“I don’t recall that.”
“Hmm,” he said to the papers in front of him, shuffling through them in show. “How about the sixteenth of March? The twenty-second? How about last week on the fourth of April? Might you recall that?”
Discomfort slithered through me with every serpentine word.
Tess stiffened, her face a mask. “I opened the shop those days.”
“Might I remind you, Ms. Monroe, that you are under oath.”
“But I did open the shop those days,” she insisted.
He gave her a condescending look. “On time? Or because Rosemary Bennet failed to open it herself?”
The room fell silent, all eyes on Tess as she simmered in her seat, grappling for a suitable answer but finding none. Because she answered, “The shop did not open on time.”
“Because Rosemary Bennet failed to open the doors.”
“Yes,” she ground out.
He smiled. “Thank you, Ms. Monroe. I think we have all we need.”
The room exhaled, some with pleasure and some with pain, as Tess rose, her eyes finally releasing the lawyer—whose name I’d chosen not to remember—in order to throw a savage look at my mother and an objectionable look at me. But when she turned to her side of the table, her fury abated instantly, and the regret on her face when she locked gazes with Marcus was total.
He was still, so still as Tess exited the room. His lawyer leaned in to speak to him, and whatever he said tightened Marcus’s face, darkened him to shadows.
“I told you this would be easy,” my mother said, smiling as she slipped her hand into her stupid, flashy purse to retrieve a tube of red lipstick and a compact I was almost positive was solid gold. “She shouldn’t have been so stupid as to sign a contract with me. I’d call it dumb luck, but there was no luck involved. Only dumb.”
I swallowed, shifting in my seat, fighting the urge to either shove her or run out of this room like I was on fire. I said nothing.
“I mean, really. That she didn’t realize I put a leash on her is the most naive thing she’s ever done.”
“You’re awful,” I said, soft and still.
Her compact snapped shut. “I’m resourceful, Margaret. And you’d do well to pay attention. Someday, you’ll be sitting right here, just like me, unless you’re as naive as poor, softheaded Rosemary.”
Never, I screamed in my mind. I will never be like you.
“Why am I here?” I asked again.
Something in her tightened, hardened. “Opposition to the Bennets is a bone-deep Bower credo. And until you embrace that, you’ll witness every step I take toward their downfall.”
“Why won’t you admit that they’re no threat to you? Why won’t you just own up to the fact that you’re petty and that this whole thing is outrageous?”
She turned, laying the full weight of her gaze on me, and I struggled not to buckle beneath it. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. Either way, I will finish what my mother started and erase them. And should they somehow rise again, you will do the same. I’ll bend you until you break, Margaret. Because this is just one of many things you were born to do.”
Dissent rumbled up my throat, heading straight for her, but we were interrupted by the entry of the next Bennet. And once again, the room stilled, all but my mother, who leaned forward like her lunch had just arrived.
Rosemary Bennet was a small woman with apple cheeks and creases on her face etched from joy. Her hair was big and wavy, cut short and brushing her chin, a shade of graphite framing creamy skin. She wore those brilliant blue eyes of Marcus’s, or he wore hers, and though she didn’t have a stitch of makeup on, no one could possibly call her plain. She was a light, a soft and shining light that was felt by every heart in the room, my mother and her lawyer excluded.
They didn’t have hearts to begin with.
Though you could see she generally wore a smile, she had misplaced it today. When she reached to pull out the chair, her gnarled, knobby hands came into view, applying force in an unconventional way to make do with what she had.
Something in my chest ached and sank at the sight. I’d known she’d had to stop working at the shop for her arthritis, but never had I imagined it was so bad as that.
Those big blue eyes of hers didn’t chance a look in our direction, and I hoped to God they wouldn’t. Because my mother was poised to devour her, and I wanted to throw myself in front of Mrs. Bennet like a human shield to stop it. She seemed too gentle for this place, for this room.
My mother might as well have licked her lips when she smiled and said under her breath, “Now, here we go.”
MARCUS
The second my mother walked in, the room held its breath.
My impassive mask was belied only by my eyes, tethering me to her.
It’s going to be all right. We prepared for this. Don’t let them win. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.
She folded her hands in her lap and sat up straight, putting on the best smile she could muster. It was brave, that smile.
After the way today had gone, I knew only one thing.
They were about to decimate her, and there wasn’t one fucking thing I could do to stop it.
“Please state your name for the record,” Thompson, their lawyer, said to his notepad as he scribbled what I suspected was nothing more than doodles. A show of tedium to lure her into letting her guard down.
“Rosemary Bennet,” she said with a sturdy voice, her eyes darting to me.
I offered an encouraging smile.
“And you owned the Longbourne Flower Shop and greenhouse. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” She relaxed a hair at the question. “For twenty years.”
“And in August 2019, you sold that business to your son Marcus Bennet.”
“Yes.”
He flipped the pages of his notebook back like he didn’t know exactly what he was going to ask. “In February 2019, you were approached by a lawyer from Bower with an offer to purchase flowers from your greenhouse. Is that correct?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Describe to me your understanding of the terms.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Bower would purchase a minimum of five thousand dollars monthly in wholesale flowers for five years.”
“And what was your understanding of the clauses in the contract?”
“That they were legal mumbo jumbo to support that basic term.”
“Did you read the contract yourself, Mrs. Bennet?”
Color crept up her neck to settle on her cheeks. “No.”
“Did you have a legal representative read it?”
“No.”
“Did anyone read it before you signed?”
“No, but—”
“It seems outrageously irresponsible for you not to have read a contract that you entered your business into, but you have a history of irresponsibility, don’t you, Mrs. Bennet?”
I straightened up, propelled by my fury, which had nowhere to go.
“I don’t know that I’d say that,” she started, trailing off.
Thompson gave her a small, sarcastic smile. “For instance, we were just talking to Tess Monroe about your inability to open the store on time. She thought it irresponsible.”