“And you assumed I’d leave the pigsty for you.”
Didn’t that make me feel like shit? “No one would’ve blamed you. It’s a lot of money.Iwouldn’t have blamed you,” I added when her brow ticked up. Suddenly, I wanted to stay on her good side.
She rocked back and forth on her cute little feet. “I need this done as quickly as possible.”
“You know who could do that? A professional whose only job is to renovate your bar.”
Her expression shuttered. “Everything’s so easy for a Bailey.”
Defensiveness heated the back of my neck. “We work hard for what we have.”
“You don’t think I work hard?”
“No, it’s not that?—”
“Because I do.” She prowled closer, and my fingers were twitching to grip her waist. “I work all the fucking time, and I’ve had to because people try to take what I have away.”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Everyone thinks we’re shit, so they treat us like it.” She got into my face and her minty breath crested over my chin. “I’ve done nothing but stick up for myself and I get insulted and used. But a Bailey can tell someone to fuck off for doing nothing but telling the truth. When a Bailey tells it like it is, they get praised. A Bailey gets used by a cheater and he gets the sympathy of the town, but that same bitch sleeps with my husband and I get left with his law school debt. I go to work every day and my boss threatens to kick my mom out.”
Her words raced through my head, jumbling together and straightening out. A hard task when she was standing so close. I had told her to fuck off, not in those words, but the rest? Was it true? “Wendi slept with your husband?”
“After he finished law school.” She snapped her fingers. “No.” The apples of her cheeks were flushed. “It was after he got a decent job.”
“A better-paying one than a bar brought in?”
She nodded. “She didn’t just sleep with him. She took him.” Folding her arms again only pushed up those fleshy breasts that demanded my attention. “I just wish that if Wendi was going to cheat, she would’ve done it before my nephew was born.”
I hated to look away, but I did. Wendi and Scooter had Logan a couple of years after she left me, and it sucked watching a cheating bastard get the family I thought I’d have. The kid must be around four by now. “It’s hard on him?”
Her jaw tightened. “I assume it is, but Wendi isn’t really open to letting me visit him.”
“That fucking sucks.” Her ex had no taste, and apparently, mine didn’t either. “Your boss is threatening to kick your mom out?”
Her expression turned impassive. “I’m dealing with it. Anyway, get this place looking exactly as it did before.”
My mind spun from the subject change. “Exactly like it was? It’s yours now. You can do whatever you want with it.”
“And I want it to be selling drinks and making money.”
“It can do that with another plan. This is the chance for a rebrand.”
“I’m not rebranding.”
And here I had started not to mind her stubbornness. “Then make the reopening a thing. You could advertise?—”
She tugged on her ponytail, her features hard. “Just fix the damn bar, Teller.” The red was back in her cheeks.
“Don’t you want better?—”
“None of that is your business. I hired you—bought you—to get this place going again, and that’s all you need to know.”
Her shields were slammed back into place, and goddammit, I did not like being locked out on the other side. Butting heads wasn’t going to help.
I held my hands up. “Okay, okay. You’re the boss.”
“It’ll be easier if you remember that.”
