Jamie slid a look to Tessa, but he knew there was no hope for help. “He’s the ex-husband of a woman I dated.”
Surprisingly, Eric didn’t say anything. He stared at Jamie for a long moment, then jerked his head toward the door.
“Go home. I’ll take care of the bar.”
“I’m fine,” Jamie said. “I talked him out of calling the cops.”
“You’re not anything close to being fine,” Eric snarled. “What you do in your personal life is your business, no matter how thin you spread yourself. But now it’s affecting the brewery.”
“I tried to walk away from him. It’s not my fault he—”
“Of course it’s your fault. Jesus, this is the second time in a week. First you fight with Monica Kendall, and now you knock out a jealous ex-husband?”
“I didn’t—” Jamie made himself stop the explanation. That wasn’t the point. “I acknowledge that I shouldn’t have hit the guy. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. But I don’t have to answer to you for every—”
Eric snorted in disgust. “You know what? I’m sick of playing this role.”
“What role?”
“The mean boss. The asshole brother. You want out of here, then get out. You’ve become a liability.”
“What?” Jamie’s head was spinning, his pulse still racing from the fight.
“You want to grow up, get out there and do it, because I’m tired of waiting.”
“Jesus Christ, Eric, Monica came in here and attacked me! And that asshole was insulting a woman who doesn’t deserve to be insulted. I didn’t instigate anything.”
Eric flashed a bitter smile. “You bring this on yourself, Jamie. You always have. After all, I’ve never sunk a business deal with my dick, and no crazed woman or jealous husband has ever come in here and attacked me in front of the customers.”
That hollow place inside him was filling up now with pain that felt like cement. He was reeling, and the worst part was, he had no one to turn to. His family was part of the problem, and Olivia was gone.
“Go home,” Eric said. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“You don’t get to send me home, Eric. You don’t get to chastise me or tell me I’m not welcome here. But you know what? I’ll save you the trouble of trying. I quit.”
“What?”
Tessa yelped.
“I quit. It shouldn’t be a problem since you’ll be better off without me.” He untied his apron and tossed it to Eric, who caught it with a steady hand. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t try to stop Jamie. Why would he?
“Jamie, just calm down,” Tessa said. “You’re still upset about the fight.”
“This has been coming for years, Tessa. Just leave it alone.” Unable to face the bright, crowded cheer of the front room, Jamie headed for the back door.
“You promised me!” she yelled. “You promised you wouldn’t leave.”
“I don’t have any choice,” he muttered.
Then he was out in the night, the cool air rushing into his lungs. He sucked in a few deep breaths, hoping to loosen the tight bands around his chest. Amazingly, it actually worked. He stood a little straighter, his shoulders pressed back. It had been coming for a long time, after all. And he was ready to get the hell out there and do something on his own. Maybe he should thank Victor for setting this in motion. If he hadn’t been pushed, Jamie would’ve stayed for months. Maybe years.
“Yeah,” he muttered with a smile. “I’ll thank that bastard when hell freezes over.”
He pulled his keys from his pocket and walked to the car, still smiling. But when he drove away from the brewery, he made sure not to glance in the mirror. He didn’t want to see his dad’s place growing smaller and smaller as he drove away.
H
E DIDN’T WORK
on Tuesdays, so Olivia wasn’t taking too much of a chance by coming to the brewery. She didn’t know if she’d see him in class today, but she definitely didn’t want to see him here. And there was no reason to think he’d show up. Still, she sat in her car with both hands wrapped around the steering wheel, peering carefully at every car that looked as if it might turn into the parking lot.
There were only three cars here right now, and none of them were Jamie’s. She could safely go inside.
The portfolio sitting on the passenger seat seemed to pulse beside her, so she only glanced at it before closing her eyes. This felt like the right thing to do, but she couldn’t be sure.
She understood what it was like to want to walk away. She’d walked away from her parents with a deep sigh of relief. But Jamie deserved a shot with his brother. He deserved the chance to make his mark on the brewery, but pride would keep him from taking it.
But did she have the right to take the chance for him?
“No,” she said weakly. She didn’t have the right, but she was still going to do it. Jamie wouldn’t thank her for it. If he ever spoke to her again, it would probably only be to yell at her, but that was okay. She could handle it.
That is, if she could ever manage getting out of the car.
She’d spent the whole weekend strategizing a more accelerated business plan for starting up her own company. Every list she made, every column she balanced added another ounce of certainty to her mind. She could do this. She would do this. Every cell inside her was coming alive with excitement.
If she could find one client, one person to work with at a seriously discounted rate, then she’d be on her way. One success would lead to another. She’d charge a little more each time. And pretty soon, her dreams would be real. Her fingertips tingled with the sensation that it was just within her reach.
But something was weighing down her happiness, and there was no doubt what it was. Every time she’d glimpsed the Donovan Brothers folder on her desktop, her heart had twitched.
So on Sunday night she’d set aside her own work and opened the Donovan folder again. She’d added her last-minute touches, the details she hadn’t quite finished. She’d had the menu laminated, and printed out the plans and mock-ups on glossy paper. And then she’d taken everything into the local copy place and had it professionally bound.
It was gorgeous. It deserved to be seen.
Olivia took a deep breath, picked up the portfolio and looked around the parking lot one last time.
It was just after eleven, and when Olivia walked into the brewery, there was only one person in the whole room. She sighed with relief when she realized he was someone she didn’t recognize.
“Good morning,” the young redheaded boy said. He couldn’t be more than twenty-one. He looked a lot younger.
“Hi.”
“Are you here for the tour? You’re a little early.”
“Oh, I… No. Is Eric Donovan here?”
“Sure. Want me to get him?”
Olivia managed a smile, but she felt it wobble. “That would be great. Thank you.” He was here. Oh, God, Eric was here, and she’d have to go through with this. The boy disappeared into the back, and Olivia had to stop herself from chasing after him to stop this.
“Calm down,” she whispered. She couldn’t present this to Eric Donovan as a proposal from a frantic psycho.
For the first time in her life, Olivia wished for beer, and the humor in that thought gave her the chance to catch her breath and calm her nerves. “Okay,” she whispered. And then the doors swung open.
If this was Eric Donovan, he looked nothing like his brother. He was dark haired and pale eyed, and the lines on his face marked him as a man who carried a lot on his broad shoulders.
“I’m Eric,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Hi,” she thrust her hand at him. “I’m Olivia Bishop.”
Not even a glimmer of recognition crossed his face as he shook her hand. She told herself she wasn’t insulted.
“Do you have a moment? I wanted to speak to you about a proposal.”
The faint friendliness in his face disappeared in an instant, and Olivia winced. “You’re a vendor? I set aside time each week to meet with vendors. If you could—”
“No! I’m not a vendor. I’m… If you could just give me a moment to explain…”
He narrowed his eyes and studied her for a few seconds, then shrugged. “Fine. My office is in back.”
She followed him into the office she’d already seen once, then slipped into a chair before he could change his mind.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Bishop?”
“I…” She had to swallow hard to clear the nervousness from her voice. “I’m an instructor at the university. I teach classes on retail business. Restaurants and hospitality, to be specific.”
He inclined his head warily.
“I’ve been working with your brother, helping him develop some new ideas for the brewery.”
Now he let all his wariness show, and his shoulders grew stiff. “We don’t need new ideas, Ms. Bishop.”
“Still, it wouldn’t hurt you to look at them, would it? We’ve been working on a portfolio—” she put it on his desk and slid it toward him “—if you’d be willing to—”
“Does Jamie know you’re here?”
“He…” Good Lord, this man really was intimidating. She felt as if she’d been called to the dean’s office. “No. He has no idea.”
“That makes sense, because Jamie quit last Friday.”
“What?”
she gasped. He quit? She scrambled back through her thoughts, trying to remember exactly what he’d said. He hadn’t meant to quit, had he? “How can he quit? He’s an owner.”
“He’s still an owner, but he’s no longer working here.”
“But…” Oh, poor Jamie. Something awful must have happened. “But you can’t let him do that. He loves this place so much. If you’ll just look at what he’s done…” She moved a shaky hand toward the portfolio.
“Ms. Bishop, I appreciate your concern. But it’s really none of your business.”
He was right, damn him. And now Olivia felt like the younger sibling called to task by this man. He looked simultaneously disappointed and unmoved. She squirmed, but she didn’t concede. Whatever had happened, Jamie must be heartbroken. She wished they hadn’t ended it so badly and she could call and find out how he was.
Olivia looked down at her hands and took a deep breath. “I’m sure you think it’s none of my business, but I’ve been working with Jamie for weeks on this. I admit that in the beginning I may not have taken him seriously, but he’s passionate about this place. And thoughtful. He has what it takes to turn the front room into a true gathering place. A destination.”
“It’s already a gathering place,” Eric snapped. He shoved the portfolio back at her. “And I’m sorry to ruin your admirable portrait of Jamie, but he’s not as adorable as you think he is.”
Adorable? A flush climbed up her neck at the implication of his words. “I didn’t say he was adorable. He really stepped up to the plate, and if you’d bother looking over his work, I promise you’ll be impressed. Whatever mistakes he’s made in the past—”
“In the past? Is that how he sold it to you?
In the past?
”
Aware of all of her own mistakes she’d stumbled over in the past few years, Olivia glared. “We all make mistakes. That doesn’t mean we’re not still valuable.”
His gaze rose to the ceiling as if he were praying for patience. “Look, I don’t know what your investment is here, but your argument is moot. Jamie didn’t get what he wanted, so he left.”
“Because you wouldn’t give him a chance?” she challenged.
“A chance?” His mouth curved into a bitter smile. “You’re saying I didn’t give him a chance?”
“Um…” Olivia found herself squeezing her fingers tighter and tighter together. “I’m sure you—”
“This isn’t a matter of a few late arrivals or entering credit card totals incorrectly. This isn’t about me being an asshole who holds every order error against him.”
“Maybe…”
She cringed when Eric set his hands on his desk and leaned closer. “Do you know what his last little innocent mistake was, Ms. Bishop?”
She shook her head as the tips of her fingers went numb.
“Two months ago, he tanked a business deal I’d been working on for months. I have plans for this place, too, you know. And my plans included a new distribution deal that Jamie destroyed by sleeping with the daughter of the distributor.”
Olivia’s heart stopped. It just stopped. And for a long moment, she was stuck there in complete silence while those awful words sunk into her skin.
“He made the
mistake
of throwing everything away for a chance at meaningless sex. Do you want to know what he’s done since then?”
“No,” she croaked, but he was already speaking.
“Just last week, that woman came in and they argued. And by
argued,
I mean I had to haul her off of him, in my goddamn bar. Oh, and on Friday, he got into a fist-fight over a woman. A
different
woman.”
Oh, Jesus. Olivia bit the inside of her lip until that pain overtook her horror.
“So I don’t want to hear about giving him a
chance,
Ms. Bishop. He’s had plenty, and I. Am. Done.”
Olivia blinked slowly and tried to think how to exit this place gracefully. Jamie had slept with someone else just two months before? And maybe more women since then. He’d told her it had been a year. He’d lied about something he hadn’t even needed to lie about. Why would he do that?
Eric frowned, his gaze slipping down to Olivia’s hands. She couldn’t feel them at all now.
“Um…” For the first time since she’d met him, Eric looked uncomfortable. He darted a worried look toward the door, then back to her. “I’m afraid I’ve… Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of your relationship with my brother.”
“No,” she managed.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry. I hope you—”
She stood up so quickly that Eric jerked back.
“Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.” She started to reach for the portfolio, but when her fingers touched it, she paused, then drew her hand away. Jamie might be a lying, cheating asshole, but the plans for the brewery were his work. She left the portfolio where it was and stood straight. “It was nice to meet you,” she managed in a raspy voice.
“Listen—” he started, but she was already out the door, already rushing as quickly as she could down the hall.
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
“Olivia?” a woman’s voice said from behind her.
As Olivia pushed through the swinging doors, she glanced back to see Tessa Donovan watching her with complete confusion written on her face. Olivia didn’t respond, she just raced for the front door and the parking lot beyond.
Thank God she hadn’t fallen in love with him. She couldn’t handle being broken like that again. What had she done to deserve so many lies in her life?
She’d been the good girl, done the right things. She’d saved herself for love once and given in to passion the next time, and both had turned out the same way. With lies. And platitudes. And stupid, false reassurances that she was special and desirable and sexy.
Swiping tears from her eyes so she could see well enough to drive, Olivia started the car and pulled out. She drove deliberately, not speeding away, not trying to escape. She had nothing to escape from, after all. It was over with him.
It was over with
all
of them. She wasn’t getting involved again, not with anyone. In a few years, once she’d established her business and made her own dreams come true,
maybe
she’d think about dating again. After she had everything she wanted for
herself,
she’d consider seeing a nice man. Someone smart and shy. Someone who’d never offer sweet lies about other women just because the act of lying gave him some misguided thrill.
“I got what I wanted,” she said aloud, the words broken with tears. And she had. She just didn’t like feeling like a fool again. A stupid, blind, helpless fool.
Even though she was almost home, Olivia could no longer drive. She turned onto the very next street and pulled to the curb. One sob escaped her control, and then another. Olivia put her forehead to the steering wheel and let the tears come.
She’d wanted it to be special for Jamie, because it had been special for her. She’d wanted it to
mean
something to him, because for a few days, he’d meant the world to her.
And instead he’d taken her heart and—
But, no. No, Jamie hadn’t taken anything.
She swallowed another sob and shook her head. He hadn’t taken anything, because Olivia had given herself, and there was power in that. She was going to take that power and turn it into something amazing. She was going to emerge from this smarter and stronger.
But first she was going to cry like a baby and let herself mourn what she’d never had.