Page 81 of So Close

“No,” Doug said. “Royal Life is going to fuckingkillme. They’re never going to do business with us again.”

“I don’t care,” Trey said.

“Excuse me?” the lawyer asked.

“Sorry,” Trey said.

“You need to think about this for a minute,” Doug said.

“I don’t,” Trey said, and then, “Sorry,” again, to the lawyer. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where she got the money for the down payment—”

The lawyer made a sharp noise of disgust.

“No, I suppose you really can’t,” Trey concluded for himself.

He didn’t care. He shouldn’t care. Even if it was Patrick who’d given her the money, he had norightto care.

He told the lawyer to fax over the P&S. He talked Doug off the ledge, and got him, still miffed but understanding that there was zero chance he’d change Trey’s mind, out of his office. And then he was on Beachcrest’s Facebook page, digging for a post, any post, that would fill in the missing pieces.

How thehellhad she come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars over the weekend?

He found the digital trail without too much trouble. And the whole idea was sheer brilliance. Of course it was. Of course she’d figured it out. He couldn’t believe he’d ever doubted her.

In the end, she’d done it as a Bootstrapper campaign, after all. A series of incentives, the granddaddy of which was an all-expenses paid weekend-long “experience weekend” with the romance writers. Romance campfires, beach bike rides, cookies and tea, signed books, goody baskets full of swag, writing lessons and workshops. And he could see from the trail of shares leading in both directions that Deja, Aria, Lindsey, and Priya had each placed several Facebook ads and pimped the getaway to all their readers, that it had gone viral in the romance community. There were thousands of comments on the Facebook posts, and nearly that many contributions on the Bootstrapper page. She had enough for a down paymentandshe’d be able to do a kitchen renovation.

He hadn’t ruined everything. Something good had come out of her association with him, after all. She’d been able to turn their week together into the thing that had saved Beachcrest for her. And—more to the point—on her own terms. All he was going to do, in the end, was sign the closing documents with (a very willing) Carl.

Technically he didn’t have to go back to Tierney Bay to do that. He could sign the deal from San Fran. But Brynn’s garage door was acting up, and Carl was still not supposed to lift anything heavy, so on Tuesday he flew back to Tierney Bay and helped Brynn replace one of the big springs in the garage door mechanism, trying not to injure either himself or his curious nephews in the process.

Brynn,of course, only wanted to talk about Beachcrest and Auburn.

“It was really clever, what she did, wasn’t it?”

Genius, really, but he just grunted a yes, his attention focused on the spring.

“You can pretend you don’t care, but I know you do,” Brynn said.

At that, he put his tools down and turned to her. On her, really. “What do you want from me?”

Like a chain reaction, Brynn rounded on her boys, who were listening to the adult conversation with the rapt attention of small people who have no idea what’s being said, only that it might contain a germ of scandal. “Go. Go—have some screen time.”

Their eyes got enormous at the sudden boon.

“Quick! Before I change my mind!”

They ran.

Trey felt twice as exposed with them gone. Like they’d been the only thing protecting him from his sister’s wrath.

Or maybe the truth.

Brynn pushed a finger toward his chest. “I want you to admit that you care for her. That you love her. No,” she said. “I want you to tellherthat you love her. That you’re miserable without her. That you want her back.”

“She’s better off without me. And I’m better off without her.”

“Neither of those things is true. I saw you guys together. I saw how you were with her. You’re both better together.”

He shrugged, because it made his chest hurt less. “She definitely didn’t think so. She called me an asshole and a control freak and told me to go away and not come back. And she has a point. What makes me better than her ex?”

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