Page 2 of Bad Luck Club

Then it had all fallen apart.

After the reading of Beau Buchanan’s will, he’d started noticing strange behaviors in Victoria, but he’d ignored them, not wanting to ruin a good thing. And then, a few days before they were supposed to fly to Asheville for Georgie and River’s engagement party, he’d found another man’s underwear folded up with his things in the laundry basket left out by the maid. He’d gone through Victoria’s phone and found explicit messages from PB.

Little had he known PB was his father. How would his father feel if he knew he’d been reduced to something as lowbrow as peanut butter on Victoria’s phone?

He’d returned the ring he’d been suckered into buying and planned on breaking up with her as soon as they got home from their trip. Meanwhile, her mother, who’d sent him a detailed spreadsheet of potential engagement rings one month earlier, had apparently gone full steam ahead with planning a New Year’s Eve engagement party for the “happy” couple.

And that had only been the beginning of the proverbial shit hitting the fan.

Now Buchanan Luxury was gone, the apartment with it, and Lee had pretty much nothing left. Even his savings had been depleted by Victoria, who’d accessed the account and donated half the money to erectile dysfunction research, presumably as an insult because he hadn’t slept with her during the last three weeks of their relationship. When Lee had realized he was stuck in Asheville, both the town and the brewery had felt beneath him. Like Lee was trying to cram himself into a too-small shoe. But now…now, Lee was questioning everything.

He could hear his father in his ear.Buchanans do not have existential crises.Yet here he was in the thick of one.

Not that he’d admit it to anyone. Especially not to Adalia, who would make it her personal mission to dig him out of it. Just like she was still trying to find a role for him in the brewery. He was torn between telling her to stop wasting her time, that he was never going to belong, and letting her carry on, partially hoping she would succeed.

Another sign he’d lost it. He didnotbelong here. He was only staying until he pulled himself together.

“Lee,” Adalia said, reaching across the table and covering his hand with her own. “There’s a place for you here. Besides, you’re a one-fourth owner. You couldn’t be fired even if we wanted to.”

Maybe so, but he was certain that River had read the fine print to see if there was a loophole of some kind. It’s what he would have done. “So I’m only there because Ican’tbe fired. Got it.”

“Stop being a baby,” she said as she sat back in her seat. “No one said we wanted to fire you.”

He shot her a wry look. “Not exactly a vote of confidence.”

“Stop. You just haven’t found the right fit yet. That’s why we’re having lunch at Dos Sombreros. To figure it out.”

“That and so I don’t make a scene,” he said, opening his menu.

She snorted and glanced down at her menu too. “As though a scene would botherme.”

She had a point. Adalia was the free-spirited Buchanan sibling, and just like her art, she lived boldly. She wasn’t one to shy away from attention—good or bad. Lee, on the other hand, had spent most of his life conscientious of his image and making sure he didn’t tarnish it. Trying to fit his father’s impossible expectations.

He nearly snorted at the thought. Fat lot of goodthathad done him.

The waitress walked over wearing a bright smile. “You two ready to order?”

She was in her twenties and pretty, but she had a hippie vibe that set Lee’s teeth on edge. Turned out Asheville was full of people like her. He much preferred the city, where everyone was reserved, aloof, and sophisticated. Where people didn’t talk about their feelings while they sipped smoothies and wove bracelets out of river reeds.

Lee had barely looked over the menu, but he wasn’t very hungry. It was hard to work up an appetite when he felt like an utter failure, not necessarily a new feeling for him, but somehow it felt worse when the feeling came from within.

His entire life had ended in an instant on Christmas Eve, when Jack had informed him that their father had committed fraud and intended to throw Lee under the bus to save his own hide. Oh, and that he’d slept with Victoria. Repeatedly. The recording Jack had made of their father admitting to all of it had precluded the possibility of denying it.

While Lee had suspected his father was up to something underhanded, he’d had no idea he was defrauding investors with a Ponzi scheme, let alone that Victoria was helping him. He’d done the “right thing” and turned state’s evidence, and his father and Victoria had been arrested on Christmas Day. Here he was, a month later, the doors to the family business proverbially shuttered, his career ruined. Because while Lee had been innocent of any wrongdoing, the stench still clung to him like one of the infamously smelly turds Adalia’s dog, Tyrion, liked to drop in the back yard of their shared home.

Lee closed his menu. “Just bring me a burger.”

“What kind of cheese?” the waitress asked in a perky tone as she propped her hand on her hip. “We have a full assortment, everything from queso to provolone. Or are you a red, white, and blue man and prefer American?”

Why did she seem so excited over cheese? “Uh…cheddar.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “What would you like on the side? Fries? Rice and beans? Or maybe you’d prefer some of our spicy guacamole with chips? It’s extra good today.” She batted her eyelashes as her smile grew wider.

He frowned. “Just fries is fine.”

Adalia picked up his menu and handed both of them to the waitress. “I’ll have the shrimp tacos.”

“On it,” the waitress said, taking the menus. “And if you need anything else, anything at all, just give me a holler.” She turned her full attention to Lee. “My name’s Marci, just in case you forgot.”

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