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“Be ready to eat thosewordsin a minute.”
“Bet.”
Shaking my head, I backed away from her with a big old grin on my face. “Tell Rhyett to get ready for Scallywags.” Scallywags was a pirate-themed restaurant in town that set up a food truck every Salmon Festival, specializing in all things artery-clogging. Once a year, we all indulged together. But Brexley would shock me if she touched more than a few samples of fries and onion rings.
“Why do I feel like you’re going to enjoy this too much?”
“Because I love being right. Just like you do.” Come to think of it, Brexley and I shared a long list of characteristics, and I would try not to think too hard about that little fact. She grinned before tossing that long blonde hair over a shoulder and strutting back to my brother, whose smile could thaw out the entire island when he spotted her. He pulled her onto his lap before scooping her face up in his hands and laying one on her. Something like jealousy burrowed into my gut.
Partially because I wasn’t actually a liar, and partly because I’d drank two cups of coffee and a pint of beer, I did, in fact, dip into the portable John before heading to track down Lizzy. It didn’t take long, like I had a homing beacon on her. The red hair certainly helped. She was in front of a tent, staring vacantly at it like she wasn’t really here. Like her head was still on that phone call.
“Lizzy!” I called, cocking my head when she didn’t respond. “Hey, Elizabeth!”
SEVEN
NOEL
“What do you mean the case is closed?!” I demanded, trying desperately not to hyperventilate. Eric’s picture-perfect smile stared back at me from the website Vallie had sent me. But where I’d once seen charisma, I now saw deceit. Where confidence used to emanate, there was now a hollow ego that needed stroking. I wanted to take a razor to that perfectly coiffed dark hair. Crack him across the face and see howhesported those bruises. “They can’t just do that. That’s not…that’s not how things are supposed to work.”
How was it that a man could be legally charged with domestic abuse, and some cash greasing the right palms could make the case fucking vanish?! Worse yet, where the original news article had been posted, there was now a replacement throwing around words like ‘false allegations’, and ‘malicious prosecution,’ intermingled with promises for justice and a whole slew of lovely comments insinuating I was a gold-digging whore. The comments were irritating, but what had me most concerned was how quickly it connected to our business. The Cracked Corset appeared in multiple posts and comments, and bile climbed up my throat. Brex put everything she had into that shop, and then some. I’d done the same. Hell, at one point, when I was still naïve to his true nature, Eric had handed me cash and told me to expand, and like an ignorant dog, I’d listened, offering it up to Brex’s marketing efforts.
At least in the beginning, he seemed sincere. At least in the beginning…I thought he cared for me.
“Martinez is a fucking shark, Noel. I need you to know I’m doing everything I can,” Vallie said, livid anger lacing her professional tone and pulling me back into the moment. Martinez was a ruthless attorney who had represented the Connely family in any litigation they’d been drug into since my parents were in college. Eric’s father once boasted that the man had helped a defendant walk after killing his wife ‘in a crime of passion’.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.
“I know, Val.”
“I mean it, babe.” Her facade cracked, her voice along with it, and my heart broke for dragging them all into this. “I’m your friend first and your attorney second. This is absolute bullshit. I’ve already scheduled a meeting with our partner at the firm as soon as he’s out of court tomorrow.”
“What aboutthe shop, Val? We put everything we have into that place. If they come after us, we don’t have a way to fight it. The Corset means the entire world to Brex, if this comes back on her—”
“Noel, babe, breathe. There’s no way he’s getting away with this. We have proof. And we’ll make this as ugly as they want it to be.”
“Val, I can’t pay for a lengthy—”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just insult me by insinuating I’d take a fucking penny from you.”
“Vallie, this is your—”
“Choice. This is my choice. That’s what you were about to say, right?”
I swallowed, the motion aching. Nope. Job. I was going to sayjob. But arguing with Vallie would be the equivalent of walking into a five-star restaurant and offering the chef advice. Foolish and a waste of both our time. “Okay, what do I do from a PR perspective for the shop?”
“First up, you loop in Brex. That’s her zone of expertise. Second, Wren is right here, and Josie is already pulling in her team. We’ve got your back, sweetie.” Wrenly had been our coffee shop manager for years—and would be Brexley’s new right hand in my absence. Jos worked with a prestigious literary agency calledCharmain’s, and her public relations team was absolutely legendary. If Jos was looping them in, the girls had already pulled out all the stops. Tears pricked, clouding my vision.
“Jesus,” I said, swallowing the ache stinging at my eyes. “I’m so sorry, you guys.”
“Don't you dare apologize for the hellfire he put you in.”
Nodding, I added, “Thanks, Val. Now, on to more important things. Did you just say you’rewithWren?”
She cleared her throat. “I might have said something along those lines.”
Grinning, I asked, “Like…you’re at The Corset or like—”
“We’re at Richard’s, in a booth in the back.”
