She shoved her phone under his nose. “Care to explain this?”
“If you’ll give me a chance.”
“Do it now,” she said, crossing her arms.
“You already know about my grandfather then. He wanted me to be like him; I didn’t want any part of that. I told you it was expected I’d be a doctor and it wasn’t what I wanted. I told you I didn’t get along well with my family either and left.”
“But you didn’t tell me your family was worth close to a billion dollars,” she said.
“It’s my family.”
“No, it’s not just your family, is it? You own Pulse, don’t you?”
He sighed. “Yes, I own Pulse.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me this?” She felt her eyes start to fill. “Why was it such a secret? Wait, doesanyoneknow you own the bar?”
She was thinking back to the times he’d slipped and said things like my bar or my employees. She’d even called him out on it twice, but he’d said it was a figure of speech and she believed it because she’d often heard of him referred to as the manager and not the owner. Then she remembered when he’d said he was career driven and goal oriented, yet that didn’t make sense if he just wanted to run a bar. Why hadn’t she put this all together before?
“Only Carly. She knows most things. Everyone else thinks I manage it, which I do. They don’t know who the owner is and no one really thinks much about it.”
“Why all the secrets?”
“Because I don’t like money to control me. I don’t like to be looked at like everyone else in my family. I don’t like to be looked at like the brainy kid I was before. I don’t want to be wanted for my bank account either. I just wanted to be Dean the bartender.” He was pacing. “My sister has met Jonah a half a dozen times. That’s it. My grandfather has never even acknowledged that I have a child. You have your family issues and I have mine. We deal with them differently.”
She was shaking her head. “You made me feel guilty and horrible about hiding the way I was from you!” she yelled at him. “I cried all night over that. I was miserable, but I told you my reasons. That I always wanted to make this change but had been afraid and you helped me do it.Youhelped me feel good about myself. You had plenty of opportunities to tell me about your past and you didn’t. I even asked you and you still kept it hidden.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just told you the reasons. After I talked to my grandfather last night I realized I needed to come clean with you. I was going to tell you when I got back.”
“That’s convenient for you to say now,” she said. She had to look like a train wreck. There were tears running down her face,and what little makeup she wore was probably smeared on top of it.
“It’s the truth,” he said urgently. “You’ve got to believe me.”
“You think I’m going to believe anything you’ve got to say right now?” She paced around the hotel room, sidestepping him. When his phone went off, he pulled it out to look at it. “Go back and be with your family.I’m sorry I came. I started to have doubts and I should have gone with my gut.”
He looked torn over what to do but finally said, “We’ll talk later. I need to go. He’s out of surgery earlier than expected.”
She nodded her head and he left. She’d get another room at a different hotel and plan to leave first thing in the morning.
32
ANYTHING FOR YOU
He knocked on the door quickly, his foot tapping, but he wasn’t leaving until he talked to Molly.
The last thing he thought was that she’d leave his room.
Hell, he worried she was going to drive back home and he was thankful she hadn’t done that.
“How did you find me?”
“Your phone,” he said. “You linked us together when we were shopping that one day so we weren’t texting the other. I forgot about it.”
She closed her eyes. Hell, he was ready to pull his hair out when he saw she was gone and then he remembered that, thankful it was still connected.
She was only one hotel over, but followed the red dot until he got to her floor and having to choose between four rooms hadn’t been fun.
Luckily he got it right on the first try as she was on the end.
