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“No!” The word burst from Izzie’s lips before she could stop herself. “I’m sorry, Willie, but no. Mum worked too hard to buy the building from our landlord. Besides, Mrs. Shelton’s wouldn’t be Mrs. Shelton’s if it wasn’t here in Glengall Road.”
“Then what about considering Sylvia’s offer?”
“That’s what we’re trying to work out, isn’t it?” she asked.
He held her gaze. “I mean her original offer. You told me that she was willing to give you everything.”
Izzie stared at him. “Do you really think I would believe a thing she said?”
“What incentive would she have to lie?”
“If she gave me the shop, she’d hold it over me for years,” she said.
“But what would she have to gain—?”
“Sylvia only does what’s good for Sylvia,” she said fiercely. “You’d be able to see that if you hadn’t spent the last two decades in love with her.”
The words fell like an anvil in the middle of the room, and Izzie watched with growing horror as her friend’s lips twisted as though he didn’t trust himself with the words trapped behind them.
“Willie, I am sorry,” she tried. “You know me and my stupid mouth, always saying the wrong thing and making a hash of it.”
Instead of replying, he rose to his feet and resettled his glasses on his nose once again. “I think I’ll go put the kettle on.”
He walked out of the workroom without a backward glance, leaving Izzie feeling about six inches small. And that was what she deserved, wasn’t it? Willie was one of the constants in her life, a neighborhood boy who had somehow grown up into a friend and confidant. She had precious few of those these days, yet she was pushing him away because she was angry about her sister.
She slipped out into the passageway. Wille, who stood at the tiny galley kitchen, was just putting the kettle on the gas ring to heat.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He pulled down the everyday teapot she and Mrs. Reid used when having a cup of tea in the workroom. Then he lifted the tea towel where she’d left the leaves from her afternoon brew drying and did his best to shake them into the pot.
Uncertain whether he’d heard her or whether he was ignoring her, she angled herself closer to his good ear and said again, “I’m sorry.”
He braced his hands on either side of the counter he stood at, his gaze resolutely on the cabinet door ahead of him.
“I am prepared to pretend that you didn’t just insult me as both a solicitor and your friend by implying that my judgment isn’t sound when it comes to your sister,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, shame staining her already red cheeks a deeper shade.
“You’ll notice it isn’t Sylvia who I am speaking to at half past nine at night when I could be in bed with a book.” He finally spared her a glance. “I know you are grieving. I also understand that, as your friend, I should afford you a certain degree of grace. However, I will not allow you to take your anger out on me.”
“Please forgive me,” she whispered.
He waited an excruciatingly long moment before nodding. “You are forgiven. I understand that things between you and your sister are tense and have been for some time, although I hate to see it. You two used to be thick as thieves.”
No, Izzie’s entire world had revolved around her older sister. The two of them had done everything together, especially after Dad died and Mum had been run off her feet opening the shop. Sylvia had been the one to make sure Izzie was dressed and at school on time, and even after Sylvia left school to work at the shop full-time, Sylvia had always had time to listen to her struggles and help her with her schoolwork. Izzie had adored her sister, and that had made Sylvia’s rejection all the more painful.
“I’m tired, and I need to figure out how to buy the shop,” she said, her voice cracking.
Willie scrunched up his brow, and she thought for a moment that he might argue with her. Instead, he said, “I know that you live and breathe this shop, and I want to see you at the helm of Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions as much as you do. However, you might need to accept that you don’t have the means to buy it outright. Not yet.”
Izzie shook her head. “There has to be a way. Let’s make the tea and go over everything again.”
Chapter Eight
It turned out that selling a business was not straightforward. At least it wasn’t when Izzie was involved.
Sylvia had walked away from the will reading at William’s office assuming that it would be a simple matter of gathering the funds together. Given that the shop’s fortunes were now half her sister’s, Sylvia had no doubt that Izzie would be able to come up with the money. After the first lean years of the business, their mother had been proud that Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions had always turned a modest but tidy profit.
