Page 25 of The Last Goodbye

We’d grown close over the years, and I was grateful for my relationship with him.

William Winchester, aka my biological father, was not what I’d expected. He was twenty years older than my mother and had been married to my stepmother, Tabitha, much longer than I’d been alive.

You can only imagine how thrilled she was to meet me.

He was a very successful businessman, with a penthouse apartment in New York City and a second home in the Hamptons, where he and Tabitha spent most of their time. I couldn’t even call it a house; it was more like a mansion or a large estate, which was a far cry from the humble home I’d grown up in.

Tabitha thought the whole thing was a scam, and she demanded that my father take a paternity test.

It wasn’t the beautiful fairytale story I’d longed for after never meeting my father—but here we were.

Once he’d realized that I was his daughter, he welcomed me into the family, claiming that he’d never been told about me. He insisted that he was devastated by our lost years.

I didn’t believe him, not really, but I was desperate for connection, for family—and I let myself overlook it anyway.

I was just grateful for any morsel of family, and Denton actually felt like family by now.

My dad encouraged me to go to law school, even offering to pay off all my undergrad student loans. He covered my tuition at the New York University School of Law, then offered me a job after I graduated.

Family holidays at their home were uncomfortable, since Tabitha resented me being there, but I wanted to know my father and my brother, so I made the effort to show up.

“Good morning, Briar,” Dad said, bringing me out of my memories. The man was all business, though I could tell he tried to soften his delivery when it came to me. Another box opened on the screen, and Denton smiled, and I instantly felt more at ease.

“Hey there,” he said. “How’s small-town life going, sis?”

“It’s going well.”

“Has he agreed to sell yet?” my father asked, skipping over any sort of small talk.

I sighed. “Not yet, but he’s finally agreed to meet with me, so we’re making progress.”

My father did not look pleased. “You know Steven Hansen is arriving there later this month to walk the site one last time. You’ve got that on your calendar, correct?”

Steven Hansen was one of the architects employed by Winchester Investments. This would be my first time meeting with him in person. He worked remotely, and we’d only met via Zoom thus far.

“Absolutely. We’ll walk the surrounding areas, and he can get his final drawings completed, which will move us one step closer.”

“When you say that you’re making progress,” Denton asked as he tilted his head to the side, “do you feel like Bass Bennett is going to stick to his guns and fight us for two years on this, or do you really think you can get him to agree to moving sooner?”

“If he waits two years, he’ll get nothing. Not a goddamn dime. Does he know that?” My father had an edge in his voice that made my stomach twist with nerves. It happened every time he was in business mode.

“He does,” I said, nodding. “And that’s what I wanted to meet with both of you about today. So, if he doesn’t agree to move, we would finish up with Steven and get his drawings completed, but we wouldn’t be able to do much more than that, right?”

“Correct,” Denton said, his brows cinched together as if he was curious about where I was going with this.

“Here’s my thought process. We up our offer, making sure that it covers the cost of the new building and all the renovations to get the new location where it needs to be, assuming he likes the space where I’m meeting him today.”

“We’re willing to up the offer to get him the hell out of there.” My father’s mouth was in a straight line, completely lacking any emotion. “There’s a lot of money on the line. You need to get this deal done, Briar.”

“Yes. That’s where I’m going with this. We can offer him more, because we stand to make a whole lot more money if we start now versus starting in two years. Not only due to the revenue we’ll bring in for opening the doors sooner, but obviously the costs of building will go up in two years from where we are now.” I swallowed and reached for my water before taking a sip and continuing. “So his renovations will probably take around three months if we keep an eye on moving things forward and push hard to get it done. At least that’s what my assessment was for the current state of the building we’re going to see today. It’s definitely his best option, as far as being similar to the location he has now.”

“And why do we care about the timeline of his renovations?” my dad snarled.

“How about we let her explain everything before we start jumping down her throat,” Denton said. It always impressed me the way he stood up to our father, because very few people did.

“Fine. Proceed. Though I don’t run a charity, so I’m not sure where this is going.”

“Bass Bennett is concerned about the money he will lose during the renovation period,” I said.