“Turds!” His rage was a live thing, twisting and snapping in
the room, gone from red hot to white. “How dare you call my
—”
“Not my words,” Claire clarified gleefully, but she kept any
emotion from her tone. “I’m borrowing here. You know
exactly what I’m talking about. Anyway, no point rehashing
the reviews. Let’s get to the point. I know you’re on the verge
of declaring bankruptcy. After you pushed me out of my own
restaurant and destroyed my life, I decided I’d never get ahead
by cooking. I’d honestly lost the joy of it. You crushed that out
of me, I’ll admit. I had something to fall back on, though. My
family wasn’t ashamed of me. When you wrong a Sinclair,
you wrong all the entire family. And we had money. You were
right about that. We always did. You got the restaurant, my
dreams, and my broken trust. You got your start off my back. I
got a hard lesson in life, and I learned from that. I built myself
back up. Stopped cooking and went into management and
finance like my family always wanted. Made more sensible
choices. I had a lot of help, I’ll admit, but that’s what families
do. They stick together. I didn’t want a chain of restaurants. I
wanted it all. I wanted to be the one at the top, lending money.
Owning buildings and the people in them. In short, I do.
You’re up to your neck in shit and I’m that duck in the water,
always calm on top, churning underneath. Always working,
working, working.”
“You always did have your angle.” Robert said that like it
was a bad thing. The poor man. he still didn’t get it. “What do
you want in exchange?”
Claire wasn’t quite ready to let Robert off the hook. She
wanted to watch him squirm like the worm he was for just a