I haven’t been contacted by anyone. No lawyers, no process servers nor any court papers for me.
Yes, I know I gave up Hope Gardens Enterprise, but didn’t Evan refuse to accept it? He’d asked me to approve renting my apartment to honeymooners and holiday makers. So legally it must still be in my name. Why haven’t the lawyers contacted me?
Could it be something as stupid as they don’t know my address?
I worry about this all night and the next morning in my tiny shower, I ask myself the real question, the one that matters.
Has Evan reregistered the ownership of my business in his name? If not, then I’m still the legal owner of Hope Gardens. If Ihaven’t been ‘served’, then I’m not subject to the injunction. Am I? Which means… any income from Hope Gardens is mine.
It seems too good to be true. Surely a major legal challenge could never have missed such an important enterprise; they’d have investigated.
Before I know what I’m doing I’ve messaged Leonie to ask Evan.
chapter Fifty-two
My phone rings half an hour later while I’m setting up for my Monday workshop. Leonie’s name flashes on the screen.
“Leonie. Hi.”
“Hi.” She sounds breathless.
“I just have ten minutes before my next lot of customers start arriving.” I push my earbuds in so I have free hands to work.
“I hope you don’t mind; Evan is here, will you talk to him? I’ve put you on speaker.”
“Of course. Hi, Evan.”
“Hello, Evie. Do you have time to talk?”
So while I line up large pots of geraniums and penstemon, Evan starts speaking, carefully and methodically in that way he has. “First of all, and this is very important, did you submit any accounts to Companies House?”
“No, of course not. Not yet. I would have done next year. The only thing I submitted was the initial company setup when I started.”
“I have a copy of that. It says, here, ‘North Park’.” He speaks as if reading from something.
North Park.My hands stop pressing the soil around the rosemary and lavender bushes. The name takes me back to those early days. My stomach twists remembering that excitement of a new project, a new discovery. “Yes, that was the name. Before I renamed it Hope Gardens, remember.”
“Have you registered your business as—”
But I’m ahead of him. “In all the rush, I forgot. I was supposed to send a change of name to Companies House, but you remember how busy we were in the lead up to the Easter test run. I must have forgotten. All I did is create a business bank account for Hope Gardens Enterprise, but it’s not clear that it’s the same as North Park.”
“Okay, Evie, this is the situation here. When my brother and his investigators came, they were told by almost everyone that you had sold me your business. They obviously must have done a search and found North Park but nothing else.”
The clock on the wall says 9:55am, and I can already see Mrs Baker pointing a couple of people towards the conservatory. They stop to help themselves to the coffee and biscuits I’ve laid out on the table by the door.
“Evan? What happened with the deeds I gave you?”
He draws an audible breath. “I never accepted your decision. You know that. The deeds you gave me are locked up in my safe.” Then, to make the point very clear, he says, “No one has seen them except me.”
“And what’s been done with the income from visitors?” I ask, hoping, hoping.
“Your share, after paying the staff, has been deposited in a separate bank account.”
“And your brother and his team know nothing about this?” I ask quickly, because more people have arrived.
“No, I haven’t given them access to my financial records, so they don’t know what money comes in from the garden or the holiday letting of your apartment,” Evan says. “It’s been very popular, by the way.”
Great news, but I don’t let myself grin just yet.
