I was in the middle of editing the video of Fanny and Ella switching out the Blossom’s window display when a light knock came at the door. I rose and padded over, expecting to find one of my sisters on the other side when I pulled it open. Instead, I gasped in surprise at the man standing there.
“What are you doing here?”
The minute Delia wasgone, and hopefully out of earshot, Clarke—yes, with ane; that really should’ve tipped me off that he was a pretentious, misogynistic asshole who only wanted to work with me because of my celebrity status—whirled on me.
“You need to get your bitch in line,” he seethed.
My response was automatic, a gut instinct, a shot from the hip that required no additional thought or consideration for the consequences. Born from years of being the oldest, the protector, the leader, they were the easiest two words I’d ever spoken.
“You’re fired.” For good measure, in case it wasn’t obvious to this prick, I tacked on, “Get the fuck out.”
Clarke sputtered, his beady little eyes widening. “Yo-you can’t fire me.”
“I can,” I assured him, “and I just did.”
Clarke’s mouth gaped for a moment until he said, “Fuck you.”
“Hugo!” I shouted, and a moment later, my head of security appeared.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Get this prick out of my face.”
“You can’t! Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am? Who I’ve worked for? I designed houses for—”
Hugo dragged Clarke downstairs, his shouted words softening in volume until eventually quieting completely, leaving me in my silent office.
Well, that certainly hadn’t gone as planned.
I should’ve known better. I only hired the idiot because he came highly recommended by my former offensive coordinator in Detroit. It would’ve been one thing had he been willing to work with us, been amenable to hearing Delia’s ideas and implementing them.
Because I realized as soon as she’d gone that shewasright. The glass and chrome and smoke and mirrors and neon? They weren’t fit for northern Michigan. And, okay, I could take a lot of the blame here. When I’d hired Clarke and his firm to do the design for the distillery, I hadn’t given him a lot of direction. I told him what I was doing and asked him to bring me an idea. I could admit, had Delia not been here, I probably would’ve been all in on the design. It was exactly the kind of place I would’ve frequented in the early days of my career, when I was young and horny all the time, looking to flaunt my wealth and status for anyone within my vicinity.
But this wasn’t going to be that kind of place, and I should’ve done more research instead of being so blinded by my desperation to break ground and get this up and running as soon as humanly possible.
That was the problem with having money—the belief that, ifI simply threw enough zeros at someone, they’d get shit done quicker than they would for a normal person.
And, okay, a lot of the time it worked. But this project—there was something different here. It was new and exciting, yes, and I’ll admit the addition of Delia changed the dynamic. In what way, I was still deciding. I didn’t really believe in all that woo-woo, signs from the universe shit, but I’d be damned if there wasn’t something magical sparking to life inside me as the pieces of this project slowly came together.
Maybe that was my dad’s way of telling me I was on the right track.
So now, we needed to head back to the drawing board.
But first, I had to find Delia and apologize.
Knowing she wouldn’t answer if I called her—and I certainly didn’t blame her—I did the next best thing.
“Hey, Owen,” Amara said when she picked up. “What’s up?”
“Can you tell me where Delia lives? Or where she might be right now?”
“Why? Are you planning on groveling?”
“Yes,” I said instantly. “I owe her an apology.”
“You’re damn right you do,” Amara said, and I knew right then that Delia had already filled her sister in on what happened with Clarke. “How could you let this happen?”
“Hey now, I didn’t know the guy was going to be an epic prick.”
