Eli’s blue eyes flared with heat. “You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I know you whine a lot.”
He stood, grabbing his stack of papers. “I’m going to the dining room to work on the books.”
“Having a tantrum too?”
“Mia, leave him alone,” my father said with a long sigh.
Remembering that my whole reason for returning was to help my dad, I blew out a breath and went to sit with him. “Sorry.”
“Is Eli right in that Nick or the hospital will be sued?” my father asked.
“At this point, there isn’t any indication of that. I’ll be going over what happened, but there’s no indication that the hospital or Nick made a mistake.”
“Eli said it was a missed diagnosis.”
“I’ll need to look into it. However, I’m not really at liberty to discuss the details.”
My father looked toward the dining area, then he leaned closer to me and in a lower voice asked, “How’s Nick?”
I also glanced at Eli. “He’s taking it hard.”
My father nodded. “Must be tough losing a patient.” Then he motioned toward my brother. “Why don’t you go hel
p him?”
“I don’t know accounting.”
My father’s eyes narrowed like they did when I was a kid and about to get in trouble.
“Okay, I’ll go see what I can do.” I stood and went to the dining area. “How’s business?”
Eli shrugged.
I sat next to him. “I guess summer isn’t quite as busy as winter.” I looked over the paperwork. They were computer printouts of financial reports. As far as I could tell, the business was in the black.
“It’s all right. We’ve got more competition.”
“Is there marketing you can do to offset that?”
He glared at me. “I don’t tell you how to do your job, Mia. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell me how to do mine.”
I stared at him, wondering why and when he’d gotten so bitter. “Okay.” Then after a moment, I asked, “Are you mad at me?”
He looked at me. “Why do you let him in your life?”
“Nick?”
He nodded.
“He’s a colleague now. If you’re asking about when we were together, it was because I loved him.”
He sneered. “Nick doesn’t know love. You know he’s a horndog, don’t you?”
“Maybe now, but he wasn’t back then. He treated me well, Eli. But that’s over. Why are you still hung up on it? Are you mad at me for falling for your friend?”
He shook his head, flicking his pencil back and forth. “I don’t like that he takes everything that’s mine.”