Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
BLUE
I told the staff at Fiddlers that West Brooks was the new owner and I was the manager. No one was surprised. If anything, they were relieved. The Murphy brothers had been officially banned, and that alone felt like a national holiday. We should’ve had cake.
I kept my skepticism about West’s intentions to myself and let everyone else enjoy the freedom of not working under Jeff’s sticky-fingered reign of terror.
Sundays were always busy, and I worked the shift as usual. I kept my head down and poured drinks like I hadn’t just lost all of my sanity. But when I walked into the office, I got slapped in the face by a stark reminder that things weren’t exactly usual anymore.
West was sitting behind the desk with his feet propped up like he owned the place.
Which, I guess, he did. He was spinning a pen between his fingers while staring at the computer screen as though he were about to buy Twitter, or some other billionaire nonsense.
Fancy suit. Hair slicked back. That annoyingly sculpted jaw of his resting on a hand like he had all the time in the world to look that stupidly hot in this disgusting little broom closet.
“Realizing what a shitty investment you made?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Not at all.” His smug smile made me want to slap it off and also lick it, which… wasn’t helpful. “Just keeping your seat warm.”
“I don’t have time to sit in here. I’m supposed to be behind the bar,” I snapped. “You think I have time to make the schedule too?”
“Didn’t you already do that? And the ordering? And the repairs? And basically run the place?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “But I didn’t do it from this dank-ass closet.”
I knew I was being irrational. I knew. But I was also exhausted, and this man had the audacity to swan in here with his shiny credit card and perfect posture like he was the patron saint of dive bars.
“You handle it however you need to,” he said with a sigh. “I’m trusting you to make Fiddlers whatever it needs to be.”
He stood, heading for the door like that was that.
“Is that it? That’s all you’re here for today?”
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “I have dinner with the family, then go back to Atlanta.”
He handed me a card. It was jet black, of course, with just his name and a number that was supposed to mean something. So pretentious.
“My personal line,” he said. “Call if you need anything.”
Then he was gone.
I blinked. Stared at the door. Stared harder.
That’s it?
He rides into town, bans the Murphys, hands me a title, and then waltzes out as if he were some suit-wearing fairy godfather?
“You ride in on your white horse, and then just leave?” I shouted after him.
“This isn’t the only business I run,” he called back, not even slowing.
“You don’t even run this one!” I yelled, marching after him. “You’re asking me to do it and I don’t want to! I didn’t want to when Jeff owned it, and I definitely don’t want to for you! All I care about is a decent night of tips!”
He turned back, brows drawn looking like I’d just insulted his spreadsheet. “You’re not managing it for tips anymore. And according to my brothers, you’re the backbone of Fiddlers. I didn’t think you’d want anything less than what I gave you.”
“There’s a lot of truth in that,” I admitted, my voice softening against my will. “But I’ve been saving for years. Hoping to buy Jeff out. Make this place mine. Now I’ll never be able to. Not with how deep your pockets are.”
I didn’t even bring up his other transgressions against me. Was he going to take everything I wanted? Everything Dad and I dreamed of having? He may not have known it, but I already had a beef with him.
I saw his expression shift. There was a flicker of guilt, quickly smothered by something else.
Mischief. Pure, smug, strategic mischief.
“How about I make you an offer?” he said, voice smooth.
I should’ve run. I should’ve bolted down the hallway and out the emergency exit. Because what came out of his mouth next was going to forever change everything about me, and who I thought I was.
“Marry me.”
I tilted my head like I hadn’t heard him right. “Did you say… bury you?”
“You know what I said.” He took a step closer, voice serious. “Marry me.”
I blinked slowly. I tried to laugh but the sound caught in my throat and died there.
“Nope,” I said, turning on my heel.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing my arm gently. “I’m serious. Marry me. We stay married for a month. Two max. Then we divorce. In the settlement, you get the bar.”
I froze. Because he was serious. Deadass serious.
“What’s in it for you?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“I need to show an investor that I’m capable of being a family man. When the contract’s signed and the project launches, we end it. Quietly. You keep Fiddlers.”
I shook my head. “That’s… that’s practically prostitution.”
“I never asked for sex,” he said, clipped and cold. “I said marry me. Pretend to love me. I have zero plans to touch you.”
The chill in his voice sent a ripple down my spine. Somehow, the fact that he wasn’t trying to sleep with me made it feel worse.
This wasn’t personal.
This was business.
He didn’t want me. He wanted a box checked.
I should’ve told him to shove his offer into one of those overpriced loafers.
But the thought of owning Fiddler’s buzzed through me like a shot of tequila straight to the soul.
Freedom. Financial, emotional, maybe even generational.
“You’re insane,” I said flatly.
“I may be,” he smirked. “But this solves both of our problems.”
“I don’t have any problems,” I yelled.
“You have a problem with me, that much is clear.”
“And you decided marriage was the answer?”
He ran a hand through his hair, making it seem like I was the difficult one here. Ruining his perfectly sane, totally logical fake marriage plan.
“We just pretend to be married?” I blurted out, hating myself for considering it.
“No, there will be paperwork. In case of a background check, or some other crazy insight the guy wants. I need it to be real. Plus, it makes it ‘not a lie’ when we have to tell people. But we don’t have to swap ‘I do’s.’”
“We have to tell people?”
“If we’re asked.”
“We’ll be asked. So do we tell our families the truth?”
He hesitated. “Truthfully, we will be married. So yes, and no. No one needs to know it's a plan.”
“Not the staff? Not your brothers?”
“No one.”
“Not even your grandparents?” I asked.
He went still. “Especially not them.”
That hit me right in the feels. Because if there was one universal truth in this town, it was that the Brooks family meant something. They were solid. Respected. Loved.
And he was willing to lie to all of them.
“For a bar?” I whispered, half to myself.
He checked his watch. “I have dinner with the family. Then I’m headed back to the city. Use the number.” He pointed to the card still in my hand. “Text me your answer.”
And just like that, he left me standing there with my heart pounding, brain melting, and future unraveling. I sat down hard on the old couch, half convinced it might swallow me whole and kind of wishing that was exactly what it would.
What the actual hell just happened?