Chapter 42
KENT
Ididn’t know what to do with myself.
Did I leave?
Stay?
Would they run me off the property? Send the elves after me? Hit me with a Yule log?
Leaving felt like quitting, and I wasn’t ready to do that just yet. I wanted to stay for her, but I also needed to talk with Harold and Brom. I assumed they would be the ones to make the final decision. I just hoped I could come out of that meeting without getting the shit beat out of me.
I stared at the door for what felt like forever and ultimately decided to give her some space. But I wasn’t going to leave just yet. Not to mention, all my shit was in the room. I would wait and see how things unfolded before I did anything.
I turned around and went back down to the farm.
Ozzo was waiting down by the horses and wagons when I returned, looking confused about why I was alone. Guests had already started to arrive for the winter ride. I could see families climbing onto the decorated wagons while someone poured hot chocolate from the thermoses we’d prepared earlier.
The scene should have been charming, with the massive Clydesdales and the smell of hay and Christmas trees mixing with the less pleasant but honest scent of horse manure. Children were laughing as they settled into the blankets we’d laid out.
Instead, it all felt like a mockery of the morning I’d been enjoying just an hour ago.
“Hey, what was that all about?” Ozzo asked as I approached. “Where’s Sylvie?”
“Mind your own business,” I said with more venom than necessary.
“I thought you were covering for her while she had lunch with her old man,” he continued, oblivious to my tone. “Bill says we need someone to ride along on the first wagon to make sure everything goes smooth.”
I scoffed. “I’m not a fucking employee. Do your own damn job.”
Ozzo looked sheepishly stunned, like I’d just kicked a puppy. “Uh-oh.”
“What?” I snapped, my anger flaring even though I knew it was misplaced. This kid hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just angry with myself for messing up something I had genuinely been excited about. Ozzo was an easy target.
“You’re definitely getting coal in your stocking,” Ozzo joked.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “You’re right. You’ve got this. I’m leaving.”
“Wait! I thought you were helping out?”
“You thought wrong.”
I huffed and turned away. The kid would figure out the wagon rides. I needed to get away from this place. I couldn’t be around the wholesome family activities that reminded me of everything I had just messed up.
Thankfully, I had my wallet and there was a spare key in the rental.
I drove into town, my mind churning with self-recrimination and anger.
I’d finally done the right thing by telling Sylvie the truth, and it had blown up exactly the way I’d known it would.
The look on her face when she’d realized I’d been lying to her from the beginning would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I found the first bar I saw on Main Street and pushed through the door, grateful for the dim lighting and the promise of a strong drink to take the edge off.
I could be anonymous. For now. As soon as the people in town figured out who I was and what I had done to the Northwood family, grabbing a drink would be a dangerous sport.
I had no doubt in my mind I would be run out of town.
I looked around and groaned. Of course. Because my life had apparently become some kind of cosmic joke, Phineas Withers was sitting at the bar nursing a drink.
Fuck it.
He was probably the only other guy in town that was more hated. And right now, he was probably the only guy I could call a friend.
The old man looked up as I approached and raised his glass in greeting. “Here to babysit me or trick me into going home?”
“Nope. Just here for a drink.” I sat down beside him. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
The bartender—Marcy, based on her name tag—poured the whiskey.
“What brings you to the bottle in the middle of the day?” Phineas asked.
Maybe it was the fact that I’d already confessed everything to Sylvie, or maybe it was because Phineas was one of the few people in this town who wouldn’t judge me based on Bancroft expectations, but I found myself telling him everything.
“I just lost my girl because of my family name,” I said, taking a long drink. “Because I prioritized what my father wanted over what I wanted. Over what was right.”
I explained the whole situation. How I’d come to Northwood to convince the family to sell. Telling the old man how I’d fallen for Sylvie despite knowing I was lying to her. And then how I’d finally told her the truth and watched her heart break in real time.
Phineas listened without interrupting, occasionally sipping his drink, his weathered face giving nothing away.
“So you’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself because you did what your daddy told you instead of what you knew was right,” he said when I finished. “And now you’re blaming it on your family name, like you had no choice in the matter.”
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit.” Phineas cut me off with a wave of his hand. “This has nothing to do with your family name, boy. This is about you being too much of a coward to do what you actually want to do. You’re hiding behind family obligation because it’s easier than admitting you chose wrong.”
His words were harsh and maybe just a little too spot on.
“You think I wanted to hurt her?” I asked.
“No, I think you wanted to avoid disappointing your father more than you wanted to do right by that girl. There’s a difference.
” Phineas took another drink. “The question is what you’re going to do about it now.
Are you going to sit here wallowing and then slink back to New York with your tail between your legs?
Or are you going to grow up and fix what you broke? ”
“How am I supposed to fix this? She’ll never forgive me.
My family is not going to give her the investment they need.
It’s a losing battle. Everyone knows it except Sylvie.
We dump money in, and it just prolongs the inevitable.
We lose money. They get to stay on their property a few more years but the outcome will be the same. ”
“Probably,” he said.
“But you think I should convince my father to take the hit?” I asked. Because that’s kind of what I was thinking.
People assumed because we were rich it wouldn’t be a big deal if we lost a few million dollars.
But it wasn’t just about losing money. It was about losing credibility.
Investors were going to second-guess the company if they thought we couldn’t see a good move or a losing one.
I didn’t have much to do with the business, but I knew the basics.
“I didn’t say that,” he said.
“You think I should invest my personal fortune?”
Again, it was another scenario I considered. But if I lost the deal for my family, I wasn’t sure if my dad would revoke my trust fund. Without it, I wouldn’t have the money to invest.
It felt like I was on a hamster wheel with no way off that didn’t end with me smacking my face against the ground.
He chuckled. “I can’t begin to imagine how wealthy you are.”
“Yeah, we’re more than comfortable,” I said as I held up my empty glass to get Marcy’s attention.
She returned and filled it.
“His too,” I said and gestured to Phineas’s almost empty glass.
“She’s never going to forgive me,” I said. That was the reality. I had played the mess out eighteen different ways and it always came down to that one problem.
“Maybe she won’t. But that’s not really the point, is it?
The point is whether you’re going to keep being the kind of man who does what he’s told, or whether you’re finally going to figure out how to walk your own path.
” Phineas drained his glass and signaled for another.
“Grow up, lad. Or spend your days rotting away in places like this, drowning your regrets. Like me.”
The bartender scowled at his description of her establishment.
“No offense, Marcy,” Phineas added.
“None taken, you old bastard,” she replied, but there was affection in her voice.
I sat there nursing my whiskey, turning Phineas’s words over in my mind. He was right, and I hated that he was right. I’d been blaming my family and the circumstances. I had figured out a way to blame everything except my own choices.
But what the hell was I supposed to do now? Sylvie hated me. Her family was going to lose everything whether I went through with the deal or not. And my father was expecting me to close this acquisition by Christmas Eve or lose access to everything I’d ever known.
The smart thing would be to cut my losses, go back to New York, and move on with my life. Sylvie and Northwood would become just another chapter in my past. Another mistake I’d made along the way. Wouldn’t be my first and definitely wouldn’t be my last.
“So you say there’s oil under our feet right now?” Phineas asked.
“Yep. A lot.”
“Wonder why no one figured it out before.”
“They did but the town was booming and there was no way anyone was going to offer the kind of money it would take to get the land,” I said.
“Ah, vultures.”
“What?”
“You people have just been waiting for us to die off and then you could move in.”
I cringed because it was true. “Pretty much.”
“Well, it’s the way it’s always been and the way it will always be,” Phineas said.
“Everything dies. Change is inevitable. This life we all get to have is all on borrowed time. Same with the land. Tomorrow it’s you people tearing shit up for oil.
Then it will be investors coming in to build a golf course or some ugly hotel. ”
I took another sip of whiskey and let his words sink in. Everything dies. Change is inevitable. It was a depressing way to look at things, but maybe he had a point. Maybe I was fighting against something that was always going to happen anyway.
“So you’re saying I should just accept that I’m going to mess up her life?” I asked.
“I’m saying you should figure out what kind of man you want to be in the middle of all this destruction.
” Phineas turned to look at me directly.
“You can be the guy who profits off other people’s misery, or you can be the guy who tries to make it right.
Either way, that family is probably going to lose their land eventually.
But how they lose it, that’s up to you.”
I stared into my glass, seeing my distorted reflection in the amber liquid. “What if making it right means losing everything I have?”
“Then you’ll find out what you’re really made of, won’t you?”
The old man had a way of cutting straight to the heart of things that was both infuriating and clarifying. I’d spent my whole life having everything handed to me, never having to make a choice that actually cost me something. The biggest risk I’d ever taken was showing up late to a board meeting.
“My father will cut me off,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“So?”
“So I’ll have nothing.”
Phineas snorted. “Except your integrity.”