Chapter 17
17
Delaney braced herself before she returned her gaze to Ethan, but she already knew this was going to be worse than she’d expected, and the stress over this decision that had been eating away at her for two weeks ratcheted up.
I don’t have anything to feel bad about.
I don’t have anything to feel bad about.
I don’t have anything to feel bad about.
But when she finally worked up the nerve to face Ethan after Jodi left, she knew, without a doubt, she had a lot to feel bad about.
The bizarre thing was she still wasn’t sure what that was.
But whatever it was had affected Ethan deeply. That was clear in the sober expression on his face, and the very real, very raw hurt in his eyes.
His gaze skimmed down her body slowly, as if he were seeing her the way he’d seen her the last time they’d been together. The vivid memories of his passion made her throat tighten. And the realization that had been their last night together made her ache with loss.
He cleared his throat, turned toward his desk, and slid into his chair. With his elbows propped on the arms, he threaded his fingers over his lap. His eyes were guarded now, almost vacant in the nearly complete coverage of any unique sign of the man she’d known, making her realize just how well she’d known him. Which in turn made her feel the loss that much deeper.
She pressed her hands to the pain at the center of her body under the guise of smoothing her tank top, letting her gaze blur over the abstract pattern of colorful poppies there. But her heart was lodged in her throat, and none of the practiced speeches she’d planned out ahead of time would come to her now.
In fact, her brain had gone eerily blank, and she rubbed her palm down her thigh, distinctly aware of the contrast between her pale hand and the ink-blue shade of her jeans.
“You’ve had this appointment for two weeks.”
His voice was soft, but it jarred her out of her hazy state. When she looked up, he had one hand pressed against his jaw, his index finger rubbing an absent pattern over his lower lip. And a new shadow had filled his eyes. One she couldn’t read.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the bar when I came.” She hated her apologetic tone. Would have never shown this kind of weakness to an industry professional in the field. “Didn’t know how I’d be received in town. Didn’t know where the Ryan or the Hayes family had ties to pull.”
She crossed her arms, taking a moment to look away and find some strength. Studying his beige Berber carpet she added, “But I do know how political a planning position can be, and I wanted to secure a place on your calendar without bias.”
Another long, thick silence filled the room, and Delaney frantically searched for at least one version of all those speeches she’d been practicing this afternoon.
“That’s...savvy.” His tone sharpened her mind. The skin along her shoulders prickled, and she cut her gaze back to his to gauge his meaning. But again, the Ethan she knew, the Ethan she could read was so well hidden inside the man sitting in front of her now, she couldn’t tell if the accusatory slant to that comment was real or imagined.
“All right then.” He sat forward, rolling his chair to his desk, his manner suddenly brisk and businesslike. “Your deadline is five p.m. tomorrow, so you’re either here to put in your application for a building permit so you can bring the building up to code and into line with the new ordinance or you’re here to discuss demolition.
“And since you’re consulting Trace, I assume he’ll be handling that for you. Good decision. He’s had his share of problems over the last few years, and I wouldn’t recommend him for actual construction work, but for demolition he’d be great.”
She crossed her arms, pushed from the sill, and wandered toward the guest chairs in front of his desk. One held her bag, and she sat on the edge of the other.
She could see this wasn’t going to end well. That had obviously been too much to hope for. She couldn’t blame him. But it still hurt. She certainly wouldn’t ask him to choose between her and his family or his duty to his job. And when she thought about it like that, she didn’t even know what, exactly, she’d hoped for when she’d come.
A flash of how absurd this professional, distant conversation felt derailed her civility for a moment. “So, in your book people who aren’t perfectly straight arrows can’t do quality work?”
“What? No. That’s not what I...” He stopped himself from sliding into the real Ethan and collected his professional veneer. “Honestly, I don’t know if Trace even has his contractor’s license anymore. I’m sure you know he went to prison for a few years on drug charges. But you don’t need a licensed contractor to take the bar down, and I think he’d give you the best deal you could find on demolition.”
His cool attitude created a ball of anger inside her. But she had no right. He was acting like an adult, handling business like business, whereas she’d ducked him for a full day because she didn’t know what to say or how to act.
He had every right to be angry.
She. Did. Not.
But apparently, her psyche had been hanging out with some gangbanging druggie in purgatory the day God handed out adult behavior.
Delaney clenched her teeth and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, chanting, Stop, stop, stop, in her head to disrupt the negative thought pattern, while Ethan opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out several forms.
“Read these over, fill them out, and drop them back off tomorrow.” He laid the papers in front of her, and Delaney blew out a slow breath as she returned her gaze to the desk. The anger had dissipated into pain, and now her eyes stung.
This is so damn stupid. Get over it.
“Even if the demolition doesn’t start right away, you won’t incur any additional fees. We can firm up all the details then.”
By the time Delaney focused on the forms, she’d passed anger, skated through sadness, and was rounding numbness. Amazing how those old survival patterns kicked in whether you wanted them or not.
“It’s telling that you’d jump to the assumption I’m going to demolish.”
“Telling?” he asked.
“Or wishful, or denial, or whatever.” She met his gaze. “I’m going to renovate, Ethan.”
She was grateful for the detachment when he sat back in his chair as if he’d been pushed, with a mixture of disbelief and anger flashing over his face.
“You’re not going to renovate,” he told her in a flash of anger. “You’re going to throw all your hard-earned money?—”
He cut himself off, pressed his lips together, and got that look of determination that sharpened all his features and turned him from simply hot to five-alarm-panty-melting.
“You can’t,” he ordered with absolute authority. “You don’t have time. We talked about this almost two weeks ago. You have to have?—”
“The building plan application with all supporting documentation and the application fee,” she finished, dragging an inch-thick sheaf of paper from her bag, and dropping it in front of him. “There you go.”
His mouth remained open as he stared down at the neat bundle with a check attached to the first page—a completed application.
His holy-shit expression pissed her off. Despite his past compliments on her accomplishments, he still hadn’t expected her to succeed or perform in this situation. And that both hurt and angered her.
“I can’t justify throwing away tens of thousands of dollars—really, everything I have in the world—when I have the knowledge and experience to renovate that place for a profit. I know this is going to be a problem for your family. And I know that is going to make your life uncomfortable, and I really wish there was another way I could do what I need to do without causing?—”
“There might be.” He looked as surprised by his own words as she was.
“What?”
He licked his lips and sat forward, and just like that she was looking into Ethan’s eyes again. The Ethan she knew. The Ethan she craved. His eyes were warm, his expression open and real and vulnerable.
“I might know someone who’d be interested in buying your liquor license.”
“Where did that . . . ?” She shook her head, confused. “What?”
“I’m not sure how much you know about liquor licenses, but California only gives out so many, a certain number to each county based on their population. So, while yours is currently inactive, since you’ve been renewing it every year, you still own it, and you have the right to sell it to another qualified individual or company.”
Her brain stalled. Backtracked. Yes, she knew about the liquor license. Yes, she’d known about the limited supply. But after searching her mind, she realized that someone else at Pacific Coast’s Finest had dealt with procuring them for their restaurants and bars, which was why she didn’t know anything about the ability to buy and sell them.
“I’d have to check into it some more,” he went on, “but I’m betting the license would sell for enough to cover demolition at Trace’s rate. They’re difficult to come by around here.”
Seventy-five grand? The license was worth at least seventy-five grand? Why hadn’t anyone told her this two weeks ago?
“And I’d be interested in buying your dad’s old stills out back. I could convert them into brewing kettles.” The more he talked, the more animated he became, and the deeper Delaney got sucked back into those old feelings. “You could end up coming out of this in the short term with some cash in your pocket until the land sells, at which point you’ll be well in the black.”
He sat back, his face alight with the excitement. He was freaking adorable. And she was—dammit—she was crazy about him. Nothing was going to protect her from that.
Ethan laughed, his eyes shining. “You could actually see something good come of that place after all.”
That statement T-boned her thoughts.
See something good come of that place? That sounded exactly like Jack.
The warm spot inside her went cold. “Let me guess who you know offhand with a cool seventy, eighty grand in cash at their disposal to toss away on a liquor license. Specifically, the liquor license to The Bad Seed. Your uncle.”
Ethan looked as if he’d been hit with a bat. “What?”
As soon as that first puzzle piece had been placed, the rest fit together instantly. “And let me guess who suggested your uncle put up the money to buy the license. Your father.”
Anger flashed over his face. “No.” He drew a breath and continued in a more controlled tone. “No, someone I’m doing business with mentioned it to me a few hours ago. It didn’t occur to me as a viable option until just now. One that would allow you to cut ties to the place with a few bucks in your pocket.”
Anger turned to fury and surged from deep in her belly and spiked her body. She was so damned sick of being discounted and underestimated.
“My experience and my knowledge are worth more than a few bucks. In fact, it’s looking like they’re worth quite a few million bucks in this situation.”
She found that steely place inside her, the one that had gotten her through all her lowest points in life, and rooted herself. “Whether you believe that or not makes absolutely no difference in this situation, because I’ll prove it when I turn that dump into a multi-million-dollar property.
“And you can tell Jack and Wayne the same thing I told you two weeks ago—this time I’ll leave Wildwood when I decide it’s time to leave Wildwood. No one is going to push me, force me, or buy me out of here.”
She surged to her feet and hiked her purse up on her shoulder, grateful for the anger that would get her out of there before she fell apart.
“Hold on—that’s not...” He stood as she turned for the door. “Come on, Delaney. Let’s talk about this. Where are you going to come up with the kind of money you need to renovate that place? Where are you going to find the labor force required to take on this size job? You’re not at Pacific Coast anymore. You don’t have unlimited resources.”
Perfect. This was just perfect. Having a man assume she couldn’t handle a renovation similar to those she’d performed successfully more than two dozen times, while being reminded of the job she’d loved and lost because a man had abused those very abilities...
God, irony sucked.
Delaney met his gaze directly. “The other night you called me the renovation guru of the West Coast. Now you don’t think I can handle one project?”
He got that well-shit look on his face. “I didn’t mean?—”
“There are three yellow stickies denoting locations in the plans we should just talk about now.” She decided to get all the preliminary talking points out of the way to limit the need for future meetings. “They’re the only areas open to interpretation that could cause conflict, and I’d like to get that out of the way. I really want this to go smoothly. This is going to be hard enough on both of us as it is. I don’t want to cause any undue stress or conflict.”
He heaved a breath that seemed to come from the bottom of his lungs, closed his eyes, and rubbed his face with both hands. After scraping all ten fingers through his hair, he bent, slapped his palms to his desk, and read over the first noted item.
While he listened to her requested modifications, Ethan’s jaw muscles flexed. The sight reminded Delaney of his restraint in bed and the lengths to which he’d gone to please her. The hole in her stomach burned hotter, and she had to look away.
After some back-and-forth, he ultimately agreed to all her requests, flipped the packet closed, and dropped into his chair.
Delaney relaxed a little. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he muttered without looking up.
Delaney rolled her eyes.
When he met her gaze again, his walls were down. He looked as exhausted and miserable as she felt. She couldn’t bring herself to leave, but she knew anything she said would end up in an argument. He must have felt the same way, because he didn’t speak either.
They stayed like that, suspended in that moment, lost in each other’s eyes with thoughts and emotions floating between them for what seemed like forever, yet wasn’t near long enough.
The ring of his desk phone broke the trance.
Ethan swore and hung up on whoever was calling.
Delaney pulled in a breath and pushed out a soft, “Thank you. If you find a problem as you’re going through it, you know how to get a hold of me. And you can have the stills. Come pick them up anytime.”
This was the beginning of the end, and a jagged streak of panic flashed through Delaney’s chest. The kind of panic that signaled she was losing something she could never get back.
Second, third, and fourth thoughts chased one another around Delaney’s mind, but she’d done all the preliminary work, had all the numbers. From a business perspective, taking on this project was just the no-brainer Trace had labeled it. She couldn’t justify walking away from it now. And she shouldn’t have to.
She cleared her throat and forced the words forward. “I think this goes without saying, but since this change creates a concrete conflict of interest for you?—”
“We can’t see each other anymore,” he finished, his tone harsh, his voice final. But it was the damn-right look in his eye that cut into Delaney’s heart.
She pressed her lips together, nodded, and, with nothing more for either of them to say, walked out of his office, leaving with what felt like a gaping wound in her chest.