Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek) (44 page)

At Luke’s hiss of disbelief, she looked away.

In shame.

And that enraged him even more. “Dani, you couldn’t have possibly—ˮ

“
No
. I don’t want to hear you trying to put it all on him. Yes, Eric was the lowest of life forms for what he did, but he wouldn’t have been able to do it if I hadn’t stood back and let it happen.” Her hands curled into her stomach as she detailed just how badly Eric had screwed her and her business over. “I trusted him based on love and love alone. Even when my gut was telling me something sounded off about the ‘branding clause’ in the contract. Even when his generic, non-descript answer to my questions about it had given me pause as well. We didn’t know until the week that the first shipment of bottled beer was scheduled to be distributed around the country that they had changed the name of our beer and erased all connection to our brewery on the label via their ‘re-branding’ rights. And
my signature
was what had allowed them to do it. Legally, in an iron-clad contract we couldn’t get out of.”

Disgust filled her expression. “At least I’d been correct in thinking he was the best to negotiate this deal. He was. There wasn’t a single loophole in that contract. And believe me, I paid good money in legal fees to try to find one. By the time we could fight it, they’d already begun selling the beer like hotcakes. When we tried to terminate the deal and retain sole ownership of our brew recipes, they threatened to sue us for breach of contract and losses—which was close to a million in start-up expenses alone.”

With a tired sigh, she continued with barely any emotion at all, “And in the end, they turned around and sued us for groundless public defamation and damaging press. We’d played into their plans perfectly. And we couldn’t afford to fight it. We couldn’t even afford to start the
process
of fighting it. So, we ended up giving up
all
our rights to my dad’s six award-winning beers to make the whole thing go away.”

She glanced sadly at the double-doors she’d emerged from just minutes ago. “After weeks of stress, that was the final straw that caused his heart attack...on Valentine’s Day three years ago,” she finished softly.

“Instead of sitting in front of a fireplace in the log cabin up in Flagstaff I’d booked for Eric and I to spend the first Valentine’s date I’d ever allowed in a relationship…instead of cooking him the perfect meal I’d spent weeks thinking about and preparing for…instead of starting to plan the wedding I’d finally let myself begin to dream about, with the man I’d told my heart it was to safe to dream with…” Her crushed gaze fell on Derek. “Instead of getting to see my big brother marry the love of his life two weeks later…I was
here
. Here in this exact E.R. watching the doctors jolt my father’s body over and over again to try and re-start his heart.”

She tilted her head and looked into Luke’s eyes. “Do you see now why I couldn’t see Valentine’s Day the way you saw it until you showed it to me? All I’ve been able to see for the last three years was my father start to die in front of my eyes, just hours after having felt my own heart get ripped from my body from the one man who’d sworn he’d love and protect it above all else when he’d proposed to me the month before.”

Tears filled her eyes and anger beyond understanding filled her trembling voice. “I let myself believe in the fairytale, only to have it turn into all of my worst nightmares. And everyone I loved
paid
for my mistakes.” She slid the inside of her wrist over her eyes to wipe away her tears, her hands balled into fists so tight her knuckles were white. “Eric will no doubt go straight to hell for what he did, but until the day he does,
I’m
the one living here on earth with what I’ve done. Dad was able to overcome every hardship flung his way by the universe, heal after losing the love of his life; and in the end, it was
my actions
that killed his heart
.” The last she raged at herself in a whisper as deafening as the most blood curdling shout.

She crumbled right there before him when she brought her gaze up to clash with his. “The worst part of it all? I turned around and did the same thing to you.” Her hand started to reach for him before she pulled back. “I don’t blame you for not being able to forgive me, Luke. What I did was unforgiveable. And I’ll spend my whole life living with those regrets as well. I know my apologies mean as much as Eric’s did, so I won’t even insult you with them.”

Refusing to meet Luke’s eyes a second longer, she turned to head back to the double doors before Luke could even formulate a response that could break through the lonely despair trembling out of her in waves.

He went to follow her, with every intention of dragging her back to listen to him until she could finally hear him.

But her next words stopped him in his tracks.

Uttered so quietly Luke could barely hear them, the words were directed to Derek, “I’m sorry I’ve been holding onto dad so selfishly all these years. His life insurance was always supposed to go to you, to your dreams. I know you saw his living will too.” Tears filled her voice. “I never meant to keep you from your dreams all this time, Derek. I just…couldn’t let him go.”

Hand on the door, she whispered brokenly, “But I signed the forms five minutes ago. They’re waiting for us to come back in so they can shut off his life support.”

And with that she walked away from them both.

A near stranger to Luke now.

* * * * *

LUKE FELT
rabidly helpless.

He’d watched as Derek and Jonathan all but carried Dani back to their car so she could stay at their house. At her request. She hadn’t been able to look at him once.

Not wanting to be the selfish jackass that pushed her on the night her father died, he let her go. He watched the woman he loved drive away from him, broken-hearted and just plain broken.

He rammed his fist into the wall. Dammit, he wanted to kill that Eric guy. Make him suffer the way he had made Dani suffer. Drag the asshole out from whatever hole he’d crawled into and—

And what?

Nothing could undo what had happened to Dani; nothing could return all she’d lost.

Thankfully, before another frustrating wall of despair could slam into him, however, a Hail Mary thought hit him first. Grabbing his cell phone, he dialed his friend Connor’s number.

“H’lo?”

Shit. It sounded like Connor had been dead asleep. Luke glanced at the clock. Well, no wonder. It was five in the morning.

Hearing Connor’s wife in the background—her voice filled with soft concern right next to the receiver—had Luke’s jagged emotions spinning even further out of control.

He wanted what Connor had found.

He wanted Dani’s voice murmuring right at his side, ready to face anything life threw their way together. He wanted to be the one Dani turned to, not the one she drove away from when life seemed cruel and impossible.

“Hey, sorry to wake you. I didn’t realize how early it was,” he apologized. “I’ll call again later.”

Connor said something reassuringly to his wife in the background before coming back onto the phone line. “It’s fine. I need to get up soon anyway. What’s up? Everything okay?”

Where to begin?

Might as well start from his first suspicion. “Tell me the truth. Do you know the guy that Dani dated a few years ago? The one that screwed her and her dad over?”

Silence.

And then a slow, weary, “Yeah. I know him.”

He thought as much.

“Luke, listen man. It wasn’t my history to tell. I would have told you if…shit, if it all hadn’t played out as badly as it had. But the way things went down—ˮ

“No, I get it,” Luke said tiredly. And he did. It pissed him off to no end that everyone had kept so much from him, but he understood the difficult situation they’d all been in.

What he
didn’t
understand, however, was how his friend had allowed the fucker to get away without jail time at the least. Connor didn’t have many friends, and the few he did, he protected almost ruthlessly if it came down to it.

“The fact that you haven’t had him arrested tells me there’s more to the story,” guessed Luke, unsure whether he even
wanted
to be right about this.

“A lot more,” agreed Connor quietly. Another measured pause passed before Connor finally dropped the first bomb. “Dani doesn’t know this but Eric is actually one of the senior partners in the firm Victoria and I started up last year.”

That
Luke hadn’t been expecting. Not by a longshot. It occurred to him then that aside from Connor’s good friend Victoria, he didn’t have a clue who else was in the Pierson Sullivan firm. Knowing the man that had hurt Dani was still linked to their circle of friends made his protective instincts go on full alert.

He barely managed to keep the calm in his voice as he asked the most obvious question, “What in God’s name were you thinking hiring a man like that?”

Connor sighed. “He’s an exceptional lawyer, and despite all evidence to the contrary, a good guy as well.”

Shit.
Even though every enraged, rabidly possessive cell in his body didn’t want to hear any context in which a man like Eric could be
a good guy
, Luke couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to know. “Is this another one of those things that isn’t your story to tell?” he grunted, fully prepared to drag the story out of Connor somehow.

Connor paused for a long moment before relenting, “No. This one I can tell you. Because I think you need to hear it.”

The silent suggestion for Luke to sit down hung there at the end of the sentence like an ominous warning, so Luke sat. And listened.

A half hour later, he wished to hell and back that he hadn’t asked.

* * * * *

HE WAS
out of his mind.

Luke pulled up to the apartment complex address Derek had texted him and took another minute to think about what Connor had told him, and what he was getting ready to do with that information.

This wasn’t a gamble.

This was a risk, plain and simple. But a necessary one.

Dani deserved to know the whole story about the man she’d once loved in the very way she was afraid to love now.

Even if it meant Luke might end up losing her to him.

He rang the doorbell and waited. Prayed he was doing the right thing. Prayed that even if it wasn’t the right thing for him, it would mend the scars on her heart that she had never allowed to heal.

“
Luke.
” A red-eyed Dani dragged the door open in surprise, her voice gut-wrenchingly tattered around the edges. “What are you doing here?”

He’d rehearsed this in his head—the band aid-ripping approach he’d had all planned out. But one look at her and all he could do was drag her into his arms and hold her until she finally stopped fighting. Until she dissolved against him and allowed herself to be held, comforted. Loved.

God, I can’t lose her. Don’t let me lose her.

Luke helped Dani sit down and said softly, “Honey, I know nothing can take the pain away right now. And no amount of talking will make the loss of your father any more fathomable or manageable.” He knew from experience. “But I’m hoping this will help you with some of the anger, confusion, and hurt that’s tied into it all.”

She pulled back and looked questioningly at the print-out of the information he’d found online shortly after talking to Connor. It took a mere second for her to see the relevant names that would effectively rewrite history for her in one fell swoop.

“Luke, why are you showing me Eric’s mother’s obituary notice?”

This was the first time he’d heard her say that name without disdain and resentment.

Which simply served to multiply his worries ten-fold.

“Sweetheart, look at the date Eric’s mother died.”

“February 15th. Three years ago,” she whispered as her eyes shot back up to find answers to questions Luke knew she’d never known to ask.

Luke sat on the coffee table in front of her to tell her the side of the story Connor had been unsuccessful in getting her to listen to. Not that anyone blamed her for not wanting to even hear the man’s name mentioned. “Honey, Eric’s mother had been diagnosed the year before with an aggressive blood cancer, which he’d apparently cleaned out his savings and sold anything of value he had to pay for the bone marrow treatments she needed to stay alive.”

Dani blinked and murmured, “He used to live in this tiny studio apartment in Phoenix.” A slow dawning look of understanding crept across her face. “And I remember one of his friends asking him once why he was driving a piece-of-shit car instead of a car worthy of a junior partner at the second biggest law firm in the city.” She shook her head. “I just thought he was down-to-earth, unlike his other lawyer friends. And I’d appreciated him all the more for it.”

Luke gripped the edge of the coffee table and pushed himself to keep going. “But even after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that year on her treatment, his mother’s condition still worsened. She didn’t have much time left, and the only option remaining was gene therapy, which again, his mother’s insurance wouldn’t cover.”