Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(21)

“I’ll try to fix things.”

The problem with this plan? Generally Pris didn’t fix things. Her forte was making a bigger mess.

“How?”

“Do you love Shane?”

“No.”

“Do you want him?”

“No.”

“Not even a little tiny bit?”

“Not even if he was the last man on earth,” said Margaret as a pair of green eyes flashed in her head, lighting up the darkness of her present situation.

“Then why do you care?” asked Priscilla in the most unexpectedly level voice Margaret had ever heard her use.

“I don’t. But Daddy . . .”

“. . . is going to be pissed for a while. You foiled his plan.”

“He treats me like some eighteenth-century chattel. It’s humiliating.”

“And yet you care.”

“Pris—”

“You don’t have to explain it to me, Meggie. I’m his daughter too.”

For a moment, Margaret felt puzzled. Because Priscilla had always been such an oddball free spirit, Margaret hadn’t thought much about her feelings when it came to their father. Pris was wild and tattooed, got caught making out with boys at an early age, and was a constant, consistent source of disappointment to their buttoned-up parents. And yet for all her freewheeling ways, their father’s lack of affection hurt Priscilla too.

“Okay, I’ll go.”

“Good,” said Pris, pushing Margaret toward the door. “Then what are you still doing in the closet with me?”

“I miss Mother,” said Margaret softly, a sentiment the sisters rarely shared with one another.

“She wouldn’t have gotten in the way tonight,” said Priscilla in a hard voice. “She wouldn’t have stepped in. She would have let it happen, and she would have made you feel bad for refusing. He always got his way. Always. No matter what.”

Margaret leaned back and grabbed her sister’s cheeks, pulling her close so that she could rub Priscilla’s nose with hers. “I love you, Pris.”

Priscilla’s voice softened appreciably. “I love you too. Now, get out of here.”

Margaret exited the closet stealthily, slipping her shoes off and walking tiptoe across the front hallway.

“Oh God,” she moaned, flipping over in her bed and burying her face in her pillow. She should have just kept walking. She should have tiptoed out the front door, started up Priscilla’s save-the-earth car, and escaped to The Five Sisters. But no. Stupidly, she’d paused by her father’s cracked-open office door and heard the words she wished she hadn’t.

“I never wanted five girls. I wanted, well . . .,” her father said, the splash of Scotch filling a glass competing with his humorless chuckle. “I wanted a boy. A son. Someone like you.”

“Yes, sir,” she heard Shane mumble as two more ice cubes landed in a tumbler.

“Instead I got them. A mouthy rebel, a shrinking violet, an airhead, a hippie, and a baby. Five girls.” He paused. “Ellen miscarried a boy, you know. Between Alice and Margaret. Margaret should have been a boy. My son. Instead . . .”

His disappointed voice trailed off, and standing in the quiet hallway outside her father’s office, Margaret felt her heart ache. She hadn’t known that she was supposed to have an older brother. It made her incredibly sad to learn about him now.

“I know my responsibility to them. To buy their dresses and pay for their weddings. But the least they could do is bring home a decent man. Someone to help me shoulder the burden of five girls. Someone to take over the family business so they can start having some grandchildren and be good mothers.”

“Margaret is very bright, sir. She’s—”

“I didn’t want Margaret,” her father boomed as humiliating tears coursed down Margaret’s cheeks. “I wanted someone like you!”

There was a long silence as Margaret worked hard to regain her composure, and she wondered what Shane could possibly say next.

“Well, sir,” he finally began, his voice tentative, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out tonight. I hope that Margaret’s refusal won’t jeopardize my position at Story Imports.”

“Didn’t work out?” Douglas Story said, his voice cold and brittle. “Did I misjudge you, son?”

“Sir?”

“You surprised the girl. Made her nervous. She’ll come around eventually. I have faith in you.”

“Oh, no, sir. I don’t think that Margaret’s interested in me.”

“I’m not concerned about Margaret’s interests. I’m interested in a son-in-law to take over the family business. I’m interested in grandsons to carry on the Story bloodline. If it isn’t you, Shane? It’ll be someone else. You’re expendable, son, unless—”

“Wait a second now. Just . . .” Shane cleared his throat. “Mr. Story—”

“—unless you can get Margaret to change her mind.”

“Sir, Margaret isn’t in love with me . . . and I’m not in love with her. We have nothing in common. She’s a lovely girl, sir, but—”

“I don’t care if she’s lovely or not. I don’t care if she’s fat or thin, fair or foul, beautiful, plain, or downright ugly. I don’t know if she’s smart or stupid, interesting or dull. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Do you know what I do care about? Her pedigree. She’s a Story. If you want to stay at Story Imports, Shane, well, son, you’ll need to become a Story too. By marriage and by having a child with Margaret. It’s imperative for my plans. It’s nonnegotiable.”