“Can’t you do something to shut them down?” This from the first man.
More grumbles from the crowd. Miranda shuffled as close to the door as she dared, her shoulder brushing against the white doorframe.
“Look, there’s nothing to worry about.” The sound of Logan’s voice made her stomach flop, but his words turned her vision red. “She was at the bank this morning looking for a loan. The Sweet Salvation Brewery is drowning in debt. All we have to do is wait her out. A few months tops and that land is ours. We have nothing to worry about here.”
Forget eavesdropping, these assholes weren’t getting away with this. Miranda burst into the room. At least twenty people were packed in there, including Salvation’s mayor Tyrell Hawson. They filled the chairs and lined the walls. Everyone turned to gape at her.
Logan stood at the front of the room, a map of the county behind him. Several land tracts were shaded blue and surrounded a single block of white with a red X across the name Sweet Salvation Brewery. Her blood pressure ratcheted up to nuclear levels.
“Too much of a risk.” She stomped over to him and jabbed a perfectly manicured nail into his hard, muscular chest. “Wasn’t that your excuse, Logan?” Glancing around, she took in the faces of the town’s ruling elite. All this mob needed were some pitchforks and torches to finish the job. “What’s this? The annual meeting of the tar-and-feather committee?”
“Miranda.” A vein danced a fast rhythm against his temple, and he pushed her finger away from him. “This is business. The Martin Industrial Park is a smart investment for Salvation.”
She smirked. “And a Sweet never has been.”
He shrugged. “You said it, not me.”
“You’re wrong.” She glared at the crowd. “You’re all wrong. I’m going to turn that brewery around.”
“With what money?” Logan leveled an appraising gaze at her. “We both know you need it, but don’t have it.”
The truth of his words dampened the indignation burning in her belly. “Doesn’t matter.” Her plan would work. And he’d know that if he’d bothered to read the proposal she’d brought to their meeting at the bank. But if he couldn’t be bothered to learn it then, she sure wasn’t going to give him a play-by-play now. “I’ll find a way.
“I don’t think you will.” The lips she’d moments ago yearned to kiss curled into a self-satisfied smile. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go back to that brewery, take a look around, and realize what a heap it is. You’re going to start wondering—if you’re not already—why in the hell you want to tie yourself to such a money pit. Then, you’ll wake up and realize you don’t have to be. That’s when you’ll beg me to take it off your hands. And I will. For about fifty cents on the dollar.”
What she wouldn’t give to slap the smug smile off his face. Damn, it would feel so…sweet. But she knew something that had eluded her Aunt Mae, a woman who’d shaved half her cheating husband’s head bald and then burned his clothes in the front yard after finding out he had a secret family in Washington state.
Winning was the best kind of revenge.
For the prince of Salvation’s entire life, everything had always gone his way. Until now. He’d loved to take calculated risks in high school. Was he still the same? Of course he was. People didn’t change—especially not in Salvation. The man who loved to bet on a winner was about to find out what it felt like to lose big.
“Care to make a bet on that?”
Logan blinked but recovered in the next heartbeat. “Name your terms.”
“When the brewery gets back on track within three months, you take out a full page ad in the Salvation Gazette admitting you’re a shortsighted idiot who wouldn’t know a good business opportunity if it knocked the silver spoon out of your mouth.”
“Agreed.” He narrowed his eyes. “But when that doesn’t happen, and we all know it won’t, you sell me the brewery and its land according to the terms I dictate.”
The first pinpricks of unease marched up the back of her neck. There was more on the line here than just a promotion. Her sisters had entrusted their inheritance to her, the ultra-responsible eldest sister who never failed, and the brewery staff needed their jobs. She braced her shoulders and mentally wrestled her doubts back to the ground. There was no way she would fail this time.
Logan Martin and the rest of Salvation’s elite could kiss her Sweet ass.
“This is one bet you’re going to regret making, Logan Martin.” Her gaze swept across the rest of the room.
Holding her head high even though her insides were shaking, Miranda pivoted on one heel and strutted out of the room, not giving a damn that the movement made her exposed cleavage jiggle.
Ruby Sue’s internal gossip radar must have gone off, because the elderly woman stood right outside the private dining room door. She took a step back to allow Miranda to pass.
“Girl, you make a crowd silencing entrance and sure know how to make one hell of an exit, too. I tell you—” The slam of The Kitchen Sink’s front door cut off the rest of Ruby Sue’s words.
It didn’t matter. Marching down the sidewalk, ignoring the double takes from the people walking past, Miranda was already planning her next move. She fired off a quick SOS text to her sister Natalie and another to her friend Marc Oberon, a genius in corporate turnarounds based in Harbor City.
Ruby Sue was right. She did know how to make an exit, but the people of Salvation—especially that pampered prick Logan—were about to find out that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Four