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“What? No, that’s bullshit.” I put on a hurt face. It wasn’t hard given the fact that my jaw was killing me. “I’d never do that, Maggie. You have to trust me.”
“Trust you? After you’ve lied to me? I’ll never trust you again.”
“Maggie, if you don’t believe me, go ask them yourself. They were made fair offers and they agreed to sell. Period. End of story.”
She blinked at me through the tears for a moment. Tears were streaming down her face. “You’re a goddamn liar,” she said. “A goddamn liar.”
“We made them an offer and they agreed to sell. We’re not stealing the property from anyone. They were all paid what it was worth. We were just meeting with the mayor to sign the letter of intent.”
She was dead right, of course. Charlie had paid the mayor and that cocksucker Ted a boatload of money under the table to help convince the people to sell. Everyone has a price, Charlie says, and they simply helped us find out what that price was. There was nothing criminal about it. At least as far as I was concerned.
She stared at me for a moment, then slowly shook her head.
“You lied to me,” she said quietly. “You’re not the man I thought you were.”
“Maggie, please, listen to me,” I said, holding out my hands. “It’s all just business. This is how things work. This is how things get done.”
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” she said. “I can’t trust you.” She shook her head at me. “Your father would be ashamed of you, Tyler Jenner. I know that I am.”
With that, she left me standing with my mouth hanging open, and an unfamiliar ache in my chest.
As I watched her go, I realized that she was right.
My father would have been ashamed of me.
But I’m not my father.
I’m Tyler fucking Jenner, the billionaire mountain man.
Who the fuck does she think she is, talking to me like that.
She’s right, a little voice inside my head whispered.
You’re not your father.
And you never will be.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: MAGGIE
Carl and Doris both looked at me like I was nuts. Then they looked at each other and smiled.
“Maggie, we appreciate that you’re so fired up about this, but we really did give it a lot of thought,” Carl said. He rubbed a hand over the white stubble on his chin and sighed. “The truth is, we’re both old and tired. The last few years have been a real struggle, what with my old knees and Doris’ bad hip. And business hasn’t been good. We’re not as young as we used to be and this place doesn’t make the money it used to make.”
“I know Carl, but they can’t force you to sell. You can get an attorney. We can fight it,” I insisted.
“Honey, we don’t want to fight anymore,” Doris said, reaching over to take my hand. “Granted, when the mayor first brought this up a few months ago, we were resistant, but once we sat down with that Mr. Prescott and that nice Mr. Jenner, well, it just became clear that it was the best thing to do.”
I stared at her. “You sat down with Mr. Jenner? Tyler Jenner?”
“Yes, dear, the man with the beard that you came in with the other day.”
“You already knew him.” I let my eyes bounce between them.
“Well, yes,” Carl said. “But he asked us not to say anything about the deal until everything was signed, so when you came in with him, well, we just pretended not to know him.”
“That son of a bitch,” I said, my teeth gnashing. Doris patted my hand.
“Now, don’t be too upset with him, sweetie. He likes you a lot. I can tell.”
