Page 13 of The Fiancée Farce
Scylla, every indie bookstore’s worst nightmare. The multinational e-commerce juggernaut had a reputation for destroying small businesses, thriving on cheap labor, copycatting, and price-fixing, making it all but impossible for stores to keep their heads above water, let alone compete in an already crowded market. Nowthat Scylla had expanded into the brick-and-mortar space, they’d begun buying those struggling businesses up left and right, more than living up to their mythological namesake, the many-headed monster.
“No. Absolutely not.” Tansy’s chest tightened and she struggled to swallow. “You can’t.”
“I know—”
“You don’t know.” How could she when she stepped inside the store a grand total of twelve times a year? Tansy was the one who’d poured her blood, sweat, and tears, herheartinto this store, into keeping it running, keeping it thriving, and modernizing it without abandoning its spirit. “This is my family’s store, Katherine. I grew up here. This is my home; this is my whole world.”
Tansy dragged in another breath that barely reached her lungs, her chest gripped with panic at the thought of losing everything she knew and loved. Everything that was safe and good andhers.
“I know that. I also know your father entrusted this store to me”—Katherine missed the way she flinched—“so that I could make the best decisions about its future. Aboutourfuture.”
Unlike the slow creep of cancer that had stolen Tansy’s mother years before, her father’s death had been sudden, the result of an aneurysm, a brain bleed no one could’ve seen coming. He’d left his new wife with a fifteen-year-old stepdaughter and a bookstore, neither of which she’d signed on for.
Neither of which she’d wanted.
“I know you have a sentimental attachment to this place.” Katherine frowned. “But it’s a business, and it would be unwise to let your personal feelings cloud your professional judgment.”
A dry, rasping laugh escaped her, hovering heavy in the air. Katherine stiffened. She had some nerve, reducing Tansy’s feelings to meresentimental attachment.
Located in the heart of Belltown, just blocks from the Space Needle, Belltown Books had been in Tansy’s family since its inception in 1946, when her grandfather had purchased the building. Her grandfather had converted the space, once a silent-era film exchange, into a storefront, replacing the velvet-upholstered seats with bookshelves and turning the third-floor space that once housed a projection booth into a two-bedroom apartment. It was the place where he had raised his family, where Tansy’s father had gone on to raise her.
She had taken her first steps in the general fiction aisle, broken her arm sliding down the banister from the second floor, and had her first kiss beside the test prep books, and the arched doorway to the children’s reading room was decorated with pencil lines tracking her every growth spurt.
It wasn’tjusta business. More than brick and mortar, Belltown Books was home.
“Sell and do what exactly?” she demanded, her voice reedy.
“Anything we want.” Katherine’s eyes swept the office, gaze landing and lingering on the photo of Tansy’s mother and father that she kept on her desk. Her expression softened. “I know your father loved this place. I knowyoulove this place—”
“I do love it,” Tansy insisted, leaning forward, eyes locked on Katherine, trying to impress upon her how serious she was. “I want tokeeploving it.”
And she wanted to be the one to run it. Not soulless Scylla, who’d probably come in and replace the tight-knit staff with self-checkout kiosks and computers. If they even kept it as a bookstore.Maybe they only wanted the building and were planning to convert the space into something else entirely. A high-tech emporium, a warehouse full of gadgets and gizmos, sterile and white, smelling of plastic instead of old books and paper and the coffee and buttery pastries from the café downstairs. It was prime real estate. A space this size was hard to come by in this part of the city; who knew what Scylla wanted to do with it?
“I can see that you’re upset—”
“Upset is an understatement.” She wasfurious, and Katherine’s condescending tone was doing more harm than good.
Katherine pinched her eyes shut. “Try to see things from my point of view. For me, Belltown Books has become an albatross.” She opened her eyes, frown lingering. “Aren’t you tired of being tied down? You’re so young. Don’t you want to travel? Get out there and see the world with your own two eyes instead of reading about it in some musty old book?”
Her teeth clacked together, jaw clenching. Tansy loved her musty old books,thank you very much.
“That’s your plan? Sell Belltown Books to the highest bidder and travel? What about everyone else?” The booksellers with families to support, rents to pay, kids to send to school? “What are they supposed to do?”
“I’m sure everyone will be fine. Either Scylla will keep them on or they’ll find work somewhere else.”
If only it were so simple. If only Tansy were so certain.
“And me?” This was her job. She lived in the apartment upstairs. Belltown Books was her life. “What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?”
She cringed at the way her voice cracked, at how desperate she sounded.
“You’re such a worrier.” Katherine had the nerve to laugh. “You’ll be fine! My God, you’re marrying a Van Dalen.”
Tansy’s eyes stung. She wasn’t. Shereallywasn’t.
Unless...
No. It was crazy. Utterly absurd.
