Thirteen

P oppy looked hot in a midriff-baring bright pink top she’d paired with some high-waisted, wide-legged trousers. She had a fascinator tucked into her bag for the wedding later. This was just brunch with his parents.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t sweating. He’d worn a suit in green, coordinated with a patterned shirt and bow tie. The dress code for Gemma’s reception was “funky formal.” He’d taken that remit to his tailor and was pleased with the results. But at the same time, he was slightly uncomfortable. George and his wife, Bronte, waited in the lobby for them.

George’s suit was similar to his, and Alistair hated that he relaxed when he saw his older brother in the same awkward garb. Bronte wore a sheath dress in bright orange satin with a large broach comprised of three sequined flowers that pretty much dominated her entire left side.

George was on his phone, and Bronte spotted them first, hurrying over and hugging Ali. “Nice to see you.” She turned to Poppy. “I’m Bronte. I’ve been really looking forward to meeting you.”

Poppy smiled. “Poppy. Nice to meet you.”

“Sorry, I’m going to fangirl for a minute, and then I promised George I wouldn’t do it again. But I’m obsessed— obsessed —with everything WiCKed Sisters. We’ve been too busy to make a trip to Maine, but we are planning one at the end of the summer.”

Poppy’s smile deepened, something that happened when she talked about the shop she shared with her friends. It was clear to Ali that the business truly fulfilled her in a way that he never had. He had to remember that as he was trying to figure out if he could find a way back into her orbit permanently.

The women were soon deep in conversation. Feeling like a third wheel, Alistair glanced at the bar, which should be serving alcohol even this early. It was a wedding day, after all, and he could already hear some people in there celebrating.

George clapped his hand on Alistair’s shoulder before he could bolt for a whiskey to dull the edge of his nerves. This was the kind of situation where being numb would have been his MO not that long ago. Tension was all around him.

So he breathed in. Out. Holding himself in that happy zen garden that his therapist had taught him to create in his head.

Today, there was no running or escaping the situation. He promised himself he’d be here for Poppy and George. They were both counting on him.

“How was the Tor?”

“Nice. Thanks for the house rec. We really enjoyed it,” Alistair said.

“Bronte got changed three times because she wanted to vibe with Poppy,” George said. “But to be honest, Poppy seems different than the last time I saw her.”

“Yeah. She is. WiCKed Sisters’ success, I think, is part of it, but she’s...just sort of stepped into herself.” Alistair had to admit that he was more drawn to Poppy now than he had been the first time he’d seen her. The years had been good to her. He couldn’t get enough of this new Poppy—in every sense of the word.

“Good. I’m here for it. That’s the kind of energy Dad needs to see,” George said. “You good for this?”

“Yeah,” Ali said. Not really wanting to think too far ahead to seeing his father. The old man had mellowed toward him after the breakdown. Everyone had. No one wanted to put too much pressure on him.

“I mean it, if you need to step out—”

Alistair was not going to let his brother cover for him. Suspecting that George was coming from a good place didn’t change his mind. He wasn’t walking out on Poppy or away from his dad. “No. I’m not going down that road. I need to get out of my head when people who matter to me need me.”

“Poppy’s not the only one whose energy has changed,” George said quietly. “I like this version of you.”

The women joined them before Ali could respond, so for a moment, he sat in George’s compliment. All that work to shed the old behaviors had started to pay off. The biggest test would be when he was with his dad. The earl was his Everest. Every obstacle that would keep him from reaching the top was going to be present. There would be disappointment, probably—

His thoughts broke off as Poppy slipped her hand into his. Her fingers were long and cool, and when she squeezed his hand, heat moved up his arm, melting the lump of icy panic that had taken hold of him.

“You okay?” she asked under her breath as she reached up with her free hand to straighten his tie.

“Yeah. I’m not going to let you down again.” Reassuring her was easy. It was all he thought about. The past was littered with mistakes that he was determined not to repeat.

A sad sort of half smile teased her mouth, and then she forced a full one. “Great. I’m not going to let myself down either.”

Ali understood that he and Poppy had the same agenda. They both had allowed themselves to be pushed, manipulated and bullied by his father the last time they met with him like this. As a couple, they hadn’t been united because Alistair had only wanted to see pride on the old man’s face.

This time, he was here just for Poppy. Praise wasn’t something he craved from Howard Miller any longer. And it wasn’t something the eighth Earl of Winfield was ever going to give willingly. It had taken a lot of miles in his running shoes to finally process that Ali didn’t need that man to be proud of him.

“They’re here.” George waved his parents over.

Ali felt Poppy tense next to him. Dropping her hand, he put his on the small of her back instead so he could touch her skin. He stroked her gently until she stood taller, shoulders back, and nodded to him.

They were as prepared as they could be.

His mum spotted them first and rushed over to hug him. “Ali. I’m glad you both could be here.” She turned to Poppy and gave her a stiffer, more formal sort of hug, kissing both cheeks before stepping back. “Nice to see you again.”

“Thanks, Helena.”

“Alistair,” his father said, holding out his hand.

“Sir,” Ali said, giving it a firm shake.

“Glad your wife is with you.”

“Poppy and Gemma are friends, so it was easy to convince her to come with me. But she’s still not pleased with how our family treated her,” he said.

His father’s eyebrows rose, but his mum stepped between them. “George is signaling that our table is ready. I think this is a conversation better had when we are all together.”

His mum tucked her hand into the crook of his dad’s arm. Poppy was taking deep breaths, and Alistair eyed the door. For a minute, he was tempted to just walk away. To escape to his Ducati and get as far away from this situation as he could.

But then he glanced down into Poppy’s brown eyes. He wasn’t going anywhere. If he exploded the way he had at the Lancaster-Spencer offices, well, he’d deal with it. But first, he planned to set the tone he wanted for the meeting.

Poppy could tell Alistair was all but vibrating with tension as they followed the family to the table. Her thoughts flashed between the man she’d known for the past few days and the man he’d been during their marriage. This kind of tension usually precipitated an outburst. His anger would be hard to control and could take all the attention from the points she wanted to make.

But he’d told his father this meeting would be different from the last. Plus, she could always walk away from this table. She wasn’t the scared young bride afraid to stand up for herself anymore.

Bronte looked nervous as well. Was there more than one plot in play?

Poppy almost strutted past the table and out of the restaurant. Of course there was something more going on. When had anything with the Millers been simple and straightforward?

Alistair pulled out her chair and leaned low to whisper in her ear as she sat down. “This is your show.”

As he went around to take his seat, she allowed the sentiment to wash over her. She wasn’t alone. Liberty had pulled a card for her that morning. It had still been midnight when she called her friend. Sera had video-chatted in too. They’d both agreed that she shouldn’t take a shit deal to keep Lancaster-Spencer from suing her. If they did, then WiCKed Sisters was prepared to deal with it.

Don’t settle for less than you deserve. Sera’s words circled in Poppy’s mind, adding to the strength she always drew from her friends. They weren’t going to be disappointed if she walked away from whatever Howard Miller offered her.

Their party was seated in the back of the restaurant, with no other tables close to them. Helena signaled to the servers, who took their orders. After coffee and tea had been delivered for everyone, Alistair’s dad cleared his throat.

“Poppy, I’m sorry that you feel you weren’t treated fairly by us. But the deal you were offered for your family’s tea-blend recipe was fair, and you still receive profits through Alistair from the sales of that blend,” his dad started.

The earl’s age really showed on his face. His thinning gray hair was still perfectly styled, but some of the toughness in Alistair’s father was gone.

“I should receive them myself. Alistair and I are di—estranged, as you know,” Poppy said, quickly catching herself. Her hands were clenched together in her lap as she braced herself to make her point.

“We could amend that deal,” George said. “We should never have hidden the fact that you were signing away the rights to the tea blend in perpetuity. That should have been spelled out from the beginning.”

“Perhaps, but you’re getting ahead of yourself, George. We already have a contract that we haven’t been enforcing due to you and Alistair working through your marital problems,” Howard said. “But given the success you’ve had in the last year, we can no longer ignore it. I think you are aware that the contract you signed when you joined Lancaster-Spencer has a noncompete clause in it.”

“I’m very aware of that. But I haven’t been an employee of Lancaster-Spencer for seven years. My noncompete clause only covered a period of three years after leaving Lancaster-Spencer,” she pointed out. She’d taken the time to go over the contract as soon as she’d gotten the offer from the Willingham of Hampshire tea company.

Howard took a sip of the Darjeeling tea that he favored, looking a little too smug for Poppy’s comfort. What had she missed? She wasn’t still employed by them; she hadn’t received any money from the company since she’d left London.

“That’s not necessarily true. You do receive dividends paid into your joint account with Alistair as an absentee board member.”

Alistair put his hand on her leg as she looked over at him. “Poppy wasn’t aware of that account, Father. I have held it until our marriage is settled. She hasn’t received anything from the company. I think you should consider, as well, that paying me for her work isn’t—”

“We weren’t paying you. We were paying into the account she had when she started at the company,” Howard pointed out. “Whether she used the money or not, we have been paying her.”

“Which isn’t the point,” George said. “We’d like to move past this and talk about what we really are here to discuss—the Amber Rapp tea blend and your plan to license it to Willingham of Hampshire. Instead, we’d ask that you license it to us under a very generous offer that would see you paid into your own account and the contract not linked in any way to Alistair.”

Howard’s glare should have melted George to his chair. But George ignored his father and kept his gaze on her.

“The terms I’ve been offered by Willingham include me keeping control of the recipe, and I would have full control over the factory that would package the tea mix.”

“Unacceptable. We already have rights to everything you develop,” Howard said.

“But we don’t,” George countered. “She terminated her employment contract in 2019, when she moved to Maine.”

“That’s right, I did. So I was free to create blends and sell them under my own name. The Kitchener name,” she added, because Howard had co-opted her family’s recipe as his own when he’d taken their blend and made it into the premier blend for Lancaster-Spencer. “Unlike what you did with Ann Kitchener’s famed tea recipe. Taking her name off of it and making it the Lancaster-Spencer Reserve wasn’t right.”

“To that end, we’d also like for you to change your current offering of Earl Winfield to Kitchener’s Earl Winfield,” Alistair added.

“Now we’re renegotiating that too?” Howard said.

“Everything is on the table because I can’t allow you to license another tea blend while this is still unresolved,” Poppy said.

“It was resolved when you married my son.”

“Would it be undone if we divorced?” she asked.

His father had no answer for that.

“That’s not happening. Alistair is making strides, and you are together,” Helena said. “Let’s focus on doing the right thing for our daughter-in-law, Howie. She deserves to be treated like family. Just like our motto. What are we if not family?”

“I agree with mother,” George said.

Poppy wasn’t sure what was happening, but there were undercurrents of discord and conspiracy. In fact, it seemed as if each member of the Miller family was using the licensing of her tea blend for their own agenda.

Normally, he’d be incensed by his father, but right now, he also wasn’t feeling great toward his mum and George. “This meeting is for Poppy to talk to us and get some sort of fair offer. I understand that the past contract needs to be amended. But she’s not going to sign something you offer her at breakfast.”

“No, I’m not. What exactly is your offer?” Poppy asked. Her hand found his under the table, and he squeezed it. George had an agenda that Alistair was behind when it came to the future of Lancaster-Spencer, but to his mind, this wasn’t the time to make a play for the chairmanship.

“We’ll top what Willingham of Hampshire offered, and you’ll retain rights to the Amber Rapp blend,” Howard said.

“Willingham will be marketing the tea as WiCKed Sisters x Willingham of Hampshire. Since our brand is what is driving sales, I’d expect that in the offer as well,” Poppy said.

“Very well.”

“It’s also a limited run, for six months, coinciding with Amber Rapp’s European tour,” Poppy said.

“Given the excitement around that blend, we’d want to make it more of a permanent offering than limited,” Howard said.

“How about six months limited, and we reevaluate at the end of the term?” Poppy countered.

“That sounds fair,” George said.

“I’ll have to think that over,” Howard said. “I’ll also consider the points brought up by Alistair regarding the Kitchener name. You’ll have an offer from us in a few weeks.”

“Thank you,” Poppy said. “I’ll make my decision by the end of August.”

“I’m still prepared to sue,” Howard warned.

“I’d be disappointed if you weren’t,” Poppy said cheekily.

His father almost laughed.

Alistair noticed his father observing Poppy with something that was close to respect. As it turned out, maybe she hadn’t needed him and George and their plan. Poppy had done more for herself than all the back and forth before.

“Good. Where’s our breakfast?” Howard asked.

His mum lifted her hand to signal the waitstaff, and a few minutes later, the food was brought to their table. The meal wasn’t exactly enjoyable, but it wasn’t as tense as it could have been. For the first time, Alistair didn’t feel uncomfortable with his family.

It was because he was with Poppy. Their time chatting online over the past six months, and their moments together the past few days, had shown him a glimpse of another life. One that had nothing to do with tea or being the second son of the Earl of Winfield.

Instead, he felt like Poppy’s boyfriend again.

How did she feel?

The way she kept giving him little smiles when she thought no one was watching them told him she was happy with the meeting at least.

He couldn’t blame her. She’d come to the table and owned it.

God, this woman. How had he never seen her strength? He’d taken for granted that she once bent to his will. It was a miracle she’d lasted the entire six months of their marriage before she left him.

When they left the restaurant, she grabbed his hand, pulling him out to the garden where the wedding would take place later that day. She threw herself into his arms and squeezed him tight.

“That went way better than I expected. George had me worried with all that stuff he kept bringing up.”

Alistair held her loosely, so afraid of fucking this up. Of somehow saying the wrong thing and being pushed back out of her life. “He was trying to help.”

“I got that. You were awesome. Just laying down the law. Aren’t you afraid that he might fire you or cut you off?” she asked, stepping back from him.

“No.” That was one fear he didn’t have, because he no longer worked for Lancaster-Spencer or depended on his inheritance to survive. He’d made some good investments, and his life was simpler now. No more jet-set partying.

“Good. I like that for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. God, it’s a gorgeous day. I never expected... I mean, I hoped for this outcome, and I had Sera and Liberty’s energy with me.”

He wasn’t sure that she needed anyone else’s strength. She was pure steel wrapped in bright pink, curves and soft curls. He lowered his head and took the kiss he could no longer deny himself.

Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, she held him to her as she deepened the kiss. Her thigh slid between his legs, and he cupped her butt, turning them away from the windows of the hotel and steering them under the shade of a large blooming tree.

“Sorry. That was... Where do we stand on us?” he asked.

“Us?”

He didn’t clarify. There was still Owen’s offer to come and curate his beer for the summer festival at the tavern. Ali wanted to do it. Wanted to keep seeing Poppy and trying to figure out this new dynamic between them.

Still, respecting her boundaries was important to him; he’d regret it if he pushed his way back into her life if it wasn’t what she wanted. But this...felt like something new and worth pursuing, as did the opportunity to work in Birch Lake with Owen.

He had to make it clear to both himself and Poppy that he was doing it for the right reasons. Not simply to worm his way back into her life.

“I guess we could call it a holiday fling,” she said at last. “I mean, I’m going home on Monday.”

He swallowed, taking a deep breath. “Owen offered me a summer job in Birch Lake. I’d like to take it and see you while I’m there. Maybe see if this could be more than a fling.”

Chewing her lower lip, she wrapped one arm around her waist. Her gaze moved over him, and he knew she was sizing him up. Trying to cut the truth from the lies. He let her. He deserved her distrust, her uncertainty. But he was working to change that. After he’d seen her show of strength today, he knew that he had to continue the work to be the man he wanted to be.

“If you did that, it would have to be for you. I can’t guarantee that we’ll ever be more than this,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Hey, I get that’s not what you were hoping to hear. But take it from someone who changed and moved and tried to be a person they weren’t. Relationships like ours will only work if we’re both true to who we are.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

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