juggling so that they wouldn’t have to? “Once I mentally checked off hire chef, I moved on to focusing on the next hundred things to be done. I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough.” Teague shoved out of his chair. Went over to the window to confront Alex, toe-to-toe. “You just steamrolled through with this decision. Which is the same thing you yelled at Amelia for doing when she agreed to let Annie get married here.”
Weren’t they listening? He didn’t deny that he was wrong. Alex just needed them to get that there were extenuating reasons. That it wasn’t purposeful. “I know. I felt that way when Sydney suggested it at the dance.”
Teague lofted his hat into the air, throwing his hands up. “So now you’re blaming her? Sydney’s the steamroller?”
Hell.
Alex spun away on one heel. Yes, Sydney had put things in motion. He’d been swept up by her enthusiasm and how much she’d helped him. Them. But he also knew that this fight was about the four of them, as a team.
“I feel like there’s no right answer to that question.”
“Because what you did was wrong, Alex. No excuses. No justifiable explanations.” Teague straight-armed the flat of his hand against the window frame. “It was flat-out wrong. With a dash of hypocritical on top, given how you lambasted Amelia for the same thing.”
In a soft but firm voice, Amelia said, “We can’t work like this.”
Fear knotted Alex’s stomach.
Were they giving up on him? Had he made them lose faith in their ability to pull this off? Had he pushed too hard, too far?
The fear manifested, however, as defensive anger once he opened his mouth. And stabbed his index finger at the air to emphasize every point. “This is a solution. An unexpected, simple solution to a very real problem. We knew we couldn’t afford a decent chef. We knew none of us could cook well enough to do it. We were stuck. At an impasse. One that I solved. It’s not like any of you came up with a solution.”
Yikes. ‘The best defense is a good offense’ was not the way to treat his business partners. Alex immediately knew he shouldn’t have hurled that accusation at them.
Even though it was true.
Even though there was a part of him that wished they were pulling their collective weight a little bit more, weighing in more.
Damn it, was he at fault for that, too? Had he shut them out?
“We hadn’t come up with a solution yet,” Everleigh corrected. “That doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have.”
“We’ve been a little busy busting our humps twenty-four/seven.” Teague stomped back to the table to brandish Alex’s ever-present legal pad of to-dos. “On the stuff that had to happen, according to your almighty lists, right the hell now. Not a month from now.”
Amelia picked up the pen next to the crossword she’d been working on. She tapped it against her first finger, clearly handing out an edict. “This is what has to change, Alex. No more passing out lists like they’re freaking sacred stone tablets. More meetings with all of us. More discussions. We’re all in this. Together. It’ll only work if we do it together. As a cohesive unit. Not as minions to an overlord.”
“Overdramatize much?” he joked weakly.
Because, God, Alex hated that she’d described him that way. No, that she’d felt that way about him, even for a minute. This inn was the chance of a lifetime. Not just monetarily. It was a chance to keep them all knitted tightly together.
And he was blowing it.
Everleigh handed him a cookie. And a napkin. And then she took his hand and held it tightly. “I’m just going to say now what I’ve been thinking since last November. Maybe this is partly why you got fired from the Grand Orion.”
Alex jerked his hand back.
How could she say that? He hadn’t done anything wrong.
The Orion fired him as a way to cover their ass with the guests, once that article came out exposing him. To make a gesture that would convince people it was safe to stay there, that the trouble had been rooted out. And in lieu of the actual burglar being found, let alone fired, they used him.
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“Are you sure about that?” She gently squeezed his forearm, but her words were anything but gentle. “You made a decision, in secret. You decided to sit on the theft, and the note she left you, for twenty-four hours.”
“To give her time to escape. To keep her safe.” What the