that illegal? What the hell, Connor. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Connor rubbed his face with both hands. “I’ve screwed up plenty in this. I thought I could figure this out, make it go away. You had so much to worry about already. I didn’t want to burden you.”
“Burden me? Connor…I…I had a right to know.”
Connor stood and walked in front of her. “I see that. But you were better than all of us. You’ve found a way out of the mess started by the storm. You’ve figured out a plan to solve it without any external investors. You aren’t at risk from my father.”
“Is that why I haven’t met them? Your family?” Her voice was quiet, the anger replaced with hurt.
“Fuck, Emerson. The easy answer is yes, but it’s much more than that. My father had promised to retire, the company was meant to be mine. But my uncle convinced him to stay on for another five years, and that left me in the wings again.”
Emerson stepped away. “So, starting a relationship with me was to spite him?”
“No.” His chest started tightening. The conversation was getting away from him, and he needed to find his footing. “Em. No. Was getting to know you fueled by a curiosity I’ve had since I was old enough to recognize the name Dyer? Sure…but, damn… You were the reason I fell in love with you.”
“Don’t say that right now,” Em said, wrapping her arms across her chest.
“But it’s the truth. Don’t you think it would have been a whole lot easier if I hadn’t fallen in love with you? After that announcement that my father wasn’t going to retire…I’ve been adrift. The only solid part of my life since his big announcement is you and what we were building.”
As soon as the words had left his mouth, he felt the strength in them. In that moment, the only thing he wanted to walk away from this mess with was Emerson. If he lost his job, his company, even the tenuous relationship he had with his father, so be it. What was it his mother had said? All those sacrifices you make for someone you love don’t feel like sacrifices. He finally understood what she meant.
He placed his hand on her cheek, breathing a sigh of relief when, for a moment, she leaned into it before pulling away.
Emerson inhaled deeply. “There’s something you should know. Your father wasn’t mad about losing the distillery…”
What?
“What do you mean?”
She tilted her head in the direction of the office. “Come look at this.”
Connor followed her, and once in there, she handed him a letter. He recognized his father’s handwriting immediately.
Rebecca,
I need to go away…
I can’t sit here and watch you and Paul go on about your lives as if I meant nothing to you…
You never gave us a chance…
I have torn up the check you sent me. Do you really think this was about the money?
It was never about the money. It was about you.
“It was about your mother?” Connor asked, shock muddling his brain.
Emerson nodded. “It appears so. There’s the check.”
Connor looked at the fragments that had carefully been put back together on Paul Dyer’s desk.
“I checked our personnel file, everything. I have no record of him on the books. Nothing.”
“There is one place,” Connor said, his mouth still dry from the revelation. “He’s in the photograph taken the day before the distillery opened.”
“You’re sure?” She reached for an envelope on top of one of the filing cabinets. As she rifled through the files inside, Connor could see they were the photos from the evening she’d shown him.
“That one,” he said quickly, stopping her. “Right there.” He pointed to his father, and for a moment, they were both silent.
“Em, I know this is all a lot to process for both of us, but I—”
“I’m tired, Connor. And I need some time to think about this.” Emerson placed her hand to her forehead.
“That’s okay. I’ve got some gym clothes in the back, and I can go get us some food. We can talk some more.”
Emerson put her hand on his arm. “No, Connor. I need some time. Time on my own to think this through. To process what you said. I can’t do that with you here. I need some breathing room. I need you to go.”
As his heart raced, he searched her face for clues. A part of him wanted to stay, to convince her that they could work through this together…but one thing he respected was her