Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Magnolia
I’d been looking forward to Rowan’s mini girls’ night all day, but now that it was time to head over there, I thought hard about canceling.
It was going on seven o’clock Friday evening, and I was fuming. I wouldn’t be good company. Rowan’s three-month-old daughter would probably sense my emotions and fuss all night just from my energy being in the same room.
I had my phone out, ready to text Rowan, when it occurred to me that staying home would be a victory for Felix. His entire point was to ruin my life some more. So I didn’t text Rowan. Instead I brushed my hair, pulled a thick sweatshirt on, grabbed my keys, and headed out.
In the Cordovas’ driveway, I sat in my car for a few minutes, coaching myself to shake it off. I forced myself to smile, hoping it would lighten my tension, then climbed out.
“Magnolia, come on in,” Rowan said when she opened the door for me. Lilah Rose was asleep on Rowan’s shoulder, looking angelic and peaceful.
“Ahh,” I breathed out. “I need this so bad.” I smiled at Rowan, and it came out a little more naturally.
“Baby time?” Rowan asked. “Would you like to hold her?”
“I should probably calm down a little more before I try holding your daughter,” I said. “But just seeing her precious little self so content is a good start.”
No, I hadn’t morphed into a big fan of kids and babies after a holiday and a couple of evenings with Addie, but something about the inherent trust and comfort of Lilah Rose worked its way into my heart. It was impossible to want to injure my not-father while watching the baby sleep.
“What’s going on?” Rowan asked as she led me to the family room in the back of the house. “Are you okay?”
“As Presley would say, Felix the Fuck is at it again.” I glanced at the baby. “Oops, sorry.”
“Considering the fact that I’ve never heard you drop an f-bomb, you get a pass,” Rowan said.
“Magnolia used the f-word?” Presley asked as we went down the single step to the sunken room. “What’s going on?”
“Do you need a drink?” Chloe asked.
“More than air,” I said. “If we’re doing drinks.” I glanced at Chloe, who was in her first trimester of pregnancy.
She held up a beautiful martini glass with a thick, creamy beverage and red, green, and white sugared rim. “Sugar cookie martinis. Mine’s a virgin.”
“Virgins for me too,” Rowan said, pointing at her daughter, who I knew she was nursing. “But for you and Presley, full-strength vanilla vodka and amaretto.”
“Sounds delicious. If you don’t have whiskey,” I joked, remembering Luke’s same words.
Rowan put her daughter into the bouncy seat, then went to the kitchen, which had a cut-out to the room we were in.
“Sit down and start talking,” Presley said, patting the sofa next to her. “This sounds serious.”
“I didn’t mean to come in and highjack the party,” I said.
Chloe waved off my objection. “What’s going on, Magnolia?”
I curled into the corner of the sofa opposite Presley, hugging a throw pillow to my chest. “So you can’t mention the name outside of this room, just because it’s business.”
Chloe and Presley nodded as Rowan came back into the room with my festive martini.
“Last week I got a call from Ella McCabe’s personal assistant to set up an initial consultation for her wedding.”
“Ella McCabe? The singer?” Presley practically bellowed in surprise.
“That’s amazing,” Chloe said.
“I was stunned but so excited,” I said.
“I don’t like the past tense,” Rowan pointed out.
“Our appointment was today at four. Her assistant, Allegra, left a message canceling it midafternoon.”
“Why did she cancel?” Presley asked.
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t get the message until right at four because I had another appointment before that.
So I called Allegra and left a message asking her the reasons, wondering if I could’ve done anything differently.
She actually called me back at almost six o’clock and was super nice and understanding. ”
“So what was the reason?”
“Apparently Ella’s father is a business associate of Felix. Felix warned him against me. It took me a bit to convince her to tell me more of what he said, but she finally did. He told her father I’m mentally unstable and that I miss deadlines and have no respect for budgets.”
“What?” Rowan exclaimed. “Those are blatant lies.”
I shrugged, even though I was anything but nonchalant. “Her dad forwarded the lies to Ella.” I swallowed, fighting back the urge to cry. When I’d hung up with Allegra, I’d gone straight to screaming mad.
“What did you say to the assistant?” Chloe asked.
“I was so stunned I kind of faltered, then told her Felix James has it in for me. I didn’t think it was appropriate to lay all my family drama on her.”
Chloe nodded. “That would come across as unprofessional.”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s one thing to want the people of this town to find out the truth, since they’ve known my family all along and lumped me in with my jerky parents. It’s quite another to have a complete stranger who wants to do business with me learning the craziness I was raised in.”
“I agree with that. Felix the Fuck is the unprofessional one but he’s trying to bring you down with him,” Presley said, then looked at the baby, whose eyes were now closed. “I’ll stop swearing before she turns one, Rowan, I promise.”
“I have faith in you,” Rowan said, shaking her head and grinning. “So what are you going to do?” she asked me.
“I’m going to drink this pretty cocktail and buy a voodoo doll with Felix’s name on it,” I said.
“I support all of that,” Presley said. “I’m so sorry, hon.”
“That man needs to burn in hell,” Chloe said, “sooner rather than later.”
“I’m for it,” I said. “I really thought this could be a foot in the door with the country-music world, you know?”
“It could’ve been,” Chloe said.
“Is there really nothing you can do?” Rowan asked.
I lifted my drink. “Drink heavily?”
Presley lifted hers too. “I’m here for you.” We both sipped. “I’m sorry, Magnolia. I’m furious on your behalf.”
I nodded, taking another swallow of my drink that turned out to be absolutely delicious. “Subject closed. No more talk about that worthless worm who is not my father, thank all the gods ever in existence.”
“Yes, I’m glad you vented to us, Magnolia. He’s a piece of dog doo who doesn’t deserve any more of our girls’ night,” Rowan said. “Presley, The Bean Counter was packed the other day when I stopped by before work.”
“Same thing every time I went this week,” Chloe said, “which, come to think of it, was pretty much every day. You’re killing it, my friend.”
“It’s going better than I even hoped for,” Presley said. “And thank you for supporting us.”
“It’s not out of the goodness of my heart,” Chloe said. “It’s just good coffee. I don’t know how we lived before.”
“My favorite is the gingerbread latte,” Rowan said. “With real whipped cream.”
Talk shifted to Presley’s wedding for a few minutes, and then when Luke’s name came up regarding the barn, Rowan said, “Speaking of Luke…” She turned her head very deliberately to me.
“Word on the street is that you and he are an official thing. Like, out in public, seen holding hands, all the things. You’ve been holding out on us. ”
“Luke and I…are an official thing,” I said, shrugging but unable to keep a big smile off my face. “It’s early days, and he’s so busy right now that our time together is never long enough, but…yeah. It’s good so far.”
“I never thought I’d see the day,” Chloe said. “There was so much tension between you two.”
“You know what they say about love and hate,” Presley said.
Rowan grinned and nodded. “So you can put all that pent-up emotion for…how long did you hate him?”
“We had a falling out when I was seventeen,” I said.
“That’s a lot of pent-up emotion to put into sexy times,” Rowan said.
“And a lot of time to make up for,” I said. “And we’re trying.” I told them how he invited me for dinner a few times and how he visited me several nights a week after Addie went to bed.
Rowan brought out a tray of finger foods—mozzarella-stuffed pretzel bites and ham-and-cheese biscuit bites—and we covered a bunch of topics, like where their guys were tonight, Chloe’s Thanksgiving with all the Norths and all the Henrys at Faye and Simon Henry’s new lake house, and Presley’s soon-to-be stepdaughters’ brand-new bedrooms in her home.
“How’s your mom doing, Magnolia?” Rowan asked. “Have you heard from her?”
“Oh,” I said, sitting up straighter and taking a large gulp of martini number two. “Are you guys sick of my drama yet? Because there’s more.”
“Not sick of it at all,” Presley said. “There’s more since Felix got booted?”
“You’re looking at the new owner of Lansford Development.”
“Uh, Magnolia? You didn’t lead with that?” Chloe asked. “What the hell?”
“You own a bajillion-dollar company? Right now?” Presley asked.
“Well, half of it,” I said flippantly. Because I might be the owner, but I hadn’t taken ownership of any of it, and I had no intention of doing so.
“My grandfather died of a heart attack Monday. He apparently changed everything in his will and in the company after my mom told him she was divorcing Felix.”
“To make you the owner of a company you have no interest in,” Presley clarified.
“With my mother who I have no relationship with.” I drank more, craving the thick, creamy sweetness.
“Does she want it?”
I laughed. “Not even a little bit.”
“This is so out there,” Rowan said. “If you made it into a movie, people would say it’s too farfetched.”
“Welcome to my family,” I said.
“So what does this mean for you?” Chloe asked. “Are you going to get involved in the day-to-day?”
I shook my head. “We’re going to sell it. I don’t even know how that works, but that’s what we’re doing. Anyone want to buy it?” I joked.
Presley was on her phone, typing in a search window. “Estimated worth is in the nine-figures range. You’re well on your way to being a billionaire, Mags.”