Page 103 of The Last Goodbye

“No. My job was just to come up with the plan for the hotel and secure the land to build it. They’ll bring in a whole team to finish things off.” She shrugged. “I’ll be moving on to finding more investment properties after I leave Blue Sky Bay.”

“Did you always want to do investment real estate?” Gracie asked as she broke off a piece of cookie and popped it in her mouth.

Briar appeared to be deep in thought. “No, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. But my father owns this company, and he encouraged me to go to law school, so here we are.”

The statement was definitely lacking passion, which surprised me, because she was obviously good at her job. But that didn’t mean she liked it.

Briar Sinclair was the type of woman who was probably really good at anything she put her mind to.

“Well, you’re a damn good project manager,” Cutler said. “I’ve never had a renovation move smoother than this one, and that’s because you’re the one overseeing it.”

“Thank you. This is the most fun I’ve had since starting this job,” she said before turning and flashing me that gorgeous smile. “Even though I’ve had to work with the grumpiest chef I’ve ever met.”

“Didn’t you punch him in the face when you first met him?” Cannon asked over his loud laughter.

“You sure do like that story, don’t you?” I glared at him, hiding my smile behind my hand.

She sighed. “It was an accident. But he didn’t make things easy for me when we first met.”

“You came to my restaurant and told my manager that you were carrying my child,” I reminded her.

Briar, Tatum, and Gracie all laughed when I reminded them of the way we’d met.

“Damn. That’s one way to get someone to meet with you,” Tatum said. “Our girl is nothing if not resourceful.”

“Well, it got me in the door,” she said as she leaned into me. “But he sure did everything he could to get me to leave.”

And all I could think about was how I’d do just about anything now to get her to stay.

twenty-four

​. . .​

Briar

Too many moments in my life had been defined by timelines.

My mother’s illness, for starters.

She was given six months to live, and she lived six months and one day.

My grandmother’s illness.

She was given three months to live, and she lived two and a half months.

When I sent off my 23andMe DNA test, I was told it would take four to six weeks.

Four to six weeks to find out if I had any family members I didn’t know about out there in the world.

It took five weeks and two days.

Graduation from undergrad. Law school. Everything in my life had gone by a timeline.

But this one…the clock that was ticking over my time in Blue Sky Bay?

It felt like a dark cloud looming over me.

Two weeks had passed, and my situationship had turned into a full-blown relationship.