Questions and lies and a dozen excuses pinged around in my skull as I headed down the ramp, stopping just inside the basement. Kash did a cursory inspection to make sure we were alone before hanging his hands on his hips in a stance that could only be called aggressive.
“Put your shirt on,” I said. “I can’t take you seriously with your nipples out.”
He rolled his eyes but pulled a tee out from its tuck in his back pocket and tugged it on. The words Weed ’em and Reap stretched across his chest before his arms folded over them.
“Got something to tell me?” he asked, his voice low.
I slid my hands into my pockets. “Depends on what you saw.”
“You know what I fucking saw. You know who I saw. What the fuck, Marcus? I mean it. What in the actual fuck was Margaret Bower doing at your apartment?”
“Margaret Bower?” Luke blurted from behind me.
I gave Kash a look. “Way to go, man. Way to fucking go.”
“Hey, I’m not the one sleeping with a Bower,” Kash noted. “Of all the girls in Manhattan, you would pick the one you can’t have.”
“Who said I’m sleeping with her?”
“You were whistling,” Luke said as if that explained everything.
Kash made a sour face. “Whistling?”
“You’d think I walked in here in a goddamn cocktail dress.”
Luke shook his head, waved a hand, and blinked a handful of times in a second. “Stop. Back up. How’d you find out, Kash?”
“Yeah, how’d you find out?” I asked, folding my arms.
His cheeks flushed above his beard in an expression wholly unlike him. “I, uh … well, Lila and I were walking home.”
Luke and I swiveled to face him as a unified front.
“Walking home from where?” Luke asked, smirking.
“At midnight?” I added.
“We were just out, okay?”
“But why were you over here?” I asked. “You guys live—”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about you fucking a—”
“Hang on,” Luke started, pausing to belt a solid laugh. “You brought her to the greenhouse, didn’t you?”
When he sputtered, Luke and I both broke into laughter.
“Oh my God,” I said. “What are you, sixteen again?”
“It’s none of your goddamn business why Lila and I came here—”
“Where’d you do her?” Luke asked, nearly giggling. “Tell me it was in the hay.”
“Nah, that’s all you and Tess,” Kash shot, not at all amused. “Any-fucking-way, we saw Margaret leaving your place with sex hair and her makeup all smudged, and if you try to tell me you were having a legal meeting, I swear to God—”
“Shh.” I glanced toward the ramp. “Shut up. Mom can’t know yet, and you know she’s always snooping around. She’s as nosy as Luke.”
Luke frowned. “Wait, I’m the metric for being nosy now?”
I gestured to the two of them rather than explain.
“Just try not to say her name,” I said, taking a breath, looking into their disapproving faces as they waited for me to elaborate. “You’re not wrong, Kash.”
I didn’t have a chance to say anything else before they started talking all at once, asking questions and making accusations and generally being a couple of barking dogs in the echoing basement.
“Oh my God, would you shut the fuck up!” I whisper-hissed at them.
Mercifully, they pulled themselves together.
I raked a hand through my hair, mad as all hell that I had to explain this within hours of it happening. But I shouldn’t have expected any less.
“I met her before the meeting with … them a few weeks ago. Literally that morning, and I asked her out. Or she asked me out, but I asked for her number, and—” I waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. And when I walked in the boardroom, there she was, sitting next to Evelyn Bower,” I said under my breath. “I didn’t know who she was, but I liked her. Liked her enough to … anyway, I knew better than to get involved. I fucking knew better. But I couldn’t help myself. Especially not after she stood up to her mother, on the record and in front of all those people, for us. For Mom. She doesn’t belong there. She doesn’t belong under her mother’s thumb.”
“What do you mean, under her thumb?” Kash asked.
“I mean that her mother has a leash on her. Everything Evelyn Bower does is to try to heel Maisie.”
“Maisie?” Kash’s face was bent in confusion.
“Margaret Bower. Maisie.”
“I don’t understand,” Luke started, his brows stitched together. “You like her? Who gives a shit, man? She’s a goddamn Bower, Marcus. Out of all of us, you are the one who, without question, would shut her down immediately. What you think of her doesn’t change who she is.”
Kash nodded his agreement.
My teeth ground together in my skull so hard, my jaw hurt. “Would you still act like a dick if I told you she was spying on Bower for us?”
Both of their mouths popped open, and I wasn’t even gonna pretend like that didn’t satisfy me.
“She’s not who you think, and she is not one of them. Yesterday, she walked into Bower prepared to quit—not just the company, but her mother. Her inheritance. If she sticks it out, that company is hers. Think about that for a second. What if they weren’t our enemies? What if they were allies?”
“And how the hell do you think that’s ever going to happen with Evelyn at the helm?” Kash asked. “I bet she lives to a hundred-and-eighty, fueled by nothing but spite.”
“Ten years, and Maisie has only one share less than her mother,” I answered.
“That feels like a long time from now,” Kash countered in disapproval.
“But in the meantime, she’s still our ally as long as she stays in that hellhole. She’s gonna help us stay a step ahead when it comes to the lawsuit.”
“How do you know she’s not spying on us for Bower?” Kash asked.
“Because I know,” I answered simply. There was no other way to explain.
“I don’t know if that’s good enough,” he said, his jaw sharp and eyes stony.
Fury rose in my chest at the audacity. “When have I ever put this family in danger? Whenever have I done anything but take care of you? Of Mom? Of this shop? I put every fucking penny I own into saving Longbourne, and if you think I would fuck that off for a girl, you’re mistaken. And you know it.”
Kash still frowned, but the tension in his shoulders eased. “You can’t blame me for asking.”
“I don’t. But also, fuck you.”
They chuckled, and the tension between us eased too.
“So what are you gonna do?” Kash asked. “What’s your plan?”
“Right now, it’s to lay low until the lawsuit is over. We’ll tell Mom once it’s said and done and things are settled. No way can I drop that on her until then.”
“And then?” Luke asked.
“And then … I don’t know. We’ll have to come clean to her mother at some point, but I have to leave that to Maisie—she’s the one with everything to lose.”