Elle Matheson stood at the window, her eyes on the sign hanging from the facade of the building across the street.

The sign had gone up months ago, a big red banner proclaiming her doom. It had been a sucker punch to the gut, and she’d spent the time since then alternately fascinated with it and looking the other way when she left work at the end of the day.

Fighting panic, she turned away from the window, gazed across the little space that had become her haven. She’d looked at countless locations before she’d chosen this one, searching for just the right space to rebuild the independent bookstore that had been stolen from her parents more than eight years earlier.

She’d known right away that this was the one. Situated halfway down a street in the historic Gaslamp District in San Diego, the space had been shabby and small, but even then she’d been able to see it filled with books, smelling like ink and paper and sandalwood incense. She’d looked past the peeling paint and the cracks that ran like scars across the old plaster surface.

And yes, she’d looked past the Bolton’s megastore across the street, too.

She hadn’t loved that part, but like all new buildings in the historic district, the giant store had been designed to fit in with the local architecture. The fact that the chain carried a small selection of books was a concern, but she’d grown up in an indie bookstore, knew the readers who frequented them. They bought indie on principle, wanting to support what was becoming a dying form of retail. She might lose a handful of customers to the other store’s lower prices, but their selection was small, limited only to bestsellers.

Besides, her immediate neighbors consisted of The Big Bean coffee shop and Rosie’s boutique. The Big Bean had the best coffee in the city, and Rosie’s was filled with a curated selection of handmade dresses that were Elle’s addiction. In the end, she’d decided the location’s strong points outweighed her distaste for the megastore across the street, and she’d signed the lease, nervously plunking down the money she’d worked eight years to save.

Now she had to acknowledge that she’d been wrong. It would have been foolhardy for another indie to open nearby, but a big box store that was already there? They could expand their bookstore offerings with the stroke of a pen, and apparently that’s what they planned to do.

She should have seen it coming.

She’d read about the initiative online (but only after a stiff shot of tequila): a full-service bookstore, complete with a cozy coffee shop and a vast selection of books in every genre, including an extensive children’s section where kids could lounge and read. And all at the behest of Malcolm Glover, the company’s new CEO, a man with a reputation for putting profit over everything.

She and Zach, owner of The Big Bean, had commiserated endlessly in the months since the announcement, trying to come up with initiatives that would increase their value-add to customers who might be lured by the cheap prices and convenience of one-stop shopping at Bolton’s. Would any of their ideas staunch the flow of business to Bolton’s?

She didn’t know.

Sighing, she wandered between the tables at the front of the store, tidying up as she went, adjusting books, running her hand along the smooth covers she knew as intimately as her own face in the mirror. There wasn’t room at Matheson and Matheson for a children’s reading nook — or an adult reading nook for that matter — and Elle had to lock up the store and dash to the Bean if she wanted coffee or tea.

Matheson and Matheson wasn’t about amenities; it was about community. About service. She knew most of the regulars by name, knew the books their children liked, loved talking with them about new releases they would enjoy, classics they might have overlooked. It wasn’t fair trade coffee or a cozy reading nook, but it was all she had to offer.

She didn’t blame the people who bought from stores like Bolton’s. Life was expensive. Most of them were hard-working people with families to support. Elle didn’t have a houseful of kids who needed school clothes or wanted books. She could afford to shop on principle. Not everyone had that luxury.

She stepped behind the register, took a drink of her cold tea, her eyes falling on the Buddha statue by the register. Elle had been moved when her mother had given it to her as a Grand Opening present; it had been a fixture near the register of the original Matheson and Matheson. The one that had been stolen from them by Hathaway Holding when it bought a row of buildings in downtown La Jolla, jacked up the rent, and forced her parents and nine other small businesses out of the market.

There were some things that took her back to being a child in an instant: the smell of the store, the weight of a picture book in her hands, the Buddha statue. But the statue had another connotation, too — one she would never forgive Lachlan Hunt for that.

Would never forgive him for a lot of things.

They’d met at UC Davis freshman year. He’d been like the sun itself, a beacon that drew her with his heat and brilliance. She’d been at one of the many early meet-and-greets, fidgeting with a bottle of water, wondering how long she had to stay without seeming like an antisocial freak, when she’d felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, a shiver run down her spine. She’d turned around to find a blond god wearing a Buddha pendant staring at her from across the room.

She’d forced herself not to look around for the inevitable gorgeous-and-skimpily-clad girl nearby. Because there was no way this guy was looking at her. She was almost relieved when her roommate dragged her off to play one of the games set up by the RAs.

But when she’d ducked out of the event half an hour later, he was in the hall.

Waiting for her.

“I hate this shit,” he’d said. “Want to grab pizza?”

She hadn’t stood a chance. Pizza had turned not into the frantic groping she’d become accustomed to in the five days she’d been on campus, but into a warm, chaste hug at the door to her room. He appeared the next day to take her to breakfast, texted her regularly after that, minus the cool indifference she’d come to expect from guys her age.

He’d made it clear he wanted to see her as much as possible. Losing her virginity to him had felt natural, a continuation of what was by then beginning to feel like destiny. He’d set her soul on fire, had opened her body to all the possibilities of its pleasure. Sex with him had been erotic, tantric even. She couldn’t think about him without remembering the flicker of candles, his hands rubbing oil on her naked flesh, his movements languid and deliberate when he moved inside her.

They’d been inseparable for two years — right up until the moment her father had a heart attack in the middle of his battle with Hathaway Holding for the lease on Matheson and Matheson.

But it hadn’t been the heart attack that had ended her love affair with Lachlan — it had been the realization that Hathaway Holding was owned by his parents. After that, all she saw when she looked at him was the bookstore, her father’s ashen face as he lay dying in the hospital.

And the nail in the coffin was the lie; Lachlan had known what was going on as soon as she’d mentioned the company trying to pull the rug out from under her parents. He’d known and he hadn’t said a thing until after her father’s death.

She’d left school against her mother’s protestations, not wanting to see him on campus. Not wanting to be near anything that could remind her of him. It had been a lost cause.

Everything had reminded her of him.

It still did.

It wasn’t fair; the Buddha statue had been a fixture in her parent’s shop long before Lachlan. But somewhere along the line it had come to feel like an extension of their passionate two years together, their mutual interest in spirituality one more thing that bound them.

She hated him for that. For stealing the small amount of peace that was actually within reach.

She looked through the bookstore’s front window, her eyes on the behemoth across the street. It was harder than usual to ignore it; today Malcolm Glover was visiting to ensure final preparations for the bookstore opening were in place. As soon as she’d read the press release, she imagined herself confronting him, asking him to consider the ramifications on small businesses like hers and the Bean. She knew from what she’d read about him that he probably wouldn’t care. By all accounts he was a cold-hearted bastard.

But that didn’t stop the fantasy from rolling in her mind.

She tapped the computer that operated as their point of sale system and clicked the article she’d been reading the day before, her eyes skimming the text she’d already memorized.

… which Daniel Taft says put his family’s 100-year-old grocery out of business.

The Glover estate is sprawling, set above San Diego…

… Glover denies his predatory reputation.

Her eyes lingered on the words, anger filling her chest like a balloon until she was afraid she would burst wide open.

She closed the computer, took a couple deep breaths while she looked at the Buddha. Then she reached for her keys and headed for the front of the store.