“I said we may as well get on with it.”
“He’s coming here? Like…now?”
“Yes,” is Walters’ simple reply, oblivious to the flaming turd he just threw at me.
“Why would he come here?”
Walters’ face adopts a confused frown. “You are aware he was your grandfather’s business partner?”
And therein lies the problem. Sometime in my extended absence, the one person I’m trying to avoid has become my grandfather’s business partner. How? Why? No freaking clue.
I didn’t understand it at the time and I still don’t. Of all the people my grandfather could’ve chosen as a business partner why it would have to be Noah is beyond me. Quite frankly, it felt like a betrayal at the time, but I pushed it aside. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.
“Of course I am,” I fire back and immediately cringe in embarrassment. Throwing my ex-boyfriend onto my lap without warning tends to make me a bit over reactive. “I really don’t see why he needs to be here when I am.”
“Rowdy arranged it that way, Miss Murphy.”
Rowdy…if he weren’t dead already, I’d strangle him with my bare hands. My mind starts running in circles, looking for a means of escape, screaming at me to get the hell out.
“Can I reschedule?”
“Afraid not. I’m leaving for a fishing trip tomorrow.”
I’m starting to think there are dark forces at work here. It never even crossed my mind that I would be trapped in close proximity to him. In passing, maybe. With enough distance between us to make him an inch tall. That would be good. I could handle that. But not this close. Not this soon. I’m not prepared for this.
“Rowdy wanted you to get acquainted with the club and how it operates…you are his sole heir, Miss Murphy. It all goes to you. Most importantly his share of the club.”
I shift in my non-ergonomic wooden chair, searching for a comfortable position that does not exist. I’m still working through the shock so it takes me a minute to process what he said and what it means for me.
“He wanted you to learn the ropes, if you will, and Callahan is to help in that endeavor.”
“Umm––” He’s got me on my heels again, off balance. I can’t keep the disbelief off my face. “No.” I’m shaking my head before I can even get the word out.
“Miss Murphy––”
“No. Absolutely not. I play tennis. I do not run bars.”
Walters gives me a long-suffering look and tugs at his collar, inadvertently pushing his tartan bow tie slightly off-kilter.
“Ronald’s will specifically stipulates that you can’t sell your half of the properties for a full calendar year and within that timeframe you are to learn the business.”
“This is insane,” I say more to the ghost of Rowdy than anyone else. “I don’t understand why he would’ve left everything to me anyways? I don’t need it. I certainly don’t want it. It should all go to my father.”
Walters’ bushy gray eyebrows draw together in disapproval. “That’s not what Ronald wanted.”
I push the heel of my good hand into one eye socket to ease the pressure. With each word spoken, I sink deeper and deeper into acceptance, my head throbbing from the realization that my grandfather, a man I loved dearly, a man I worshiped, has royally fucked me as his parting gift. It’s not lost on me that this one of the five stages of grief.
“If you don’t hold onto it for a year––” he continues, unfazed by my meltdown. “You forfeit everything. In which case, the sum of the properties––the nightclub and the land leased to the county––will be sold off to a developer, including Mr. Callahan’s half.”
His task accomplished, Walters rocks back in his chair, a man at ease. Meanwhile my skin starts to itch, particularly under the cast on my right hand. It becomes so unbearable I consider banging the cast against the edge of the desk, along with my forehead.
Making me that man’s business partner is just plain cruel. Not to mention that placing Noah’s half of the business in my hands is borderline sadistic with how acrimoniously we ended things. If I wanted to, I could make things very uncomfortable for him and Rowdy knows it…knew it. Lord, what a mess.
“Fine. I’ll sign it over to my father and he can deal with it.”
“It can’t be done. There’s a clause in the will for that as well.”
My god with a lowercase g the man was devious.
“Mr. Walters, let me be clear. I play tennis––pretty well actually. I live in London. It’ll snow in hell before I get into business with––”
“Mr. Callahan, so nice of you to join us,” Walters drawls sardonically, his attention aimed at a spot over my shoulder.
My body goes stiff so quickly I may have pulled a muscle in my neck.
“Sure feels chilly in here,” comes a lazy drawl from somewhere behind me.