Chapter Twenty-Nine
Emery stared at the cardboard box on her coffee table. It had been sitting there for twenty minutes, ever since Ollie had dropped it off with an awkward grimace.
“All your stuff from the shop,” he'd said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Um, Eveline asked me to deliver it personally. Said the post might lose it.”
Emery knew that was rubbish. The post was perfectly reliable for a small box. Eveline just didn't want to see her. Simple as that.
Two weeks had passed since that night at the bookshop. Two weeks of no contact. Two weeks of beating herself up for being stupid enough to not spill the truth in the first place.
“Want me to stay for a bit?” Ollie had asked, hovering in the doorway. “You look like you could use the company.”
Emery had shaken her head. “I'm fine. But thanks.”
She wasn't fine. Not even close. But she didn't want an audience for whatever came next.
With a sigh, she finally reached for the box, peeling back the tape. Inside were the sad remnants of her time at The Turned Page. The cardigan she'd kept on the back room hook. A mug she'd brought from home. A few poetry books she'd bought but never taken home.
There were other things, too. A bookmark Zara had given her, with a quote from Jane Austen.
A small potted succulent that Maya had insisted would be impossible to kill, even for someone as perpetually distracted as Emery.
A recipe for cinnamon rolls that she'd asked for and then promptly forgotten about.
Her life at the bookshop packed up and returned. As if she'd never been there at all.
Tucked against the side was an envelope. The kind solicitors use. Emery pulled it out and opened it.
Ms. Parker,
I have been instructed by my client, Ms. Eveline Auclair, to inform you that all professional ties between yourself and The Turned Page have been formally severed. Your final payment has been deposited into your account.
Furthermore, Ms. Auclair requests that you refrain from attempting to contact her or visiting The Turned Page in the future. All personal effects have been returned with this letter.
Regards, Julian Whitmore, Solicitor
Emery read it twice. A solicitor. Eveline had actually gone to a solicitor to make sure Emery stayed away.
“Bit extreme,” she muttered, setting the letter aside. She continued emptying the box until she reached the bottom, where something made her freeze.
When a Bride Meets a Groom by Emerald Pearl.
Her own book. Eveline's copy, the one she'd referred to during book club.
The spine was cracked, the pages dog-eared. Notes in the margins in Eveline's neat handwriting.
Emery couldn't bring herself to read the notes. It hurt too much to see Eveline's thoughts on words she'd written, back when they'd been strangers, before everything had gone so spectacularly wrong.
She placed it back in the box next to the succulent, which was already looking a bit droopy. So much for impossible to kill.
Her phone buzzed. Jax again, checking in for the third time today. Emery ignored it. She didn't have the energy for Jax's relentless optimism, her insistence that Emery should “fight for what she wanted” like one of her own romance heroines.
But this wasn't a romance novel. There was no grand gesture that could undo the damage she'd caused. No dramatic declaration of love that could make Eveline forget weeks of lies.
“How's Abe doing?” she'd asked Ollie before he'd left.
“Better,” Ollie had said. “Coming home soon, they think. Tough old guy.”
That was something, at least. Abe was getting better. One thing in this mess wasn't completely terrible.
Domi had called yesterday, demanding to know when Emery would have her rewrites done. Emery had gritted her teeth and said inside a week. She had bills to pay, she had readers to please, taking a stand on happy endings just wasn’t sustainable, no matter how strongly she might feel about them.
“Great,” Domi had said.
The book was good. She knew it was. Maybe the best thing she'd ever written. But what did that matter now? The inspiration for it, the bookshop, Eveline, was gone from her life. The irony wasn't lost on her. She'd written her most successful book about a love story that had crashed and burned.
Emery took the potted succulent out and set it on the windowsill. Maybe with some decent light it might survive. She left the rest in the box. The mug, the cardigan, the poetry books, they were just reminders of what she'd lost.
What she'd thrown away, really. Because she could have told Eveline the truth at any point. Could have come clean weeks earlier. Instead, she'd kept quiet, let the lie grow until it was too big to contain.
She made a cup of tea she didn't want, just to have something to do with her hands.
Then she put her knees up to her chest and let the tears come.
Not just for Eveline, but for the shop, for Maya's pastries, for Zara's enthusiasm, for Abe's stories.
For the place where, for a brief time, she'd felt like she belonged.
She cried until she had nothing left, then curled up on the sofa and pulled a blanket over herself, too tired to make it to bed.
???
Eveline straightened a stack of books that were already perfectly aligned. The shop was empty. Again. Third time this week she'd gone more than an hour without a single customer.
Two weeks since that night. Since Emery, no, since Emerald Pearl, had been revealed as a liar. Two weeks of falling sales and rising dread.
“They're boycotting,” Zara had told her yesterday, trying to sound neutral. “Mrs. Hampton says they're shopping at Barton's now. Supporting Emerald Pearl there instead.”
Eveline had just nodded, as if it didn't matter, as if the shop wasn't bleeding money, as if she wasn't lying awake every night wondering how long she could keep the doors open.
“Maybe if you called Emery,” Zara had suggested tentatively. “Tried to work things out?”
“There's nothing to work out,” Eveline had snapped.
Zara hadn't mentioned it again, but Eveline had caught her exchanging worried glances with Maya, who still brought pastries by even though they mostly went uneaten.
She moved to the counter and opened the spreadsheet. The numbers confirmed what she already knew. Without the romance readers, without the book club, without Emery, The Turned Page was struggling. Another month like this and she'd have to dip into her savings.
She closed the app. Zara had gone home hours ago. The shop was silent except for the ticking of the old clock on the wall. Abe’s chair was still empty by the window.
The last time she'd been betrayed by a writer, she'd run away. Left Paris for London, started over.
Where could she go now? What corner of the earth could possibly be far enough away from this particular pain?
Nowhere. The shop was her heart. She couldn't abandon it, not after all these years, not with Abe still recovering, not when she'd finally built something that mattered.
But she hated how every inch of the place reminded her of Emery. Emery arranging displays. Emery laughing with customers. Emery knocking over stacks of books and blushing as she picked them up.
Emery's face when she'd been exposed. Shocked and guilty and pleading.
She shook her head. She'd made her decision. Sent the box with Julian's letter. Ended it properly, formally. No going back, no second chances. Alright, maybe a solicitor had been over-doing things, but she’d wanted it to be for real, wanted it to be formal and unmoving, uncompromisable.
She walked to the poetry section, where they'd once stood close enough that she could smell Emery's shampoo, where she'd recited Neruda and watched Emery's eyes go dark.
The Rossetti collection wasn't there. She remembered now; she'd moved it to the romance section in a fit of anger, as if she could banish poetry to the back corner along with her feelings.
A headache was building behind her eyes. Part of her, a small, weak part, kept wondering if she'd been too harsh. The part that wanted Emery back, wanted her smile and her arms and her laugh.
But Emery had lied for weeks. Even as something was growing, even as they were beginning to love—
Eveline stopped the thought before it could finish. She wouldn't allow herself to complete it, to admit what had been developing between them.
Instead, she went through the motions of closing the shop. Counting the dismal day's take. Turning off lights. Checking windows. The routine was comforting in its familiarity.
She made herself focus on practical matters. The rent was due next week. She'd need to place a smaller order than usual with the distributor. Maybe cut Zara's hours, though that felt like admitting defeat.
As she locked the front door, she glanced at the window display. The romance novels were gone, replaced with classics, history, science. Safe books that wouldn't break her heart.
Upstairs in her flat, she made tea she didn't want. Nibbled at dinner she couldn't taste. Took a shower that didn't help with the bone-deep tiredness.
In her bedroom, she paused at the dresser drawer where she'd put Emery's unopened letter. She couldn't throw it away, this last unread message. Her fingers hovered over the handle before she pulled back.
No. Reading it now wouldn't change anything. Wouldn't erase the lies. Wouldn't bring back the customers. Wouldn't fix what was broken.
She turned away from the drawer and climbed into bed. Stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow would be another day of empty aisles and dwindling sales. Another day of pretending the shop, that she, wasn't slowly falling apart.
Sleep came eventually, but it brought no peace. Only dreams of curly hair and blue eyes and books falling to the floor.