Page 16 of You Had Me At Valentine

“Just be sure this is what you want.”

“What?” I bristle. “You think I’m going through all of this without having carefully considered that my father is selling this inn over my dead body?”

“I don’t mean the inn being what you do want. The flip side. That the resort is not what you want.”

“I love the resort,” I say automatically, reaching for another ledger just to have something to do with my hands. “What kind of lawyer point are you trying to make, here?”

“Do you love the resort?” The question is gentle but pointed. “Because I’m curious what’s going to happen if your plan works? If you save the inn?”

I almost drop the ledger. “Then everyone wins. The inn stays in the family, the resort keeps operating—”

He’s watching me too carefully, seeing too much. “And you keep running both?”

Well, of course. My hands still on the leather cover as I realize that’s not happening.

I cannot run both. I had to take time off just to spend a couple of weeks putting my plan together.

Honestly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and curse him for being the one to bring it to light. I’ve been so focused on saving the inn that I haven’t considered the reality of what comes next.

“I…” The words stick in my throat as his question sinks in.

“You can’t be in two places at once, Lyra.”

The truth of it settles heavily in my chest. If I save the inn—when I save the inn—I’ll have to choose. The resort or the inn. My father’s empire or my grandmother’s legacy.

Just like my brothers. This will be my line in the sand, where I take over the family business or I don’t.

“Why are you asking me this?” I don’t mean to whisper, but the words come out soft anyway.

Byron leans forward, and suddenly the table between us feels very small. “Because someone should. Because you’ve spent so long trying to be what your father wants that you’ve stopped asking yourself what you want.”

His words lance through my chest as if he stuck his sword of truth right between a couple of ribs. Because he’s right. I’ve been so busy trying to compensate for Leith and Liam that I haven’t ever thought about what I want.

Falling for Byron in high school was the last thing I did that was solely for me. And look how that turned out.

But for the first time, I can concede he might have had reasons I know nothing about.

“You don’t have to know the answers now,” he says, his voice still gentle. Like he knows exactly how much his question has shaken me. “Think about it.”

I stare at the ledger in front of me, seeing but not seeing the careful columns of names and dates. People who came to the inn, who found shelter and comfort within these walls. Just like I always have.

“I’ve never stood up to him,” I admit. “Not about anything that really mattered.”

“Your father is a difficult man to say no to.”

Something in his tone makes me look up. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before.

“You’ve run into the Lachlan MacLellan brick wall a time or two I would imagine.”

He looks away and picks up another ledger. “I stopped bloodying my forehead against it a long time ago.”

There’s more to his comment than he’s letting on. I want to ask, but we’ve done enough soul-bearing for the night.

Part of me wants to keep going though. To reach out, wrap myself around him and soothe away whatever put that line between his brows. But then I would have to examine why. And why his presence here stopped feeling intrusive and started feeling like exactly what I need.

His fingers brush mine as he hands me another box of papers, and I try to ignore the way my skin tingles at the contact. It feels like he did it on purpose though, as if he craves my touch in kind.

He smiles—that same soft, understanding smile that used to make me believe anything was possible—and my will crumbles into dust.

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