Page 14 of So Close

“I know you wanted me to be different from your dad.”

Yeah, he had. Carl had taught Trey everything he knew about business. And he’d flat out told Trey it was because he needed a role model who was better than his own father. Someone who didn’t act on impulse and throw away everything decent he got his hands on. But in the end, Carl had turned out to be cut from the same cloth as his son-in-law.

“Didsheput you up to this?”

He could see Auburn in his head, fierce, stubborn, arms crossed, and he felt a twinge of something that wasn’t quite anger. He wished he could un-see her the way he first had—the woman who’d knelt to help a waitress, the standout in a bar full of pretty girls, a spitfire he’d wanted to spar with as much as he’d wanted to take her home. That image kept getting in the way of what he should be feeling, which was straight-up, pure fury at the way she was thwarting his plans and putting his future at risk. Undoing everything he’d worked for.

His grandfather shook his head. “No. It’s what I want. Tierney Bay doesn’t need luxury condos. It needs a personal touch, a place that feels like home to people.”

What if he just laid it out? Explained why he needed the sale? Explained the situation he’d gotten himself into—

Explained that he was really no better than his father or his grandfather?

But hewasbetter. He had an escape plan. There was a way out, a way forward, and all he needed to do was remove one curvy obstacle from his otherwise straight path.

Trey shook his head. “So you’re serious about this. Keeping me from making this deal.”

“If you want to put it that way,” Carl said. “I prefer to think of it as encouraging you to make the right deal.”

He’d forgotten his grandfather had a stubborn streak, too. And at that moment Carl was cool as a cucumber, and Trey was not—which knocked him off his game. He took a deep breath. “You know this means I have to get a lawyer involved. And if I do, it’s going to be expensive, and I’ll probably win in the end.”

He was bluffing the fuck out of the situation. Because he didn’t have time for lawyers. But they didn’t know that. And they didn’t know that time was on their side, that even though he would force the sale eventually, he couldn’t affordeventually.

Carl nodded.

“I don’t fucking understand.”

“No. That doesn’t surprise me.”

Suddenly he’d had enough. He turned and strode out of the room, and nearly collided with someone. Someone soft and curvy. He grabbed her to steady her, but failed to prevent the collision of her breasts with his chest. Her arms were bare, soft and satiny in exactly the way he’d imagined.

Enemies should not smell this good or feel this soft.

So. Goddamn. Inconvenient.

“You,” he said darkly. “Are you having fun cock-blocking me?”

“I could ask you if you’re having fun being a cock,” she snapped. “But if you must know, no. This isn’t my idea of a good time.”

“I bet you haven’t had a good time in your life, sweetheart,” he shot back. “And things are going to get a whole lot less fun if you keep fighting me. The fact remains, you have no money. And you have no idea who you’re dealing with. At the end of the day, you’re going to make all our lives miserable, and you’re still going to lose Beachcrest.”

“I’ll get the money.”

“I’m calling my lawyer,” he said. “I don’t know how much experience you have with lawyers, but they change everything. Right now, we’re three people who can talk this out like civilized adults. Once there are lawyers involved, things are going to move fast. You’re not ready for just how fast. And Carl owns far less than half of Beachcrest.”

He saw the flicker of anxiety behind her eyes, but she pulled herself up to her full height and stared him down, that flicker vanishing into cobalt blue conviction. He felt a flare of heat in his chest. It might have been anger—or something else.

“I wouldn’t fight you if it was just me,” she said. “Beachcrest means more to the people of this community and the people who come to stay here than you give it credit for. This is what Carl wants. And Carl has been there for me my whole life. After my parents died. When I came home again after—”

She stopped. Her eyes found his. “I won’t give up until Carl tells me he surrenders. Which he won’t.”

She stepped neatly around him and continued down the hall to his grandfather’s room. And he found himself standing alone in the hospital hallway, the feel of her arms still soft and hot against his empty palms.

7

“He’s right,” Auburn told Chiara later that evening. They were eating Tierney Bay diner takeout in the Beachcrest dining room. In the breakfast area next door, the romance authors were having some kind of plotting session. Periodically, a few words would burst into audibility.Blow job.Hot mess.HEA. They were obviously having a lot more fun than Auburn and Chiara were.

“If I don’t have the money, I’m just making his life miserable for no reason. Not that he doesn’t deserve it.”

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