lack of boundaries—looking back, it was always fond and funny, even though it rankled at the time—she was the beating heart of this family, and we loved her endlessly.
I helped Mom over the gardenia bushes and was about to get a bucket for us to use, but Luke was a step ahead, handing me a second along with a pair of clippers and a wink.
When the bucket was on the ground just behind us, I said, “All right. What do you think?”
“How about a now bouquet and a later bouquet? One to last through this week and another to last an extra.”
“I’ll take all the bouquets I can get.”
“Then let’s start here.” She pointed, and I reached into the bush and clipped it. “I’m so glad you came down early. Maisie has something in the slow cookers that smells so good, my mouth has been watering all day.”
“I’m glad too.”
She pointed to another, and though I didn’t meet her eyes, I knew she was frowning. “You sound tired.”
“I feel tired.”
“Is that job working you too hard?”
I sighed. “It’s not that. It’s just life, I think.”
She hummed noncommittally, pointing to another.
“What’s that mean?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I speak fluent Bennet.”
A sigh as I snipped. She pointed to another. “I just worry about you, that’s all. I know what’s going on with all of my children, except for you.”
“What do you want to know?” Snip.
“Well, I don’t know. Everything, I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start, Mom.”
Point. Snip. Silence.
When she spoke, it was quiet, reserved. “I know you were born into a difficult position, Elaine. All of these children, but you were the one I imagined would take my place. The moment I first held you in my arms, I pictured you here. Loving the things I love, dreaming the same dreams. It was a silly thing to do, though I don’t know that I did it on purpose. But now I don’t know how to dream anything else. And I don’t think I’ll ever stop hoping you change your mind.”
“About what, exactly?” I asked in an equal tone to hers.
Point. Snip. Silence.
“Of all my children, you are the farthest from me. I haven’t been able to reach you since you were a little girl, and I don’t know how to bring you back.”
My nose burned, the corners of my eyes pricking with the threat of tears. “I don’t know either.”
Point. Snip. Silence.
“What do you want, Elaine?”
The question jolted me.
“In life,” she clarified. “What do you want?”
I thought for a moment. “What everyone wants, I guess. To be happy.”
“Of course, but what will make you happy?”
I didn’t have an answer. The realization stung like a sunburn.
“Would you think less of me if I said I didn’t know?”
“I could never think poorly of you,” she said, turning to me with those big, shining eyes. She took my free hand. “I’ll just ask you one thing.”
I nodded.
“Find out. Because until you do, you’ll keep running away. You are brave and fierce and everything I’m not. You can do anything, Elaine. So dig around and find what you want, what will make you happy, and then get it. Do that one thing for me, and I’ll be satisfied.”
Too moved to be serious, I quirked a smile. “Even if I don’t have babies?”
She made a dismissive sound and swatted my arm. “You don’t want to put me in an early grave, do you?” A little wink punctuated the question.
With a laugh, she changed the subject, bringing me up to speed on my siblings. I was so out of the loop, you’d think I’d moved to Tokyo, not the Upper West, and that knowledge made me impossibly sad.
Maybe she was right. Maybe I had been running away. I’d spent my young life forced into a box, and once I was freed, I swore I’d never get back in. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the box itself, but the size of the box that I hated.
That thought was a grain of sand in my oyster.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d turn it into a pearl.
21
Professional Courtesy
LIAM
Sunday was somehow forever long and nowhere near long enough.
I spent most of the day in a foggy half-sleep with Georgie on the couch. We didn’t talk about anything important, both of us too exhausted from the fight that morning to get into anything deeper than commentary on the string of movies she put on and what we’d order to eat. But even with the slow pace of the lazy Sunday, Monday morning came too soon.
Two things waited for me, and I didn’t want to deal with either of them.
I’d promised Georgie I’d appeal to Catherine on Jett’s behalf, which was a battle I was sure I’d lose. And I didn’t fight battles I couldn’t win. But for Georgie, I would try.
And then there was Laney Bennet to contend with.
Although I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, I had my suspicions. I was absolutely certain I’d have to answer for the fight I’d picked with her at the party. And I was sure her brother had told her about the words we’d exchanged. She would likely know that Georgie had spent the night with Jett, but from there, I wasn’t sure what she’d heard.
The office was quiet that morning, as it usually was on Mondays, and I retreated to my desk to dig into work for a while. We were a few days from an internal review of our campaigns, and were busy putting the finishing touches on our proposal. Namely, I’d been tweaking everything the team had come up with to make sure it was as close to perfect as possible.
I’d been in deep focus for about an hour when the first of my problems marched into my office without knocking.
Laney Bennet was a fire burning too hot to be colored in golds and reds—hers glowed a cool blue, a heat that needed no raging crackle to show its powers of destruction. The electric blue of her eyes, so blistering and angry, singed me from across the room.
Deliberately slow, I closed my laptop and sat back in my chair.
She came to a stop between the chairs in front of my desk, far enough away to throttle me with a lunge but close enough to feel the heat of her anger. I settled into a block of ice. And for a moment, neither of us spoke.
“I like to think I can take a lot of bullshit,” she started, her voice low. “You throwing a tantrum over Wyatt wasn’t surprising. Even you treating me like an idiot child was on-brand, as much as I hate you for it. And just when I think you can’t possibly get any worse, you find new ways to prove me wrong. I heard you nearly assaulted my brother, and it’s left me wondering why you c
an’t seem to stand letting anyone around you be happy. I get that you’re miserable—you don’t even try to pretend otherwise. But your determination to ensure everyone in your life is just as unhappy as you are is extraordinarily cruel.”
Any chance at being reasonable disappeared, eaten up by her fire.
“You seem to have me all figured out,” I said with cool indifference despite my roaring dissent. “Thank you for reducing me to such simple terms.”
“I wasn’t sure if you could swallow anything more complicated than that.”
For a beat, I stared at the siren across my desk, wondering how I could somehow both loathe and long for her. “Did you come here just to explain me to myself, or did you have some other objective?”
“You aren’t even sorry, are you?”
Another pause. “Does it matter what I say, Laney? Because as determined as you say I am to make everyone around me miserable, you seem doubly determined to find reasons to hate me.”
“Maybe because everything you do, every word that leaves your lips, is designed to intimidate. So if you’re asking me if I trust your answers, I suppose I don’t.”
What I wanted to do and what I chose to do were two very different things. What I wanted was to stand, round my desk, and take the stubborn, headstrong woman in my arms where I could tell her how wrong she was about me. I wanted to tell her the why of it, especially in relation to Wickham. What I wanted was a release from the burden. Of everything, and somehow, I knew she could be that for me. The flutter of knowledge that she could be my savior was the last ditch of a dying butterfly, caged too long without sunshine.
But rather than expose the truth of my heart, I postured, just as she expected me to. “If you don’t care what I have to say, then you came here just to berate me.”
Her nostrils flared.
“Storming into my office to call me names and sling accusations is unprofessional by anyone’s standards. I don’t know if Cooper would keep a member of his team who so openly defied my authority.”
Her cheeks flushed crimson. “I’m unprofessional?” she breathed the question. “You and me? We are not just colleagues. You are not my boss, even if you are my superior. And not even you can pretend like whatever this is could be described as a professional relationship. So don’t threaten me, Liam. Don’t act like you have it all figured out either, because you don’t. And if you think I’m going to sit by and watch you ruin my brother’s chance at happiness, you’re mistaken. Leave them alone. Because if you don’t, you’re going to lose Georgie forever.”
