Page 41 of Bookshop Cinderella

“Your father had no savings? No investments?”

She shook her head. “The shop had been losing money for years. Even before I was born, my parents were in debt, and every year it had gotten worse.”

“But you did inherit the building?”

“Yes, but there were two mortgages on it, one on the house and one on the shop. The cash from that didn’t solve anything, though, because Papa speculated with the money, hoping to recoup his losses. He didn’t succeed, of course. My father,” she added, smiling a little as she traced the swirls and cathedrals in the oak table with her fingertips, “was not a good man of business.”

She paused and ate her canapé before going on. “Two days after the funeral, creditors informed me they were calling both his mortgages.”

“That must have been terrifying for you.”

His voice was grave, but when she looked up, she was glad to see no pity in his face. In fact, he wasn’t looking at her at all. Instead, his attention seemed wholly fixed on making canapés, for there were now a dozen on the table between them. But if she thought that meant he hadn’t been giving her story his full attention, she was mistaken. “So, what did you do?” he asked. “Obviously, you were able to keep the shop.”

“Yes. I managed to convince the creditors to only take the house and leave the loan on the shop in place.”

“They agreed, obviously.” He rose to his feet and circled the second worktable to the back wall. “Although,” he went on as he pulled off one of the sheets and extracted a plate from the shelf behind it, “I can’t imagine how you managed to persuade them.”

“It wasn’t easy. I presented them with dozens of reference letters, assuring them I was fully capable of taking over in my father’s stead—one from my cousin’s stepfather, who is a baron, and some from Papa’s customers—university professors, prominent book collectors, even a bishop. I suppose that did the trick, because in the end, they allowed me to assume the loan on the shop, but only at a higher interest rate, and only if I paid half the principal immediately, made monthly payments, agreed to a prepayment penalty, and paid the entire mortgage off at the end of eight years.”

“And you agreed?” he asked as he returned to the table, plate in hand.

“What else could I do? I cut the shop in half and turned the first floor into a flat. Then I sold all the excess inventory, all our furniture, my mother’s jewelry, and anything else of value we had left. In the end, I managed to scrape up just enough to meet their demands. But the income from the bookshop alone is meager, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to save enough to pay off the mortgage at the end of the term, so I started taking on extra work.”

“From Delia, for example?”

“Delia, and a few others. I type manuscripts for authors, do research for them—that sort of thing.”

“And did you pay the mortgage in time?”

“I did,” she said proudly. “Eight weeks ago. The bankers were dumbfounded.”

“And chagrined, I daresay,” he said as he began filling the plate with canapés. “Being that you are a woman, they probably thought you’d mismanage everything and that you’d end up having to default at the end, and they’d get the other half of the building anyway—a very valuable piece of London property—after already recouping half their original investment, while making a tidy sum off the interest payments in the meantime.”

She grinned. “I enjoyed defying their expectations.”

“No doubt. But what about now?”

Evie froze, her canapé halfway to her mouth. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

He ate a bite of his canapé before he answered. “I’m curious if you still enjoy managing your shop.”

“Of course I do!” She saw his eyebrow lift in obvious skepticism of such an emphatic answer, and she set her bread and pâté down with a sigh. “Sometimes,” she qualified. “As a little girl, I loved being in the shop because I loved books. I was shy as a child, and books were like a window opening into other worlds, where I could slay dragons and dance with princes and conquer the Huns. And being away at school, I was so homesick that coming back afterward was a relief, and working with my father was a pleasure. But lately...” She paused, curiously reluctant to go on.

He wasn’t about to let her off the hook, however. “But lately?” he prompted in the wake of her silence.

“When I first took over the shop after Papa died, everything was uncertain and chaotic, and I was terrified, but I loved the challenge of it. Nowthings are much more stable. I’m not prosperous, exactly, but I do all right, if I’m careful with my money. And yet...” She paused again, took a deep breath, and said it—the truth that had been weighing her down for weeks. “Now that the mortgage is paid off, I’ve started to feel as if the shop is more of a burden than a joy. I don’t know why.”

“Even our greatest joys can become burdens,” he said gently. “Especially when we no longer have something to prove. Then things can seem anticlimactic, stale, even pointless.”

“Even if that’s true, it’s not as if I have much of a choice. The shop provides my best means of earning a living.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded, sounding doubtful, but before she could even think about debating the point, he went on, “Either way, everything you’ve said proves one thing that I find immensely gratifying.”

“What’s that?”

“That I was right.”

“Right?” she echoed, laughing. “About what?”

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