I brought my glass to hers in a click of agreement, and for a silent second, we drank.
She set her drink on the shiny quartz surface and smiled up at me.
“Tell me about your day,” I said with an answering smile, leaning on the island across from her.
“Well, I don’t think a single thing happened the way I thought it would, not from the second I walked into the coffee shop. It exceeded all expectations.”
I watched her take a sip of crimson wine, watched it slip past her lips. Something so small, so mundane, and I found myself consumed by the sight, imagining those lips against mine again. Imagining the feel of her in my lap, here in my house where I could do something about it.
She sighed, an expression of contentment on her face. “My mother surprised me even more than you did, I think—I’d hoped we would end up here, even if I didn’t believe we would. But I never could have guessed that she’d be compliant. I expected threats. Shouting. The squeeze of her control. Instead, I told her what I wanted, and she agreed. I’ll have full control over the charity and time to manage it, and in exchange, I accepted a list of terms she devised. And not a single one of them was excessive. It’ll be bearable though, I think.” Another sigh. “We’ll see. You know what the most upsetting, unnatural part was?”
“Everything about her is unnatural, so I can’t imagine.”
“She seemed pleased with me. And not in some good for you, chuck on the shoulder kind of proud. It was … I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Tell me,” I urged.
Her brow furrowed. “I think she planned it. I think she pushed me until I stood up to her to teach me some sort of lesson, and I complied without realizing she’d manipulated me. I didn’t feel good about it when I left. But I got what I wanted, which, all in all, leaves me confused.”
I rankled at the thought of Evelyn exacting any more control on Maisie.
“Some days, I wonder if I even have a choice,” she said, half to herself. “Maybe turning into her is inevitable.”
“You always have a choice. And you are nothing like her.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe even now I’m more like her than I realize. Maybe somewhere inside of me, she’s there, waiting to be let out. What if it’s all a setup? And one day, she’ll pull a rip cord and let the monster she bred out of me.”
“Never. She has no real power over who you are. Nothing she could do would change who you are at your core, the woman your father raised.”
Her smile was one of resignation, one that said she wasn’t so sure. “Thank you.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment until I asked a question that’d been on my mind since the beginning.
“What’s keeping you at Bower? What about that place compels you to stay?”
She thought, her eyes on the claret wine in her glass. “Mostly I’ve stayed because, as the heiress, I have a vested interest in Bower. As a child, I was largely sheltered from her. She was just a person who was sometimes around for holidays and the occasional weekend, like having a parent who’s a surgeon. A busy, distant presence in my life, one that I idolized simply because I didn’t know differently. But she was a stranger to me, and it wasn’t until I worked there after college that I really saw her for who she was and what I meant to her, which was nothing. But it’s more than that …” She paused, searching for words.
When she found them, she took a breath and met my eyes. “When I was a little girl, we didn’t go to church—we worshipped Bower Bouquets. Bower has been the lifeblood of my family for generations, the cornerstone of every decision we make, personal or otherwise. It isn’t a company, not to my mother. It’s a religion. And that religion has shaped every part of me—my ambitions, my work ethic, my relationships, even my major in college. It’s shaped me in ways I probably don’t even realize. I’ve been conditioned to be a part of Bower. No,” she corrected. “I suppose it’s a part of me. And even though I’m ready to walk away, there’s this … I don’t know. It’s a fear, I guess, one that goes beyond money or family. There’s this irrational sense of foreboding, as if walking away will somehow upset the balance of the universe.”
The weight of her words settled on me.
“You must understand, as close as you are to your family,” she urged. “It’s a sense of devotion, though for me, that devotion is born of obligation.”
“I do understand. Longbourne is so tied up with our relationships, I don’t know how to separate them. That flower shop is another member of our family. The thought of it ending or closing is unfathomable. We’d be lost without it.”
“Exactly, though your commitment is founded in your love of your family. Mine is rooted strictly and deeply in fear.”
“When did you realize it?”
“Before I left for England. Out of college, I had this starry-eyed daydream of my future, the kind of thing only a kid would believe. A fairy tale. I’d come to work with my mother at Bower. I’d find a happy little nook, do what I’d been born to. Worse …” She hesitated. “I … I thought I’d win her approval. Sure, my mother was bitchy and overbearing, but wasn’t everyone’s? That first year that I worked for Bower, I was filled with blind hope. But when she took Harvest Center from me, something in me snapped. It was like rubbing sleep from my eyes—when she came into focus, I saw the unfairness of it all for the first time. She only serves herself, and I’m just a little, inanimate cog in her machine. An important cog but one without rights all the same.”
I shook my head. “People like that aren’t born. They’re bred. I can’t imagine what happened to her to make her this way. I always assumed it was indoctrination by her mother—that, or the Bowers had some genetic predisposition to cruelty. But then I met you.”
Her face softened, first her brows, then her eyes, then the line of her lips. “I think much of it was bred by my grandmother, but Mother hates her for it. Which is funny, seeing as how alike they are, particularly where their daughters are concerned. But … well, from what I understand, my mother wasn’t always like this.”
“What changed?”
Maisie squirmed, avoiding my eyes as she took a drink. “I … I’m not supposed to know. Dad wasn’t supposed to tell me.”
I frowned. “Tell you what?”
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Has your mother ever told you about when they were young?”
“Only that they went to school together but weren’t friends. Apparently, they weren’t enemies either—they left that war to their mothers until they were older, right?”
“That’s part of it.” Another pause, and I officially needed to know. “Did she ever tell you that my mother used to date your father?”
A hot slash of refusal hit me in the gut. “Impossible.”
But she said nothing, only looked at me with deep, dark eyes.
“No. There’s no way she could keep that from us, even if she’d wanted to. Even if she’d tried.”
“But it’s not just that. My father dated your mother too.”