Page 19 of The Last Goodbye

“Dean’s pretty devastated, because I think he liked her coming in every day for a glass of wine.” She chuckled.

Dean had already mentioned Briar to me multiple times. The bartender had a one-track mind, and he kept asking me if she was off-limits.

The answer was yes.

No one at my restaurant was allowed to date the woman who was trying to close our doors.

End of story, even if I hadn’t told them what was going on or why she was here.

The last thing I needed was for everyone to panic that we were closing down.

We weren’t.

I wouldn’t do that to my staff. I’d figure something out before it came to that.

“Dean can get the fuck over it.” I slammed a pan down on the range, even the mention of Briar Sinclair riling me up.

I had to admit that her coming in every single day last week, and me finding excuses for refusing to see her, had been entertaining.

Maybe even the most fun I’d had in years.

But at the end of the day, she wanted me to sell her my restaurant so she could make her family even more money than they already had.

I’d done my research, and her father had a reputation of being a shark in the business world, which was probably what had landed him on the Forbes 400 list two years ago.

He destroyed people like me, people who couldn’t afford to fight him, and I wasn’t going to help him do it.

He could wait two fucking years, and I’d use that time to figure out my next plan.

Hell, maybe he’d get tired of waiting and sell the land off and move on to something else.

At least I hoped that was possible.

River seemed to think it could happen. They’d find a new location and sell the land off, and that person wouldn’t give a fuck about building; they’d just make the money off the lease.

I’d looked over the offer after she’d stormed out of my houseboat, and she was correct: it wasn’t terrible. I’d even discussed it with River, since, as a lawyer, he thought I should consider all my options.

But in reality, once we did the math, the deal sure as shit wasn’t as great as she was making it out to be. Prices were higher now, and purchasing another building and renovating it—all while the restaurant remained closed for months until we could reopen—would be an enormous hit.

The numbers didn’t pencil the way she thought they did.

Prices had skyrocketed in Blue Sky Bay, since tourism was up.

She’d made a big fucking deal about the fact that I hadn’t met with her, but here’s the thing—I didn’t need to talk anything through. I was running a business, and it was tourist season in Blue Sky Bay.

I didn’t need to talk shit through with a woman I didn’t even know.

A woman who only wanted to profit off me.

Her family owned the damn business. And they wanted to put up some big new hotel that would make them even richer, and what would that mean for my business? And for the locals here? What would it mean for the people who rented out their vacation homes when they weren’t here because it was the only way they could afford a second home? And now they’d be competing with a large hotel corporation?

It would be a disaster for our small town, and I wasn’t going to jump on board and help her.

End of story.

So why the fuck am I feeling bad now? I barely know the woman.

Maybe it was because of the way her bottom lip trembled just slightly when I’d called her out. I hadn’t missed the way she blinked over and over, fighting the fact that her eyes had welled up before she’d bolted out of my houseboat like a bat out of hell.