Page 93 of Resting Beach Face
“No way. No deal. You want to pussy out on this deal? I can’t stop you. I can tell you that you’re making a huge fucking mistake and you’ll regret it?—”
“Nathan,” I said sharply.
“—but I won’t reward you with a fucking remote job you can work in la-la land. What the hell happened? I thought we were on the same page.”
“I met someone.”
There was a long silence. Then Nathan started laughing. “Tell me you’re joking. You met someone. You fuckingmetsomeone? Jesus, Declan. Come up here, and I’ll help you meet half a dozen someones who’ll blow your mind.”
“This is someone special,” I said. “It’s serious.”
“You’re going to throw everything away for a fucking woman?”
“No. For a man.”
There was a beat of silence. “Ah, well, whatever floats your boat. Just think about this, Declan. Think hard. Relationships come and go. Sex is great in the beginning and then it fizzles. And when it’s over, you’re going to be sitting in some podunk Ozark town with nothing but burned bridges, and when you try to sell that property—because you’re not finding some idiot to buy it for even a fraction of what we offered, I can tell you that, the whole value is in the land, not some B&B—you’ll be shit out of luck.”
“Nathan, we’re friends. I’m sorry I misled you. That was never my intention. It all happened a little too fast, and I wasn’t ready to make a decision. But I don’t want this to come between us.”
“Wewerefriends. I thought we were. But you just yanked me around, and I don’t appreciate it.”
“I can do the job from here. I know I can.”
He snorted. “Maybe, but you won’t be doing shit for me.”
“But—”
“No fucking way. Don’t ask me for any fucking favors. Not after this shit. Not now. Not ever again.”
“Okay, if you really feel that way…”
“No, I take that back,” he said, making hope flicker to life.
“Really?”
“Yeah. You get one favor. You can change your fucking mind. You have two days.”
Click.
He’d hung up on me.
I set the phone on the counter and released a shaky breath. I hadn’t expected Nathan to take the news well, but I hadn’t expectedthat.
It had been his idea to contact those developers. His idea for me to sell and return to the financial industry.
I hadn’t even considered it until he planted the seed in my mind.
I’d assumed Nathan was merely a contact for this deal. His reaction made me wonder if he was more involved than it first seemed? If so, did he ever have my best interests at heart?
Nathan was a wheeler and a dealer. I always knew that about him. But I’d thought he’d genuinely respected me, too. Now, I couldn’t help wondering if he was only looking to close a good deal.
And if I wasn’t so hopeless at understanding people, maybe I’d have seen it way before now.
If I was so wrong about Nathan, could I be wrong about Cash, too? Did hereallyfeel everything I did? Last night, when we were tucked into bed together, Cash had seemed so sincere, so vulnerable.
But my judgment had failed me spectacularly before. Not just with Nathan, but with every ex-boyfriend who’d promised he loved me only to cut me loose when I wasn’t everything he wanted in bed.
Cash wasn’t like that. Iknewhe wasn’t. Every interaction between us, every sweet touch that wasn’t demanding, every kissthat was on my terms, every cuddle that fed my soul told me that.
