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“What truth?” Eric barked.
“Roland Kendall caught me leaving Monica’s place in the morning. He called off the deal.”
A tiny sob snuck past Tessa’s throat when she saw Eric’s face go blank with shock. “It’s back on,” she whispered past the tightness.
Eric shook his head. “When did this happen?”
“Two weeks ago,” Jamie said. “The day after the break-in.”
“Roland Kendall called off the deal two weeks ago, and you two hid this from me? You lied to me? Both of you?”
“I’m sorry,” Tessa rasped.
“Tessa… You…”
“I wanted to fix it,” she explained.
“Fix it? Christ, how could you leave me out of it? All of our plans…our expansion…?”
“I didn’t want you to be mad.”
“Be mad? Jesus, what are you, twelve years old? This is a business!”
“It’s not!” she yelled. “It’s not just a business. It’s our whole family!”
“Oh, it’s nice to know it’s so easy for you to lie to your family, then. Tessa, I’m starting to think I don’t know anything about you.”
Jamie stepped in. “Come on, man. Leave her alone.”
Her panic tripped to a higher level. Now Eric was mad at both of them. Furious. A vein pulsed in his temple. His eyes were pale as ice. Tessa’s heart radiated pain with every beat. She pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry. I wanted to fix it. I did fix it.”
“That’s not the point,” Eric said. “You’ve been hiding this from me for two weeks, going behind my back to Kendall and God knows who else.”
“I’m an owner of this company, too. You conducted the initial negotiations on your own. You can’t fault me for talking to him.”
“Can’t I?”
She pressed her chest harder. “But it’s all good in the end, isn’t it? We don’t even want this deal now, do we? He didn’t sign the contract yet. And now we know the whole family might be insane.”
“Then it’ll be a perfect partnership,” Eric snapped.
“You can’t seriously think we’re going forward with High West.”
“Why not? It’s about money and our future.”
“Money!” she yelled. “Money has nothing to do with our future. We can’t get involved with these people. They’re sick and dishonest, and both Jamie and I saw that. If you’d only talked to us about this plan, we’d never have gotten involved with these people!”
A voice called, “Hello?” from the front room and Jamie cursed under his breath. “Shit, I’ve gotta work the bar. Tessa, come with me.”
“No!”
“I don’t want you two tearing each other limb from limb. Come on.”
Eric let out another ugly laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I’m leaving.”
“Eric, wait,” Tessa started, but Eric was already out the back door, leaving nothing but a flash of bright sunlight echoing through the kitchen.
Jamie cleared his throat. “I told you—”
