19. Chapter 19
nineteen
“ E veryone’s gone.”
Willow looked up from the ballots she’d been counting to find Max strolling into the office and making the whole place close in around them. Her body reacted to the energy from him, the smell of his cologne, the sound of his voice. He sat in the chair across from her, took a swig from his beer, then nodded toward the piles of ballots on the desk.
“Any winners?”
She nodded. “Fuzzy Milkshake in a landslide. I’m going to brew a batch tomorrow.”
Max smiled. “We’ll push it on influencer night, get the whole town talking about it. It’ll do great.”
Her eyebrows rose. She wasn’t used to all this praise. For the last few hours, she’d had person after person shaking her hand and telling her how great she was.
If this kept up, her ego would grow out of control.
“Thanks,” she said, collecting the ballots. “It literally couldn’t have gone better.”
Well, besides her whole meltdown in front of Max after Adam’s proposal about how messy her own engagement was. She hated how selfish she’d felt after that. She was happy for them. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to let go of the jealousy. What would it be like to be engaged to a man who couldn’t wait to marry her?
She sighed and opened her old notebook, slipped in the ballots, and wrote Fuzzy Milkshake on the blank line in her brew schedule. At least her professional life was going well.
She closed her notebook, rolled her shoulders, and found Max staring at her. “Everything okay?”
He nodded, braced his elbows on his thighs, and rested his chin on his steepled hands. “I was hoping to talk to you about us.”
Her eyes widened. “Us?”
He blew out a breath, straightened in his seat. “The night we went to the comedy show, and you said you thought about me . . .”
“Yeah,” she said, feeling her cheeks flame, knowing her face had gone all pink .
“I think about you that way, too,” he said. His voice was deep and calm, and her stomach dropped out.
She couldn’t tell whether it was nerves, or terror, or guilt. All she knew was that her body had ignited, and she’d never felt that strong a reaction to anything. Maybe ever.
“Max—”
“It’s not just that,” he continued. “I like being with you. I think we really click together. And, honestly, it’s killing me to think you aren’t getting everything you want from—”
He stopped awkwardly, midsentence, and turned his head toward the door. “Did you hear something?”
She swallowed, trying desperately to rein in the feelings swirling deep in her belly. “I feel the same, but I’m engaged, Max. And I know its—”
“Willow?”
She froze, then slowly turned toward the door.
Was that . . . No.
“Willow!”
All the blood drained from her face as she finally accepted who the familiar voice yelling her name from the dining room was.
Shane .
She snapped out of her shock and jumped from her chair, trying desperately to pull in a breath, but couldn’t make her lungs work.
“That isn’t . . .” Max trailed off, staring at her.
She forced air in and out while trying to smooth her dress and pull the sweater she’d bought to go with it tighter around her. God, what would he think about her in these clothes?
Not to mention the fact that she was alone there with Max.
Fuck.
She met Max’s eyes for the first time, found him watching her in abject horror.
“Stay here,” she said, then turned and left the office before he could insert an opinion. She closed the door behind her and forced her feet to take steps until she reached the dining room and saw him.
“Shane,” she said on a shaky breath. “Hi.”
He turned toward her with a shocked look on his face. She didn’t know what to do or how to act. Maybe she should hug him? She hadn’t seen him in weeks. She took a few steps toward him, but he put up his hand, stopping her.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Willow? ”
She planted her feet, told herself to breathe. Told herself to ignore the fact that Max could hear every word.
At least he was still in their office, out of sight.
“I’m sorry, Shane. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head as his face started turning red. She’d seen him angry before, but this was next level.
“I just really felt like I had to—”
“I can not believe you did this. When Nikki told me—”
“Nikki told you?”
Her own anger blinded Willow for a moment. Nikki had promised she wouldn’t tell. That was two days ago. It would have taken Shane approximately the same amount of time to buy a plane ticket and travel all this way.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice terrifying. “She had a hard time lying to my fucking face, but apparently you had no problem with that.”
The anger drained from her body, and she hung her head as the guilt swarmed. She was in the wrong here. Not Nikki.
“I hate that I lied to you. But maybe if you could see what I’ve been working on—”
Shane cut her off with a shake of his head. “This is truly the dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever done. How much debt did you go into for all this? ”
Shit.
Willow steadied herself and shook her head. “I didn’t take on any debt. I had money.”
“How?”
“Please don’t be mad at me,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut.
“How, Willow?”
“My mom had a life insurance policy.”
He took a step backwards, as if she’d slapped him.
“I got a payout when she died.”
“You’ve been lying to me for ten years?”
She steadied herself. “Well, it’s a good thing, though. Right? Because I invested—”
“Invested?”
“Yes. I had it invested with Nana’s financial adviser. It grew a lot over the years.”
“Until now. How much did you spend of it on this brewery?”
“All of it.”
Shane started pacing the room. He was so mad now that he couldn’t even stand still. “This is stupid, Willow. Really fucking stupid—”
He stopped midsentence and looked over her head. “Who the hell are you?”
Willow whipped around, found Max taking up all the space of the doorway. He had his arms crossed and a murderous glare in his eye .
Willow sighed, dropped her head. She hadn’t even heard him open the door.
“Who the hell are you?” Shane repeated.
“Max.”
Willow took hold of Shane’s arm. “Please, just come with me to the brewery so you can see it. It’s really incredible. We just had an opening, and everyone loved—”
“No,” he said, shaking her off.
“Can you please just listen—”
“No. We’re going home. Get your shit.”
Willow stared at him in shock. She knew he had a nasty temper, but she honestly hadn’t seen that coming. Did he really think that she was just going to abandon her business like that?
She glanced at Max, who was staring a hole through Shane, and remembered how he would’ve handled the situation but shook it off. She couldn’t tell Shane to go fuck himself.
She loved him.
And she could still fix this. He’d calm down in a few days and then think more clearly about how great this could be for them.
“Shane, I can’t leave right now. There’s only a couple of weeks left to get everything ready to open.”
Shane rapidly blinked a few times. “Come with me now, or we’re done. ”
Her heart stopped beating. “Why?”
Shane spared a glance at Max, narrowed his eyes. “You’re really asking me why?”
“Yeah, why?”
Shane glared at her. “Because you’re not supposed to be here at all. You’re supposed to be in Ottawa, and you lied. And who the fuck is this guy?”
How the hell was she going to explain Max, her incredibly hot business partner, to her incredibly jealous fiancé? She couldn’t, so she ignored the question and tried to explain to Shane that she needed to stay there but didn’t want to lose him.
“I just need more time to get this off the ground. I already have a flight booked in two weeks.”
Shane gave a curt nod. “I guess this”—he gestured around the room, notably landing on Max—“is more important to you than I am. Don’t bother coming home in two weeks.”
“Shane, you don’t mean that—”
“I mean it,” he said, cutting her off. “We’re finished. This is over. I could never marry someone so . . . untrustworthy.”
His face fell from sadness to anger right before he turned and walked out the door, letting it slam closed behind him.
Willow stared at the door for a solid two minutes before her eyes started filling with tears. Shane was here. Now he was gone. And he felt as if she’d chosen a brewery over him.
Had she? And more importantly, had she just made the right choice, or the worst mistake of her life?
Her eyes overflowed as a wave of nausea took over. She literally had no clue.
What if he was right, and she’d just wasted all her money on a business that would never work, leaving her with no money, no brewery, and no fiancé?
Max walked past her, clicked the locks on the door into place, then turned to her. She couldn’t face him, hated that he’d heard all that. It was more embarrassing than she could stand. She dropped her eyes down to the floor and covered her face with her hands as her tears soaked her palms.