“Why not? She’s trying to buy a husband. And if anybody ever needed to be bought, it’s you.” Dean shook his head and shot Nick a frown. “This girl gave you a solution and you threw it back in her face.”
“Well, it’s not quite as bad as all that.”
Lecie and her friends filed out of the booth and headed for the door. The bombshell took the long way around so she could pass by the guys’ table. She stopped long enough to place a card on the table in front of Nick. “If you change your mind…” she said, but didn’t wait for a response from him. As she disappeared outside, Nick picked up the card, looked at it. It had her name and a cell phone number on it. Nick stuffed it into the glass of the unlit candle sitting in the center of the table.
Dean fished it out, looked at it and stuck it in his pocket. “Are you nuts?”
Nick shook his head and laughed. “As pretty as she is. As enticing as a quarter of a mil is…it’s a bad idea.”
“I only have one thing to say to you…” Dean’s voice trailed off.
When he didn’t finish his statement, Nick asked, “What’s that?”
“How are you gonna like working for somebody else?”
The one thing that Dean wasn’t saying, but Nick knew full well was on his mind…what was going to happen to the community center when Nick sold the Hang Ten to the foundation?
Would they continue to champion Nick’s cause? Nick didn’t have to ask. He already knew the answer to that, which made turning down Lecie de Laurent’s two-hundred-and-fifty thousand dollar proposition that much harder.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DEAN PROPPED HIS HANDS on the outer edge of Nick’s desk, leaned in toward him and asked, “Have you signed the papers yet?” He wore a look that bordered on terror, which was about how Nick felt.
The foundation’s offer was looking less and less attractive by the minute. Who knew the very organization that’d indirectly provided him with the means to build Hang Ten—through his inheritance from Walter—would turn around and try to steal it out from him the minute he got into a bind. A bind that was not of his own doing.
Their fair market offer, as it turned out, was anything but. He’d come out of the deal with scarcely enough cash to pay off the suppliers, the bank fees, and the line of credit. Forget about his savings. His annual salary was adequate, although not fantastic, but it was progressive, dependent upon inflation. He could, however, live in the loft above the restaurant free of charge. And the community center would receive a three thousand dollar a month stipend for as long as Nick worked at Hang Ten. That was less than Nick had been providing, but he was lucky to get anything for the center in the deal.
In some weird way, it did help to know he could have the job for as long as he wanted, provided the restaurant turned an annual profit, but it also felt like a ball and chain. Because of the community center, he’d have a hard time moving on.
But this was the price Nick was going to have to pay if he wanted Kevin’s legacy to live on. And that was the important thing to Nick right now—saving the center. It was all he had left.
“No.” Nick hadn’t signed those papers. He hadn’t even been able to utter a verbal agreement. He might already have lost Hang Ten, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. “I haven’t signed the papers.” He sucked in a breath. “I know I have to, but I can’t keep putting it off.” He let out a helpless shrug. “The suppliers are going to stop making deliveries if I don’t do something soon.”
“Don’t do it.” Dean’s expression insisted, right along with his words. “Not this deal. Not with the foundation.”
“Why not?”
“You were only gonna do it because they agreed to help the community center.” Dean’s shoulders slumped, and he looked away, defeated. “The community center is as good as dead.”
“Look, I know three grand a month is hardly enough to keep it running, but we’ll find aid somewhere else.”
Dean shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Juno Properties is selling the land the center sits on.”
Selling the land? Nick’s heart pounded against his chest. “How much?”
Dean said, “We have forty-five days to come up with eight hundred grand. After that, it’s going on the market for 1.2 million.”
At that precise moment, Nick knew what it felt like to have your world fall completely apart. Eight hundred grand. It might as well be 1.2 million because Nick couldn’t come up with either.
“Damn it!” Nick knocked that stupid fat cat off his desk that Ginny had bought him. The crystal paperweight hit the floor with a loud crash and fractured in to pieces. What the hell? Were all the forces in the universe lining up against him to take him down—permanently?
Nick leaned back in his chair and looked around the office. He sure had some shitty-ass luck. Everything in this office was going to belong, very soon, to someone else. There was no way he could take the foundation’s offer now. No point.
“You know what you have to do, don’t you?” Dean asked, still leaning across Nick’s desk.
“Yeah.” Nick nodded “I have to put Hang Ten on the market. Sell her to the highest bidder,” he said in a voice that was quickly losing power. “After paying off my debts, maybe I’ll have enough left over to go start a little café in some obscure little town or something.”
“No, no, no…” Dean shook his head. “You’re gonna call that chick. The rich one.” He looked Nick straight in the eye. “You’re gonna accept her offer. After that, we’ll figure out a way to save the community center. We’ve got forty-five days.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GERARD BROUGHT A PITCHER OF iced tea and four glasses out to the terrace just outside the living room. Lecie, Deidra, Camille, and Tasha were enjoying the afternoon watching the children.
They’d bought a little kiddie pool at a shop not far from Lecie’s house, brought it home and filled it up with about eight inches of water. It had a slide on one side and a dragon that spewed water on the other. Juliana and James were having a grand time with their new toy.
Gerard set the tray on the table and began pouring tea into the glasses. “Lois,” he said of the cook he’d insisted on hiring, “asked me to inquire about dinner this evening. Will you all be dining in, or will it just be the children and the nanny again?”