Page 1 of Between Love and Loathing
CLARA
“We made a mistake.” The doctor cleared his throat. “Well, we made a few mistakes.”
That’s never something a patient wants to hear during a visit. I stared up at the ceiling rather than at the doctor, trying to process as I held my own hand because no one was there to hold it for me.
“Some people manage this very well. It’s quite a blessing we found out when we did.”
I didn’t think a disease could be a blessing. Especially one without a cure. One with fatalities every year. I hated that he’d said those words.
But I tried to accept them while he talked on and on. It was a good thing I hadn’t driven because tears trekked down my face as soon as I folded into the Uber. Quickly, I grabbed my concealer and glanced in the compact’s mirror to check my cherry lipstick, wipe at my eyes, and confirm my mascara hadn’t budged. The redness of the rash on my cheeks was peeking through again so I blotted more cover-up on.
I had one more meeting today and tried to muster up the last amount of energy I had for it.No more tears, Clara.
When I showed up, my mother and sister were already gone and Mrs. Johnson motioned me into the room with no one from the extended family. Instead, the older woman smiled at Dominic Hardy, my stepfather’s trusted architectural engineer. Dominic and his brothers were the sons my stepfather never had. He doted on them and loved them like his own, which was understandable. The Hardy Family was hard not to like with four charming brothers and twin sisters who’d married infamous men. Yet, out of the six of them, Dominic was different.
“Why is Clara’s part of the will being read with mine?” His strong jaw ticked as he pointedly asked Mrs. Johnson without so much as a hello directed my way. I hadn’t expected anything different. Every time I was near Dominic, he didn’t even cast me a glance. He may have had the same dark, wavy hair, the same build, and the same color of green eyes as his younger brothers, but his were meaner. Colder. More ruthless.
Mrs. Johnson straightened her gold belt before tsking at him. “We’ll get to that.”
As he sat there with his piercing gaze and perfectly pressed suit tailored to his massive build, it was obvious he held himself in such a high regard that he couldn’t even be bothered to grace me with a nod of acknowledgement.
Normally, that would have been fine, but my emotions were frayed on every edge. I was running on empty and ready to snap at him in order to protect myself. A wounded, tired animal can be dangerous, and today, I was emotionally spent.
She waved to one of the seats next to Dominic and murmured, “Have a seat, Clara dear. How was the drive?”
“Oh, fine. The traffic was a little bad because of an accident on the freeway.”
Dominic checked his watch as if to draw attention to the time and my being five minutes late.
Immediately, the urge to apologize bubbled up. “I should have left earlier.”
“Now, how would you have known there would be traffic?” She waited a beat but when Dominic didn’t share in the sentiment, she hurried on, “Well, let’s get to it then. I’ve discussed Carl’s will with Dominic’s brother and your stepsister and explained that each of his stipulations within the will are rather unorthodox. Yours are no different.”
She slid papers across her desk slowly to both Dominic and me. My mother and sister would have lunged for the documentation, but I coiled away from it, not really wanting a gift in my stepfather’s death. His heart had given out suddenly, but it was like he knew it was coming, like he’d been preparing this will his whole life, and with him being the type of businessman he was, he probably had planned it somehow.
Carl Milton had ruled one of the biggest hospitality empires of the country with the four men he thought of as sons—the Hardy brothers, hence the Hardy Elite All-Access Team brand, also known as HEAT. There were HEAT watches, HEAT resorts, HEAT technology, HEAT everything everywhere, and my stepfather owned half of it all.
Until now.
“Dom, you’re the eldest of your siblings, and I think Carl trusted you to run the Pacific Coast Resort’s reopening for that very reason. Plus, you designed it and took pride in it.” Mrs. Johnson’s eyes shined with unshed tears. “I’m so happy to tell you that Carl is leaving the final design, operations, shares, and management to you.” She paused and flicked her eyes to me. “As long as you include Clara’s bakery within the resort.”
There was the twist. The knife in Dominic’s back; the reason this felt all wrong.
His mouth dropped open. I glanced at him and saw how his sun-kissed skin reddened. “There’s no room in the Pacific’s blueprints for a little bakery like hers.” He said the statement with disgust, his voice full of gravel and anger while his strong hands white-knuckled the arms of the chair he sat in.
“It’s not just alittle bakery.” I couldn't help snapping. “It’s a place that people gather and absolutely love, Dominic. It could be global.” I smoothed the black maxi dress I’d decided to wear today to honor Carl even though the color weighed me down.
“Yeah, here. They love ithere, Clara. In Florida. Across the country, at the Pacific Coast Resort—where Carl hasn’t instilled your bakery for patrons to love—it’s going to be a hard sell.” So matter-of-factly Dominic Hardy threw knives at my self-confidence with his words. The man normally barely talked with me, but he had the audacity to now. With malice. With hate. “Are you up for that?”
Finally, he shifted his gaze to mine. Those green eyes with edges of dark jade seemed to cut at my mask of confidence, trying to find my weakness, to see if I was prepared for the challenge.
“Now, now,” Mrs. Johnson said before she rearranged her wired glasses. The frames matched her belt and gold pen as she tapped it on the sheet in front of her. “As you know, Carl came in frequently to change the stipulations of his will. He had a standing appointment scheduled on a monthly basis, and it does seem he had the current blueprints submitted.” The woman rummaged in a drawer before pulling out the papers and laying them out too. Then she took her pen and pointed to the middle of a blueprint in front of Dominic’s face as if he couldn’t see the gigantic space marring his perfect layout that read Clara’s Bakery.
“That’s going to be impossible. The construction to make that work would take—”
“Dominic, you’re just starting renovations, right? Surely you’ll be able to figure out where to fit a small bakery since you’ll be going from midsize to large scale with an additional two hundred thousand square feet, bringing this resort to near half a million.”
He crossed his massive arms over his chest. Everything about him was huge and hard as granite. He didn’t seem to bend to anyone, especially not to Mrs. Johnson … nor me.
