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“Well, I can!”
He narrowed his eyes, keeping them glued to me as he paced the room. He was like a shark circling me in the water, waiting to attack. But I knew Keith wouldn’t harm a fly. If he even tried, there’d be ten to twenty guys in town who would beat down his door to make him pay. That was the most laughable part about all of this. In order to fit in around Silver Point, you had to be a decent person. Everyone in town looked out for each other, and they didn’t appreciate it when someone did something bad to one of their own. I wondered if Keith had ever even considered how that played into our whole situation before.
“Did you ever stop to ask yourself why no one else in town seems to care about what I’m doing but you and your brother? Or why no one stepped up to help you with the marina any sooner?”
He stood there, speechless, with a sour look on his face.
“I’ll tell you why,” I smirked. “Because no one feels sorry for you. You’re a womanizing heartbreaker that no one wants to help. They figured even if they did manage to save the place, you’d be the last person they’d want in charge of it. If anything, people will be relieved to see the place be put into more capable hands.”
“I doubt anyone thinks you’re capable of pulling this off,” he groaned.
“Tony does,” I chirped. “So does George.”
“Bull shit!” he hissed. “I was just talking to George today. He’s on my side in all of this!”
“George and I had a little chat after you left,” I said with a cocky grin.
“You’re just making stuff up to get to me now,” he decided. “Well, you got me, Lana. It’s working. You did get to me, and I’m miserable. And while I’m sure that fact brings you great joy, there’s no way in hell you can spin this to paint yourself as the hero.”
“Quit being so dramatic,” I laughed.
“It’s my family’s namesake!” he yelled. He wasn’t in the mood for joking around anymore, and I could see the rage building up inside of him—threatening to boil over.
Jake looked between us sheepishly, then offered, “He’s kind of right, Lana. It’s a low blow.”
“No one asked for your opinion, Jake,” I sneered before going back to sipping my drink.
Keith took a breath and seemed to calm down a little. He went back to his seat at the bar, and we both drank in silence for a few minutes.
“Maybe my granddad didn’t plan so well for the future,” he sighed after a while. “But he did the best he could. He was so proud of that marina. My brother and I were just little kids when he built it, but our whole family pitched in. You can’t see it anymore, but there used to be a board on the floor that we carved our names into. Granddad worked that place until he was too sick to do anymore. We always planned to reopen after he died, but we were grieving. Then Derek lost his wife, and…the years got away from us. We were just trying to get by in the day-to-day, and the marina slipped through the cracks.”
I took the last sip of my Long Island iced tea and tried to ignore the guilty pang I felt inside. I didn’t understand why I had to feel bad about any of it. It wasn’t meant to be a personal attack. I was back in town now and wanted to work near the water, and I wanted to bring back a place that held a lot of happy childhood memories for me.
“Why can’t you just be happy that the place will be rebuilt?” I asked. “That someone has the money to save it and actually wants to?”
“Because it’s not yours to save,” he argued. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I growled.
He waved me off. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
I sat back in disbelief. It sure sounded like he was implying I wouldn’t understand any of it because I was an orphan. Maybe that’s what he thought, but I wasn’t. Not really. I had Claire and her parents. They were just as real of a family to me as blood relatives could have ever been.
“If I couldn’t have made it back here to take care of Claire after her accident, I wouldn’t have cared who was there for her as long as somebody was,” I tried to explain.
He lifted a brow. “You really believe that? You’d go nuts if you had to sit there on the other side of the country, knowing your best friend was going through something like that without you by her side. It sure as hell does matter who’s there and who’s not. Sweetheart, you’re more delusional than I thought.”
I was getting a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to admit he might have been a little right any more than I wanted to feel so guilty. But just as I was starting to think maybe I was wrong and maybe I was taking all of this too far, none other than Molly Roberts came strolling into the bar.
She waved at me and said hi to Jake, then walked straight over to Keith.
“Hey,” she smiled sweetly. “I talked to Derek today. He said you were going to give me a call. But since I ran into you here, why don’t you buy me a drink instead?”
He cut his eyes over to me as he replied. “That’s a great idea, Molly. Jake, get the woman a drink. I’ll have another round, too. Whatever she’s having.”
I could barely stand to watch. I didn’t understand why Molly would degrade herself to go chasing after that jerk when she knew she would regret it. They’d end up in bed together at the end of the night, and he’d go right back to ignoring her and avoiding her tomorrow. He got off on having women chase after him like that.
All the memories from high school came flooding back to me. He had always been that way. The only thing worse than his womanizing was the kind of women he strung along. They all had to have big boobs, short skirts, and drool all over him. Molly was more than that, of course, but he didn’t care about anything she really had to offer. Just like he never saw me as anything more than one of the guys. Taking a girl like me to a dance was laughable to him just because I wasn’t tripping over myself to win his approval. It was disgusting.
