Chapter 12
Tempi rested her forehead against her front door. “Go away, Ronin.”
“Open the door, Tempi.”
“I already said goodnight.”
“And then you shut the door in my face.” A pause. “Which, for the record, is not the typical follow-up to kissing someone.”
She groaned and leaned back from the door. Her hand was still on the knob, and her lips still tasted like him...and she was furious about that.
She yanked open the door.
He was standing on her porch with his hands in his pockets and that easy posture that made everything he did look effortless. Even standing on her porch after being shut out, Ronin Seawald looked like a man who’d never struggled for anything in his life.
“I don’t need your charity, Ronin,” she said.
He blinked. “Charity?”
“The business proposal. The partnership.” She crossed her arms over her chest, wishing she had on more clothes than a torn mermaid dress.
“I’ve been running Magical Airbnb Properties for five years without anyone’s help.
I don’t need a merman with countless houseboats to swoop in and save my company. ”
“Save your—” He shook his head. “Tempi, that’s not what I meant. Not even close.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant what I said. A partnership. Equals. Two businesses that complement each other, working together instead of against each other.” He stepped closer. “Why is that a bad thing?”
“Because I don’t need it.”
“I didn’t say you needed it. I said it makes sense.”
“It makes sense for you.”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “Why do you always assume the worst about me?”
She didn’t answer. Mainly because she didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve been trying to figure it and you out for three years,” he said. “Every time I make a suggestion, you hear an insult. Every time I offer to help, you hear condescension. Every time I—” His phone rang, cutting him off. “Dammit!”
They both looked at his pocket. The ringtone she now recognized as belonging to Dax cut through the night air like a siren.
Ronin’s jaw tightened. He pulled the phone out, stared at the screen, and answered.
“Dax, I can’t talk right now. Call me tomorrow.
” He hung up and shoved the phone back in his pocket. “Now, we need to finish this.”
For the first time since she’d known him, Ronin looked like a man barely holding it together. “Why do you keep rescuing him?”
The question came out before she could stop it. It wasn’t her business, and yet she wanted to know why.
“Because somebody has to,” he said.
“Because your mom is gone? You feel like you need to look after him now that she’s dead?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “No, Tempi. It goes way beyond that.”
She studied him a moment longer before stepping back from the doorway. “You can come in if you want, I guess.”
She ushered him into her living room, then motioned for him to sit on the couch. She sat catty-corner to him in her favorite club chair.
“My father left when I was ten.” Ronin looked down at his hands. “Dax was three. My sister was four.”
“You have a sister as well?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“But she doesn’t need you like Dax does?”
He ran his hands over his face. “I don’t usually talk about my sister because she’s very private, and I respect that privacy.” He met her eyes. “Do you remember when you asked me where I got the idea for the underwater breathing apparatus?”
“Yes.”
“My sister has aquatic sclerosis. Do you know what that is?”
She shook her head.
“It affects merpeople. She was born with it. Basically, she cannot shift because her magic doesn’t allow her gills to form, but at the same time, in her human body, her lungs don’t work properly either.
She wears a seashell mask twenty-four hours a day just to help her breathe.
There is no cure. Most merpeople die within ten years of diagnosis, but my sister has shocked everyone by beating those odds.
” He looked out the window and smiled. “She’s an amazing artist. Quite famous, actually.
But she’s also a recluse. Most people have no idea about her condition.
She has a full-time healthcare provider who lives with her and sees to her needs.
” He turned his gaze back to her. “Growing up was tough for her, and my mom. The medical costs were high. My mother worked two jobs up until the time I graduated from high school. She left the house at six in the morning and got home at eleven most nights. I was the oldest, so after I got home from school, I would get my siblings from the neighbor’s house, cook them dinner, give them baths, put them to bed, and then I’d do my homework. ”
“Oh, Ronin. That’s a lot for anyone, much less a kid.”
“It was. But it had to be done. When they got older and were in school, I got them dressed in the mornings, fed them, and walked them to school before walking myself to class. I mowed the lawn. I did laundry...badly.” He gave a short laugh.
“That’s why I know how to sew, by the way.
You learn to fix things when you can’t afford to replace them.
” He ran a hand over his face. “Our neighbors were great. The old witch across the street taught me how to cook, which I am so thankful for. Otherwise, we’d have lived on cereal.
My mom did her best, and on rare days when she wasn’t working, she’d make sure we did something fun.
Even if it was just sitting outside and having a picnic in the backyard. ”
Tempi felt awful. She’d spent three years assuming Ronin Seawald had waltzed through life with everything handed to him. She was an idiot.
“I started working at fourteen,” he continued.
“A neighbor down the street, a werewolf named Samuel, ran a small construction company. He let me sweep floors after school while the witch across the street watched Dax and Jessica for me. Then he taught me framing. Then plumbing.” He leaned back against the back of the couch and sighed.
“Samuel is the reason I know how to read a piece of property. He’s the reason I have a business at all.
Everything I’ve built started with a man who handed a fourteen-year-old kid a broom and said, ‘Show up tomorrow.’”
When he didn’t say anything else, she leaned forward in her chair. “Ronin, I had no idea.”
“You weren’t supposed to. Nobody is.” He looked at her.
“I don’t tell people this because it’s not their business.
I’m not ashamed of it, but I’m also not interested in being anyone’s success story.
I built what I built. That’s it.” He narrowed his eyes at her.
“So you see, I don’t need your business, nor am I trying to rescue your business.
I was just trying to be a good business owner and help us both out. ”
She should have just let the conversation die and given it a day or two before going there. But she didn’t. “You make it look so easy. That’s the problem.”
He frowned. “What? What does that even mean?”
“You walk into a room and people love you. Mayor Huntington calls you by name. Mrs. Abernathy slaps your shoulder and calls you sonny. Herschel argues with you like you’ve been here your whole life.
” She shrugged. “I’ve always felt like you smile and everyone falls all over themselves to give you what you want. ”
“That’s what you think? Really?” He shook his head at her. “You think I smile and people hand me things?”
She shrugged. “That’s what it looks like from where I’m standing.”
“From where you’re standing.” He nodded slowly. “From where you’re standing, in the cottage your grandmother’s money bought you.”
She reeled back. “That’s not fair.”
“Your grandmother handed you the startup money for your company, Tempi. You told me that yourself. You had a family who believed in you, you had a safety net, and your grandmother wrote a check so you could chase your dream.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I had an absent mother, a broom I learned to push, and a man named Samuel. So don’t tell me things were handed to me.
” He let out a bitter laugh. “Heck, I haven’t even scratched the surface of how bad it really was.
The hardships my mom went through because of my—” He broke off and looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her chest was on fire, and she rubbed it as she blinked back tears. “You’re wrong about my life.”
“Then tell me.”
The words hung in the air like a challenge.
“You want to know a secret?” She stood up from the couch and started to pace.
“I’m so jealous of people like you who make it seem like this life is so easy.
Who can walk into a room and have people eating out of their hand or laughing at their jokes.
” She wiped away a tear. “And I know saying that out loud makes me sound petty, but I can’t help it.
I’ve spent my entire life standing next to a sister who gets everything right.
While I get nothing right and am a constant failure.
” The words came out fast, and once they started, she couldn’t stop them.
“Thora was the smart one. Thora was the responsible one. Thora got the grades and the scholarships and the husband and the kids and the nonprofit. Thora doesn’t need help.
Thora didn’t need a loan from Grandma because Thora does everything perfectly on her own…
the first time.” She stopped pacing and stared at him.
“And then there’s me. Tempi. The younger sister.
The one who needed a loan. The one who needed a cosigner.
The one who had to sit in a cemetery with her three best friends because they didn’t really fit in anywhere else.
” A tear slid down her cheek. “Tempi, who is still trying to prove she can do it without someone else holding her hand.” She dropped down onto her chair.
“When you offered to partner with me, do you know what I heard? I heard, ‘Your company needs me. You can’t do it alone.’ I heard every teacher, every counselor, every family member who ever looked at me and then looked at Thora and said, ‘Why can’t you be more like your older sister? ’”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Tempi. I really am.
It honestly must have been difficult growing up and feeling that way.
But it’s equally hard for me to sit here and realize you’ve been lumping me in with everyone else all these years.
You disliked me for something I never did.
I never thought you weren’t good enough.
I never thought you needed my help. But you decided I did before you ever really knew me.
And the worst part is, I’ve spent three years trying to get you to see me.
Instead, you spent three years hating me. ”
“I don’t hate you.”
He let out a bark of laughter. “You treat me like I’m the enemy, Tempi.”
“Because you’re everything I’m not! Every day I feel like a failure. Like an imposter.”
He stood up from the couch and stared down at her.
“I’ve spent my life trying to do the right thing, Tempi.
To be responsible. To be honorable. To show up and work hard and treat people fairly.
But no matter how hard I try, there’s always going to be someone who looks at me and sees something I’m not, and they will judge me for that.
” He shook his head. “I’ve spent three years trying to get you to like me.
But I’m done. I’m not going to fight and beg for you to be my friend. ”
The tears came faster now as she jumped up from her chair. “Ronin, I—”
“I should go.” He walked around the coffee table, giving her ample room. “We have the final clue to figure out tomorrow. I’ll see you at the bakery at nine.”
He walked toward the door, but she didn’t stop him.
“For what it’s worth,” he said. “I never thought your company needed me. I thought we’d be good together. I’ve always thought we’d be good together, Tempi. In more ways than one.”
She’d spent three years building a wall against Ronin Seawald.
And tonight, she’d finally succeeded in driving him away…
and it hurt like hell. She heard the door open and then close softly behind him.
She stood in the middle of her living room, alone and heartbroken.
She didn’t even try to stop the tears as they fell from her eyes.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but eventually she wiped her face and drew in a ragged breath. If she was going to crash and burn tonight, she was going to go all in and crash and burn big time.
She reached for her phone. It was time to put all her demons to rest. But first, she needed to change out of the dress.