The Wrong Mr. Right (The Queen's Cove Series #2)(4)

This was my mom’s store, and I was running it into the ground. My dad trusted me to carry on her dream, and whatever I was doing, I wasn’t enough.

Rocks churned in my stomach as I thought about how much she loved this store. She passed when I was sixteen from an aneurysm. She was folding laundry. I was at a friend’s house working on a school project, and my dad found her. I shot a glance over to the blue squashy chairs where I would sit as a kid, reading and listening while she raced around the store, thrusting books into customers’ hands and talking as fast as she could. She loved books, she loved people, and she was lit from within with charisma, light, energy, and fun.

My mom was the life of the party. She used to throw them all the time here in the store, just for fun. Just because she could.

I smiled to myself at the memory.

One day, you’ll find your true love, just like Mr. Darcy, she would tell me, excitement lighting up her eyes.

My gaze flicked to the white shopping bag, still sitting on the blue chair. There were no customers left in the store, so I strolled over, brought it over to the desk, slid the box out, and lifted the dress up once again.

It was dazzling.

My mom would totally wear a dress like this.

And if she saw me now, hiding in the bookstore, letting it fail, wasting my life? She’d be so disappointed.

I let out a long sigh, toying with this painful idea.

What would she do in this situation? She’d do everything she could to make the store successful again. She’d go out and find someone to fall in love with.

When my mom was thirty, she had it all—a partner, me, a business she loved, and a great life. The store was hers, and my dad trusted me to run it.

I couldn’t let them both down, even if she was gone. I had to find a way to turn the store around.





2





Hannah





“I’m home,” I called when I stepped in the front door of the little house I shared with my dad.

“Hi, honey.” My dad was in his favorite chair in the front room, reading John Grisham’s latest. “Good day at the store?”

I shot him a tight smile as I kicked my shoes off. “Thérèse stopped by to say hello.”

He didn’t notice me dodging the question. “That’s nice.”

“I’m going to finish up some paperwork.”

When I got to my bedroom, I slid the white shopping bag Thérèse had given me under my bed as far as it would go.

Then, I took a seat at my desk, opened my laptop, and tallied the sales for the day.

Four sales.

We hadn’t even covered Liya’s salary today. I sighed and stared out the window at the trees behind our house. Another month in the red. That was eleven. Eleven months in a row, we had been losing money. I thought about the shop the way Wyatt must have seen it today—worn, ugly carpet, faded wallpaper, books stacked everywhere.

The store couldn’t survive in our tiny town any longer. Panic clawed at me. It was only a matter of time before I ran out of savings and my dad found out how the store was really doing.

That was the way she wanted it, he said whenever I hinted we’d see more sales if we made a few changes. Your mother put everything into that store.

His tone always made it clear: if we changed the store, we were erasing her memory.

We hadn’t made any changes to the store since the day she passed. The same artwork hung on the walls. The same dusty maroon carpet lay on the floor. Bookshelves stood where they were installed years ago. Even our website was from the nineties. It was a joke of my mom’s, when I was a teenager, that we had such an old website. No one had used it, anyway.

But that was fourteen years ago. Now, people used websites all the time.

On my laptop, I opened a browser and typed in the website address. It loaded and a tinny, tinkly music played, a Victorian tune that sounded like something from the 1800s. Pemberley Books appeared above a picture of my mom at the front desk, surrounded by books, smiling from ear to ear.

I let out a long sigh. She was beautiful, and when she smiled like that, it was so obvious that owning her own bookstore was her dream.

And now I was running it into the ground.

I snapped the laptop closed and shoved the image from my mind.

Half an hour later, the timer on the oven dinged and I pulled the pan of roast veggies and chickpeas out.

“Something smells good.” My dad walked into the kitchen. It was what we had most nights before we both picked up our books and read at the dinner table.

“Hey, Dad?” I set the pan on the stove and pulled a couple plates down.

“Mmm?” He opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out forks and knives.

“I was thinking.” I kept my gaze on the food as I transferred it between two plates. “There are some great bookstore social media accounts. They take nice photos, they make book recommendations, and they’re a free way to advertise.” He was quiet and I spared him a glance. “All the bookstores have them,” I continued, setting the plates down on the table.

He sighed and took a seat across from me. He gave me a sad, tentative smile. “Honey.”

With that word, I knew. My stomach sunk. “I think it would help boost sales.”

His expression strained. “We’ve had this conversation before. Pemberley’s charm is that we don’t do things like everyone else.” He waved his fork. “These big box stores with their fluorescent lights and escalators? You know what they sell?”