48

Liliana

“What the hell happened last night?”Charity sat at her desk, fingers laced together in front of her, her expression stern.

I knew this was coming as soon as I walked into the office that morning. Everyone turned to look at me, and Maddie looked like she wanted to cry.

I understood how she felt. I’d barely slept, and I’d cried so much that I felt wrung out.

I knew what I was walking into, and I knew what I had to do. But it hurt, and not crying in front of Charity was going to be some kind of miracle if I pulled it off.

“When you asked me if anything was going on that you should know about,” I started, “I wasn’t entirely truthful. Alistair and I have been seeing each other.”

“Liliana—”

“I know, I know,” I said, putting a hand up. “But I didn’t think you needed to know since it wasn’t causing any issues.”

When she tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, I said, “At least, it wasn’t at the time.”

I explained what happened in as much detail as I could stand, down to the things Julian said to me that caused me to throw water in his face.

Charity, to her credit, listened calmly and without interrupting me. Then she sighed.

“That’s a hell of a story. He had no right to say those awful things to you, so I don’t think your reaction was out of line. But think of how it looks for the agency, Liliana!” She tapped her desk. “You can’t keep things like this from me. I wouldn’t have tried to force you to stop seeing Alistair, but I needed to know. We could have had security outside to keep Julian from getting in, anticipated problems and tried to stop them, ifonly you’d told me.”

She was right. I should have confided in her when the reputation of the agency was on the line.

“I’m sorry, Charity. It was a mistake not to tell you. Do you think the collab’s still going forward? Have you talked to Reginald or Veronica?”

Her expression darkened. “They canceled the meeting we had scheduled for this afternoon. I tried to get them to come in so we could discuss things, but they opted to leave for Colorado early.”

Fuck. That was it. They’d clearly changed their minds.

I nodded, struggling not to cry.

“I’m so sorry, Charity.” I stood and smoothed down my blouse. “Thanks for giving me the opportunities you have here at Donague. I need to go, but I’ll email you a formal resignation by tomorrow.”

“Liliana, I’m not sure you need to resign over this. I personally don’t want to lose your talents here at Donague. Maybe take some personal time, let me talk to Alex and see how he feels.”

She stood and walked around the desk to touch my arm, almost causing the tears to come in earnest.

I shook my head. “Thank you so much, but there’s no need for that,” I said, my voice breaking. “I’ll email tomorrow,” I blurted, then I turned and rushed from the office.

I’d screwed up my relationship with Alistair, and I’d screwed up Hard Rock’s collab, hurting both the brewery and my career.

I drove home, tears in my eyes, feeling more like a failure than I had in years.

I needed to figure out if anything could be salvaged and then do something about it. And hope it wasn’t too late.

--

I was staring out the cab window when my phone rang with a call from Alistair. I almost didn’t answer it, but I forced myself.

Alistair deserved to hear what I had to say as soon as possible. As painful as it was, there was no need to put it off.

“We should talk,” Alistair said when I answered. “Let me come over so we can talk in person?”

“I’m out of town, Alistair. And we do need to talk, but we can do it on the phone. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about everything that happened last night. I didn’t handle it well,” I admitted, “and I know I made everything worse. I’m so sorry, Alistair.”

He sighed. “No, baby, it wasn’t you. None of that was your fault. Julian had no right to talk to you like that. Anybody would have reacted the way you did.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Alistair.”

“I am.” Alistair took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I made it seem like I was blaming you for Julian finding out last time we talked. I was out of line. Julian’s behavior isn’t on anybody but Julian. I feel like I’ve been giving him passes for years and blaming everything and everyone else, and I’m sorry if I did that to you.”

I sniffed. It was wonderful to hear all that, but it didn’t really matter anymore.

“I appreciate that, Alistair. But given how he reacted to me and the idea of us together . . . I think we need to stop seeing each other.” It hurt so much to say that I could barely get the words out.

“No,” he said sharply. “Liliana, no. We can’t let Julian’s reactions dictate what we do. I won’t accept it.”

“Alistair, I can’t keep causing a rift between the two of you. I should never have let that happen,” I explained.

“You didn’t, baby. That’s Julian and his unwillingness to face facts. It’s not your fault.” He inhaled sharply. “Just come home and let’s talk about it. Don’t make a rash decision after what happened yesterday. Everything’s going to be ok. Please, just come home.”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to agree to go back and throw myself into Alistair’s arms. But I knew I couldn’t. It just wasn’t right or fair to do that.

“I’ve made everything such a big mess for you. Your business prospects. Your relationship with Julian. I just don’t think we can keep doing this, Alistair.” My voice broke on his name, so I covered my hand with my mouth and tried not to sob.

“Baby, stop talking like this. Where are you? I’ll come to you and—”

“I’m sorry, Alistair. I have to go.” I hung up and turned my phone off so I wouldn’t be tempted to answer if he called back.

Then I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was coming.

I needed to look together and not like I’d been about to cry like a baby in the back of a cab.

“They’ll see you now,” the receptionist said, leading me to the meeting room where Veronica and Reginald had agreed to talk with me.

I took slow, deep breaths on the walk there.

The worst they can say is no, and then at least you can say you tried.

“Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me,” I said as they shook my hand and I sat.

“We were surprised when you called,” Veronica said. “It shows a lot of initiative that you’d come all this way after what happened.”

“I just want to explain and hopefully make it clear that what happened isn’t representative of Hard Rock. Not at all.” I did my best to look them each in the eyes as I explained what happened was completely unacceptable to Hard Rock and that it would in no way be associated with the Avalon Spirits brand.

Veronica steepled her fingers together. “Look, Liliana, we were really impressed. The tasting was a success as far as we were concerned. At least until the brawl.”

Reginald nodded. “Until that point, we were ready to sign on.”

“Surely,” I said, trying to appeal to their common sense, “you can’t hold Hard Rock responsible for a fight breaking out in the taproom. That could happen anywhere at any time.”

“True,” Veronica said. “But it was one of Hard Rock’s owners and his brother, not random guests. That would have been different.”

“We loved Hard Rock and the drinks you all created. And we think retail distribution and our merged branding would ultimately be incredibly profitable,” Reginald explained.

“But we hesitate to do business with temperamental people. People who would punch their own brother in their full establishment. I didn’t take Alistair to be that type, but I guess I read him wrong.”

“But if you understood exactly what happened . . .”

Did I want to share that much with Veronica and Reginald? It had been hard enough to tell Charity.

They both looked willing to listen, so for the second time in as many days, I explained the situation with Julian, Alistair, and myself. I told them about how Alistair had taken care of Julian and tried to help him, and how Alistair had grabbed me and slammed into Alistair. He had to defend himself, and things had gotten out of hand.

By the time I was done, Veronica had a strange, slight smile that I couldn’t decipher.

Did she believe me, or did she think I was lying and trying to trick her?

She didn’t look suspicious, but of all the reactions I’d expected from the story, a smile hadn’t been one.

“So, it’s you,” she said, still wearing a strange smile. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”

“I . . . I don’t know what you mean,” I admitted, glancing between her and Reginald. He looked equally confused.

“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you,” she said with a soft laugh. “I was so impressed with Alistair the day we met, that I suggested he and I spend some time together. Alone.”

“Veronica,” Reginald said with a soft laugh.

“What? As far as I knew, he was handsome, successful, and available.” She shrugged, then turned to me again. “He set me straight about the last part right away by explaining that it was complicated, but he very much was not available.”

None of what she said was a surprise. Her flirting would have been obvious from space, but I didn’t need to say that part out loud.

“Alistair told me all about this wonderful woman who had his heart after he turned me down. And a man would only fight his brother over a woman he loved very much.”

I blinked back tears. I hadn’t known he’d told her about me in any kind of detail.

“Alistair’s protective. Honorable. Just a good man all-around,” I said earnestly. “He wouldn’t have fought with Julian if Julian hadn’t forced him to.”

Veronica nodded. “I can see that. Seems he’s less temperamental than I thought. He was backed into a corner, and did the only thing he thought he could, is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Veronica and Reginald glanced at each other, then she turned back to me. “How lucky you are to have a man who’d fight like that for you.”

Had a man like that, I told myself.

How lucky I was.

I bit my lip to keep from crying.

“But he’s lucky too, to have someone who cares about him so much that she’d come all this way and give such personal details to try to save the deal,” Veronica added.

She and Reginald exchanged another look. Then Reginald stood and held out his hand for me to shake again.

“We need to talk in private, Liliana. We’re going to reconsider our position. Weigh some pros and cons and see how we feel then.”

“Thank you,” I blurted, laughing in relief. “For talking to me and reconsidering. Thank you so, so much.”

When I got into the cab, intending to go to the airport, I decided that maybe I needed to clear my head for a couple of days before going home and trying to find another job. And having to deal with Alistair, who would probably still try to talk to me.

Maybe Veronica and Reginald would go through with the collab and at least something could be saved.

“The nearest hotel’s fine,” I told the driver.

I pulled my phone out to turn it back on, but I decided to leave it dark. I needed some time and having to deal with texts and voicemails would only make things worse.

I’d spend a couple of days relaxing and thinking, and then maybe I’d be able to talk to Alistair and make it clear we were over without completely falling apart.

I knew how hard it had been for Alistair and Julian to get back to speaking terms again. And how hard Julian had to work to get sober again.

I’d moved on from this and I felt like I was back to the same drama that I desperately wanted to leave behind.

All that I’d feared came true.

I fell in love with Alistair and it crashed and burned like I knew it would. And my career at Donague was over.

There was no way I could go back and pick up where I left off. My reputation was already tarnished. I wouldn’t be able to recover and get my career back on track there.

I would need to look for a new job, have a fresh start.

That wasn’t what I was worried about. I wasn’t sure how I’d put my heart back together after Alistair.