hell was happening? Everleigh didn’t do confrontations. Or arguments. Alex told her all the time that she needed to learn to draw a line and stand up for herself.
Why’d she have to start today? With him?
“Had you dialed literally anyone else into your plan, they would’ve told you to stop protecting her and call the police. For all you know, they would’ve kept it under wraps for her safety, too.”
He broke off a piece of the cookie so he wouldn’t have to meet her earnest blue eyes. “I couldn’t risk it.”
Amelia took over. “Except that you put yourself, and your hotel, at risk by not soliciting other opinions. Group think. Hive mind. It takes a village. Doesn’t matter how you phrase it. You get more accomplished, better, faster, smarter, by dialing in other people, other ideas, other frames of reference.”
“I just…Nora was here. I took care of it.” But Alex heard how his excuses—c’mon, that’s what they were—were getting shorter. Weaker. Repetitive.
“Yeah. We get that.” Teague bit into the muffin. Chewed. “This is fantastic. I had her brownies at the dance, too. Nora can bake, no doubt. The decision to hire her was smart. We lucked into that solution. The decision to do it being made solo, that’s what sucks. You went rogue, dude.”
Everleigh nibbled at the scone. “It feels like you wanted to do it by yourself, Alex. Because you keep trying to do everything by yourself.”
“You didn’t trust your instincts after the theft at the Orion.” Amelia stared him down. “You hired Elena, you trusted her enough to give her your key card, and then she took advantage of you. You haven’t forgiven yourself for that. For not foreseeing an unforeseeable situation. That’s why you’re making so many lists and driving us all crazy.”
“I’m making all the lists because we can’t afford to screw up,” he burst out.
Which was a huge mistake.
He’d just blown the lid off a secret he’d promised himself not to let out. Telling Sydney should’ve been enough to bleed off the frustration.
“Sure we can,” Amelia said with a light laugh. “It wouldn’t be the end of the world. We give it our best shot. If it doesn’t work, well, lots of people blow through lottery winnings. We’ll just dig into our savings for a bit and start over again.”
Given what’d gone down so far, Alex couldn’t lie anymore. Or obfuscate. There was no choice but to tell them the whole of it. “I can’t. It’s all gone.”
“What’s gone?”
How did this conversation keep getting harder? And worse for him? “My savings. My 401(k), my IRAs, the last of Mom and Dad’s trust.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I cashed it all in. So that we’d have operating capital to get this place off the ground.”
Teague swore, turned away and paced the length of the room before slapping his hands onto the lintel and hanging from the doorframe.
Amelia folded into the nearest chair, mouth agape. “But you said…the inn, it came with the existing bank account.”
“I did say that. I, um, exaggerated the heft of its value. By a lot.”
Teague came back at him with the speed of a cannonball. “You lied. Damn it, Alex, you lied.”
For their own good! He spread his arms wide, almost in a plea for them to understand. “To protect you guys. We all needed jobs. Needed a place to live. The lottery gave us both of those. It just didn’t give us enough of a cushion. So I took care of that for all of us.”
“That’s why you’re so up our asses with schedules. We’re bleeding money. Your money.”
“Yeah.” Alex let his head drop. Or rather, the weight of everything they’d heaped onto him over the past ten minutes pushed it down.
Amelia crawled into his lap like she’d done when they were little. “You’re an idiot. A sweet, generous idiot.”
Pretty much what Sydney had said when he’d told her.
He was beginning to think they were right. At least about the idiot part… Because nothing was going as planned. Fighting so fiercely with these people he loved was the cherry on that shit sundae.
“We didn’t know that the inn would need so much work.” Grimacing, he continued after another beat. “Or take so long. Or cost so much.”
Teague sat back down, as did Everleigh. Now they were all around the table again, a united circle. Which was a huge relief. Teague wiped his hands back and forth over the wood, like he was trying to sand his way down to the truth. “Be