She nearly gagged at the implication. Nathaniel wasn’t offering help. He was dangling bait, waiting for her to bite. Every time she tried to sidestep him, he smoothly blocked her. But as much as she wanted to shove him out the door, this might be her last chance to get answers about the loan. So she held on to her fake smile, trying to make her voice sound calmer than she felt.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Oh?”
“You mentioned you helped Lolly,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “But why? Why did she come to you personally, instead of going to the bank?”
His expression didn’t change, but the smugness in his eyes deepened. “Iamthe bank.”
Of course. She gritted her teeth. “But why would the loan come from you directly, then?”
Nathaniel paused, just for a beat. “The bank wouldn’t approve her because she didn’t meet the requirements. But she was proud, and she didn’t want anyone in town knowing she was struggling. So I stepped in. I was only being neighborly.”
“Being neighborly? Like you were for Jack’s restaurant?”
He didn’t flinch, just shrugged. “Sometimes business is just business.”
She crossed her arms. “Then tell me why she borrowed the money.”
For the first time, his smooth confidence faltered. “You really don’t know, do you?”
Frustration bubbled up. “Know what?”
And then, he laughed. It was a low, guttural sound that echoed off the café walls, filling the silence. She had to resist the urge to throw a sugar caddy at him just to shut him up.
He tapped his finger on the counter, dragging out the silence, clearly savoring it. Finally, he said, “It was because of you.”
Her heart stuttered. “Me?”
Nathaniel tilted his head, studying her reaction with smug satisfaction. “Your grandmother was barely keeping the café afloat after your grandfather got sick. Cancer, wasn’t it? Long treatments. Longer bills.”
Cora blinked, caught off guard. Her grandfather had passed away before she even came to live in Sunrise. She remembered bits and pieces about his illness, mostly things she’d overheard her mother say in her weekly phone calls with Lolly. But even after his death, Lolly had never talked about money. About struggling to make ends meet. But if Nathaniel was right, Lolly had never recovered financially. She’d kept The Spoon running, but just barely.
She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “That has nothing to do with me.”
Nathaniel leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, deliberate murmur. “Doesn’t it? You’re the one who wanted to go to college in the big city. That doesn’t come cheap. Tuition. Housing. Flights home. Your grandmother made it happen. Because you asked her to.”
His words landed hard.
“She told me she had a plan to pay it all back,” Nathaniel added, straightening his cuffs as if the matter was settled. “She said she just needed time. But then, well ...” He gave a practiced sigh. “Time ran out.”
Cora stumbled backward and collapsed onto the nearest chair, her hands trembling in her lap. Her mind scrambled for a rebuttal, a crack in his logic, anything to make it untrue. But deep down, beneath the shock and anger and guilt, she felt it.
He was right.
She was the reason Lolly took out the loan.
Memories flooded back in a dizzying rush. Lolly sending her checks during college with little notes attached that said:Just because I love you. Buy something fun! Love, Lolly.She had always thought the café was doing well. It made sense, right? Lolly had run The Salty Spoon with that effortless charm of hers, never once letting on that things might be slipping. She’d acted like money was never an issue, sending Cora funds so she wouldn’t have to worry about books, rent, or the occasional splurge. She’d even insisted on paying her tuition, despite Cora’s protests. Cora had thought the café was thriving.
But it wasn’t.
The checks hadn’t come from some magical cushion of savings or from the café’s “busy season” as Lolly always claimed. All those times she’d told her,The Spoon’s been booming! People can’t get enough of my biscuits, she must’ve been hiding the truth. The money to fund Cora’s fresh start in NewYork had come from Nathaniel Worthington. Fromhim. The man who stood smugly in front of her, as if he’d always been the one pulling the strings.
She felt sick.
Every dollar Lolly had sent, every little gesture of love and generosity, had come with a cost, one she’d never told Cora about. Lolly had borrowed from the Worthingtons to send her to college. She had made a deal with them forher, all while letting her believe everything was fine. And Cora had taken it. All of it.
The guilt was suffocating.
