Page 30 of Until It Was Real

I rap my knuckles on her desk before walking down the hallway to Eli’s office.

“What’s up?” I ask as I settle into a chair across from his desk.

“We voted to expand the distillery last month, but the expansion is on hold.”

I nod. “I’m aware.”

It’s impossible to miss since the local brewery,Five Fathoms Brewing,moved their brewing facilities into the extra space in the distillery.Five Fathomswas destroyed by the hurricane and Eli stepped in to help them. Although, his charitable efforts were more to help Paisley, the head brewer he’s obsessed with.

“Before the hurricane, I closed an exclusive deal to supply the Velvet Blossom restaurant chain with our whiskeys. Technically, we could claim force majeure and get out of the deal.”

I can read between the lines. “But you don’t want to.”

“The brewery won’t be here forever.” He doesn’t appear happy about the idea. Probably because Paisley and him get up to all kinds of sexy shenanigans when they should be working. They think no one knows. Everyone knows.

“What do you want from me?”

“I have a meeting scheduled with the board of Velvet Blossom next week in Atlanta.”

“But you don’t want to leave the island.”

One guess why. It starts with P and ends with -aisley.

“I want you to go in my place. Take Dakota with you. She’s smart. She’ll charm everyone on the board.”

I frown. I don’t want Dakota to charm anyone but me. Correction. I don’t want Dakota to charm anyone, period.

“You can’t continue to be an asshole to her.”

“I know. I apologized and gave her a stupid plant.”

He chuckles. “Don’t sound so resentful.”

I’m not resentful. I’m pissed at myself for losing control. I’m famous for my control. But I lost it over a bit of salt in my coffee. It’s out of character for me, and I don’t like it.

“In the meantime, sit down with Dakota and go over what you expect to happen at the meeting with Velvet Blossom. We need to convince them to continue the deal with a limited supply of whiskey until we can increase production.”

“I’ll run some numbers and figure out how much whiskey we can supply to their restaurants without pissing off our regular customers.”

“Good. I’ll expect a banana … er… report in the next day or two.”

I narrow my eyes on him. “Not funny.”

“Wrong, brother. It was hilarious.”

I snarl at him. “Wait until she pranks you.”

“I’m not stupid. She’s my assistant. I know better than to piss her off.”

“I was merely voicing my concerns about her qualifications for the job.” I sound like a douchebag.

“Have you seriously learned nothing? Dakota is qualified and she’s staying.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have said anything. I just worry.”

He sighs. “I know you do. I know you’ve protected this family in my absence. Hell, even when I was here, I was too busy working to help Mom pay for rent and food and clothes. I was absent far too often.”

“Stop.” I hold up a hand. “We’re not playing the blame game. We both worked hard to keep this family together. Your contribution was money. Mine was protecting our brothers from bullies and making sure they didn’t get into too much trouble.”

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