Page 8 of You Had Me At Valentine

I show my teeth, dropping into one of the seats. “How did you guess? The real question is why you couldn’t have told me you’re selling the inn. What are you thinking?”

“It hasn’t turned a profit in eighteen months,” His tone is calm, as if we’re chatting about the weather. “It doesn’t fit our long-term strategic goals.”

I blink at him, trying to process what I’m hearing. “What are you talking about? Gran’s inn is not a strategy, it’s a piece of our history.”

“I know it’s sentimental,” he says, softening a fraction. “But it’s also outdated, underused, and financially unsustainable. We need to focus on the resort.”

“The MacLellan Inn has our name on it too,” I say, my voice breaking slightly. Which should not be happening, not if I want to make my point to the king of the balance sheet.

Lachlan waves that off. “It’s down in the valley. A bed and breakfast. Taxes are through the roof, and speaking of which, it needs a new one. The inn is running in the red.”

So? The inn is my grandmother’s legacy, the place where she greeted guests with warm smiles and baked scones every morning. It’s where I fell in love with hospitality, where she taught me how to create the community I crave.

The inn is…mine.

If all of this will become my company one day, I should have a say.

“Then update it. Invest in it,” I counter, my voice climbing. “Let me do it.”

“You run the resort,” he says simply. “This isn’t a decision I made lightly, Lyra.”

Yeah, but he is the one making it. Without my consent.

“I can make it profitable. Give me a few days to put a business plan together, Dad. Please.”

He shakes his head, but then he squeezes his eyes shut for a beat. I’m wearing him down, I can tell. My brothers both abandoned the family business, but I didn’t. I stayed. He knows I’m committed.

“Why did it take me deciding to sell to bring this up if the inn is so important to you?” he asks.

Ouch. Direct hit. I rub my chest and decide to go with honesty. “Fair. And the answer is that I’ve been overly concerned with the resort. We can both agree that’s been a priority. Now I’m asking you to let me make the inn a priority.”

“I need you to help me with this, Lyra,” he says, but his eyes are still soft. “Work with Byron to get the inn ready to go on the market. You have the best sense of the place’s appeal and I’m counting on you to make sure it gets into the right hands.”

Ugh. My father, button pusher extraordinaire.

It’s like he knows I crave his approval as much as I hate that our family is crumbling. Liam barely speaks to our father. Leith left for California and never came back. I haven’t even heard from him in over a year.

After our mom died, it’s like everyone retreated to their own corners.

Except me.

“I’m not sure Byron and I can work together,” I say carefully. Only Tabitha, my ride or die best friend, knows how Byron shattered me back in high school.

“I don’t have anyone else I can trust,” Lachlan says, his tone leaving zero room for argument. He stands, clearly ready to end the conversation. “You’re the only one who cares enough to make sure the inn is ready. If you come up with another plan, my door is always open.”

That’s all I need. Even if I know my father’s definition ofopenand mine are different.

As long as I don’t have to meekly go along with selling my grandmother’s inn, I can take one tiny moment to revel in the fact that my father gave me this task because he trusts me.

Oh, it’s Machiavellian, plain and simple. He’s offering me the promise of his approval (not actual approval, not yet—it’s like bait) in the same breath as setting me up to spend hours upon hours with Byron Hale. And I have a deadline to come up with a plan.

I pull out my phone and text Tabitha.

Need you.

Her reply comes instantly.

I can be there in nine minutes

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