Page 31 of Brewing Up My Fresh Start

“I should really go,” I say again. But I still don’t move.

“The committee meetings,” Grayson says, his voice lower now. “Are you going to try to find compromise, or just show up and say no to everything?”

“Are you going to listen to community concerns, or just present variations of the same plan until we give up?”

“I guess we’ll find out Tuesday.”

“I suppose so.”

I get into my car, but before I can close the door, Grayson leans down. He’s so close, warmth radiates from him despite the cool October air.My hand goes slack on the door handle, fingers trembling against the metal.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, the words rough like they cost him something. “About your partner. That was betrayal, and you didn’t deserve it.”

The air rushes out of me in a shaky exhale. My throat tightens, my grip on the steering wheel unsteady. I wasn’t prepared for sympathy from him—especially not in that voice, low and sincere instead of clipped and combative.

“Thank you,” I manage, though it comes out softer, breathier than I’d like.

His hand rests on the frame of my door, steady, solid. “What you’ve built here—the shop, the people who trust you, the way you fight—it’s yours. Nobody can take that from you.”

He straightens and steps back, the loss of his nearness leaving the air colder. I sit frozen in my car long after he disappears, my heart pounding so hard it almost drowns out the waves.

I came here expecting to face a corporate developer with no heart. Instead, I had the most honest conversation I’ve had in months with someone who’s still planning to change everything I care about. With someone who understands exactly why that terrifies me.

I drive home through empty streets.

This is dangerous territory. I’ve spent years building a life safe from exactly this kind of complication. Now I’m developing respect for someone whose success depends on my failure.

Worse, I’m starting to wonder if his success and my survival might not cancel each other out after all.

Which is either the beginning of a solution or the beginning of a much bigger problem than waterfront development.

I park in my driveway and sit in the darkness, listening to the ocean. Trying to figure out whether I’m more afraid of losing my coffee shop or of discovering that Grayson Reed might be worth trusting.

Both possibilities threaten everything I’ve carefully built, and Tuesday’s committee meeting looms more complicated than simple negotiation.

I just agreed to weekly meetings with a man who makes me want things I’ve spent years avoiding, all to protect the life I built to avoid wanting those things.

This will either save Twin Waves or completely derail everything I’ve worked for.

I get out of the car and head inside, trying not to think about navy suits and woodsy cologne and the way someone can look at you like they’re seeing things you didn’t know you were showing.

Tuesday can’t come fast enough.

Tuesday can’t come slowly enough.

I’m in so much trouble.

EIGHT

GRAYSON

Idon’t talk about Miranda. Ever. So why am I sitting in Michelle’s closed coffee shop spilling my secrets instead of looking at boring town papers? We’re supposed to be having a work meeting. Instead, I’m confessing everything to the woman whose shop I have to tear down. This is either a brilliant strategy or spectacular self-destruction.

“Miranda said I was married to my job,” I hear myself saying, my voice rougher than intended. The admission tastes bitter on my tongue. “Turns out she had perfect vision.”

Michelle doesn’t jump in with fake comfort about how Miranda didn’t deserve me. She just listens from her corner of the old velvet couch, legs tucked beneath her like a predator waiting to strike, making that concentrated face she gets when someone orders something complicated—eyebrows slightly drawn, head tilted, absorbing every word like she’s memorizing them for ammunition.

I’ve been studying that face for years, cataloging every micro-expression like a man obsessed. Judge me all you want.