Page 38 of One Snowy Day
This was hopeless. He wouldn’t even try. That told them so much about the kind of man this was.
‘Mr Morden…’ She refused to call him by his first name. They weren’t friends. ‘I think you should leave.’
She watched him sigh, then reach into his pocket and take out his wallet, open it, and she guessed what he was about to do.
‘I don’t want your money. I’m not that desperate,’ she told him in a tone that left no room for argument.
He didn’t even reply. Just stood up, lifted his jacket from the chair next to him, took a step away, then stopped, turned back.
‘For what it’s worth, I truly am sorry.’
‘Really?’ she challenged him, eyes blazing. ‘Because when I’m sorry for something I’ve done wrong, I fix it. And I don’t see you trying to do that.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘With people like you, it never is. Enjoy your inheritance, Mr Morden. Last time I checked, this café was still mine. This building is still mine. And that door is still mine. So don’t let it hit your arse on the way out.’
He didn’t even argue. He just walked away, and he was at the door when the next words came out of her mouth, with absolutely no consultation with her brain.
‘Mr Morden, you said that your mother loved this place. I wonder what she’d think of this now.’
It was a low blow, and she hated herself for saying it. Although, it was wasted on him anyway, because he simply kept on going. The next thing she heard was the ding of the bell, then she watched through the window as he jumped into his swanky big flash-bastard car and drove off.
She sat perfectly still, struggling to stay upright, to hold herself together, to make herself breathe, when she felt Ginny’s head drop onto her shoulder.
‘I’ve no idea who you are right now, but I need to tell you that you are fricking kick-ass fabulous.’
Alyssa didn’t take the compliment from the sentence. ‘I’m the person who just lost any hope of saving her café and her home.’
She wanted to cry. To punch the table. To put a chair through the window. Actually, not that, because she’d get charged for the damages and she was about to be homeless and unemployed.
‘And I’m the person who still has two hundred sandwiches to make. Come on, Ginny. Let’s get back to work. People like him don’t deserve our time.’
As she walked back to the kitchen, she realised she was also the person who now had fifty-nine days to plan a new life. So maybe it was time to stop fighting a lost cause and get started on that.
20
LACHLAN
Lachlan was five miles outside Weirbridge, on the narrow winding roads that led to the motorway, and his hands were still shaking as he gripped the steering wheel.
What the fuck had just happened?
When he’d gone into the café, it had been daylight, and by the time he left, not even an hour later, the sky was dark – and he wasn’t one for putting a dramatic flair on things, but that was the perfect metaphor for what happened in there.
That had been one of the worst conversations of his life. And for someone who prided himself on being great at managing expectations and problem solving, he was fully aware that he’d done a resolutely shit job. He’d been backed into a corner, and he’d had nothing to offer – not even hope.
The worst thing was that she was right in her assessment of him. Her comments had got under his skin, but there had been no way to avoid that because they were true.
‘Because when I’m sorry for something I’ve done wrong, I fix it. And I don’t see you trying to do that.’
He’d felt as small as he thought it was possible to be… at least until she’d delivered her next zinger.
‘…You said that your mother loved this place. I wonder what she’d think of this now.’
Those were the words that were ringing in his ears when he’d walked out the door and they were still circling in his head now.
If this was any other battle, with any other foe, for any other rightful cause, he would have gone to war for her. That was what he did. The decent thing. How could he explain that this was the one person that he wasn’t going to challenge because he’d learned long ago that when he went up against his brother, he lost? And the reason for that was that Jason was relentless and he played dirty – and Lachlan refused to get in the mud.
