Chapter 35 #2
“Relax, Ted. I’m just here to have enough to drink that the Inn looks a little nicer. I won’t bother you.”
Annoyed by his never-ending misuse of my name and his arrogance over the way he’s treated Breezy, I turn toward him, my heels hooked on the rungs of my stool and my knees cocked and open.
“What is your deal anyway? You just want to torture your brother and sister until they break, or what? Neither one seems to want you here very much, and from what I’ve heard, I don’t blame them. ”
He frowns, irritation leaching into his features. “Sounds like you haven’t heard the whole story, then.”
“I’ve heard their version, and I’ve got a feeling it’s closer to the truth than yours.”
Logan scoffs. “Yeah, I imagine you would think that. But the tits of it is, Ted, pretty much every story has three versions—yours, mine, and the third, the actual damn truth.”
This guy. I fucking swear. Honestly, the only thing holding me back from punching him again is the fact that remnants of my first two punches are already showing up in the form of blue and purple bruises around his eyes.
“Okay, then,” I challenge. “Enlighten me. What’s your version so I can average the two of ’em out.”
“I…well, I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination,” Logan answers, though I sense a hint of hesitation in his voice. “I’ve done a lot of fucked-up shit, and I own that. But I did most of it with pure intentions, and for the last five years, I haven’t made any choices I would change.”
My eyebrows lift to my hairline. “That’s a pretty big declaration. Five years, and you wouldn’t change anything?” There’s heat in my words, stoked by indignation. I know for a fact that he’s done some shit here recently. It’s how I ended up punching him in the fucking face twice in the first place.
Hell, maybe I shouldn’t have kept his bruising war wounds from stopping a third time.
“Circumstances? Yes.” He offers a cocky kind of shrug. One that makes it clear he really thinks the world of himself. “Fallout? Absolutely. My relationship with my siblings? Of course. That’s why I’m fucking here. But my choices? They’ve been sound.”
I roll my eyes, turning my belly back to the bar. “Maybe I don’t need to hear your version.”
“What?” he questions, putting both elbows on the bar. “What’s your deal, Ted?”
“My deal is that you sound like a damn liar, and what a waste of fucking time listening to one of those is.”
“I’m a lot of things, Farmer.” Logan lets out an exasperated sigh. “But I’m not a liar.”
“Then how do you explain the state of things now?” I ask, turning toward him to see the expression on the prick’s face. “What you did to Breezy? Stealing the galleries right out from under her?” I shake my head. “Sounds like a really fucked-up choice to me.”
“I didn’t steal them…” He growls, frustrated.
“See, that’s what I mean. There’s another version to this, and the version I know is that my dad left me the galleries.
I didn’t lobby for that shit—I’m an actor.
What the hell do I want with a bunch of art galleries?
” He throws his hands up in the air. “But he was fucking determined to leave them to me in the will. No matter what I said or did, no matter how adamant I was that the galleries belonged to Breezy, he wouldn’t change his patriarchal fucking mind.
And I thought I had more time before the bastard up and died, but clearly, that wasn’t in the cards. ”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, but he keeps going.
“The will was set, and I don’t have the power to change it.
I tried to get Breezy to stay on and run them.
But she didn’t want to hear it. Which, I understand, of course.
It’s a real kick in the nuts what my dad did.
After all she’s done for years and years.
” He shakes his head. “But I’m not a monster.
I’m working with a lawyer to figure out what the hell I’m allowed to even do.
If I give her the galleries—the stake my dad gave me in the will—she’ll owe fucking millions and millions in taxes.
I don’t even know if she’d be able to swing it.
I don’t know if she’d be able to pay and keep them afloat.
Not without filing for fucking bankruptcy at first, that is.
And that’s even if she stopped being stubborn and took the twenty mill my father gifted her in his will.
” He lets out a long exhale. “I’m trying to figure the shit out.
But it’s not easy. And the galleries are failing because Breezy is the backbone.
I know that. She knows that. My fucking dad knew that.
I just wish she’d come back to New York and run the galleries until we can figure out what can be done.
Do what she’s been doing and just up her salary to compensate in the meantime, you know? ”
My head is bombarded with all the shit he just said, and all I can do is shake my head. “This isn’t how Breezy tells it.”