Page 36 of Meet Me at the Grand

And Liam wasn’t the man for the job after all.

ChapterSeven

He’d never failed this epically before in his life.

Maybe personally—first with Mom, then with Tiffany. But professionally?

How had he read the situation so wrong?

As Martha, Tara, Janine, and Patrick gathered their belongings and shuffled out the door with a little chitchat, Liam ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. Looked at Seb. “I don’t know what to say. Or how this happened.”

“I was afraid something like this might happen.” Seb folded his hands, his expensive watch gleaming under the conference room’s fluorescent lights. “It’s not your fault, son. You were set up to fail by experience alone.”

“But this has never happened to me before.” He needed to unhook his laptop and get to work again on the plans, but all he could do was stand there, frozen. His eyes darted to Dani, who stared at the table, unmoving.

Clearing his throat, he moved to her side of the table, slid into the seat beside her. “Dani…”

Her gaze darted up to his like she was startled by his presence. Then her eyes narrowed. “Whatwasthat, Liam?”

“That was my best attempt at getting you what you wanted.”

“What I want…” She trailed off, huffing and pushing away from the desk. Standing. “Liam, did you listen to me at all? This entire week, I’ve been telling you story after story about that place, trying to bring you into something special, to show you that Jonathon Island is different. But you still don’t get it. And how could you?”

He tried not to wince at her words. As she began to walk toward the front of the room, he followed. “Idoget it, Dani.”

She whirled to look at him, folding her arms across her chest.

He continued. “I know how important this is to you. That’s why I worked so hard on upping my game on this hotel. I created somewhere that Iknowpeople will want to come—a place people will want to spend time and lose themselves—just like you asked me to.”

Dani studied him for a moment, then sighed. “It’s not your fault, Liam. It’s mine. Regardless of your process, I should have insisted on seeing those plans before the meeting like Uncle Seb wanted.”

Speaking of Seb, he was now in the back of the room, cleaning up the coffee and snacks—or pretending to, anyway.

Liam took a step closer, lowering his voice. “Come on, Dani. I still don’t understand what’s wrong with the plans I created.”

“And that is precisely the problem.” Dani stepped away, shaking her head. “Goodbye, Liam. Thanks for trying, but I just don’t think this is going to work.”

“Wait.” Now she’d just plain insulted him. “You’re just going to give this up without seeing if we can fix it?”

“I think my dad may have been right.” Her shoulders sank. “Some things just can’t be fixed.” Then she turned and left.

And despite Seb messing around in the back, the room felt empty without her.

She’d released him.

He’d done what he came here to do, all that Dad had demanded—his best for the client. Even if that wasn’t enough.

Liam should be happy.

Instead, he rubbed a hand over his sternum.

“Don’t worry, son.” Seb walked over, his voice breaking into Liam’s thoughts. “She’ll be all right.”

“I’m not so sure about that. She’s really upset.” Liam moved to the computer setup. Shut the lid. Pulled out the cord connecting it to the projector.

Now what?

Liam looked at the ceiling for a moment, contemplating his words. “It sounds like she’s ready to be done with me. With this project.”

---