And the insult hardly stung at all. She’d heard it enough over the years. She already knew she was no man’s dream date. She wasn’t soft, she wasn’t weak and helpless, and she could change her own tires.
“You little bitch,” Sylvester hissed. “I’m going to go talk to my banker about accelerating that timeline. I’ll be in here by next week!”
He turned and stalked off, with Marvin and Sylvester scampering after him and shooting her dirty looks.
Savannah’s heart sank. She’d just made things even worse for her family. Her mother, Jessamine, and Niall gathered around her on the porch, watching as the men scrambled into their Hummer and screeched out of the parking lot. Anthony hurried into the restaurant. His face was still red, and he was crying with humiliation.
“Savannah!” Jessamine wailed, and Savannah resisted the urge to slap her. She was not in the mood.
“He can’t accelerate the timeline. We have the contract,” she said glumly.
“If you hadn’t done that, he might at least have let us stay here and manage the restaurant! We could have lived in our house!”
“Yeah, and he would have charged us so much rent that we’d have gone broke and had to move out in a few months anyway.”
“It would have bought us some time! Why are you so damn sensitive? Someone hurts your feelings and you just have to show them that you’re the boss bitch, don’t you?” Jessamine yelled.
Savannah bit back a snarky response. She was in the right here, but she also knew that everybody in her family was on edge. They’d tried so hard to save the restaurant. This nightmare had hung over their heads for the last five years, day in, day out, and after working sixteen-hour days and scrimping and saving, they were still going to lose everything.
“Language,” their mother said reprovingly to Jessamine. “There are kits here.” She flicked a glance at the children standing on the porch with their parents.
Savannah gave her mother a woeful glance, and her mother stroked the side of her face, with a soft, gentle, wordless murmur of sympathy.
“Mom, why aren’t you angry at me?” she asked.
Her mother gathered her in her arms, and she was warm and soft and smelled of home cooking. “Because, dear, your heart’s in the right place.”
“Too bad your head’s up your ass!” Jessamine snapped at her.
Savannah shook her head glumly. Even the sight of her mother chasing Jessamine across the yard, with Jessamine screeching in panic, wasn’t enough to cheer her up.
