Page 104 of All Tied Up

“Are you sure?” Neil asked, hands reaching out to him.

“You’ll be late,” Sebastian barked.

He just needed… time to think. Or maybe something to do. God, he didn’t even know what.

Neil was still standing there, looking miserable.

“Just go.”

As soon as Neil turned away, Sebastian knew he had fucked something up. But everything else was in shambles, metaphorical and literal.

It was probably better that Neil wasn’t there to see it.

“Daddy?” Jamie asked tentatively.

“What?” he snapped. He couldn’t handle being responsible for anyone else right now. Fuck. That was all it was, pretending he had control of something when he couldn’t even do his job. How was he supposed to take care of Jamie right now, let alone imagine anything with Neil?

“Nothing. Just… the trail’s washed out.”

“I know.” He drew his hands through his hair. Squeezing his eyes shut, he sucked in a breath. “Jamie, we have to sell the lodge.”

Jamie’s eyes widened, but for a long time he was silent. “Oh,” he finally said.

Yeah.

Oh.

16

Neil

Neil drove back into Portland, but his mind was fifty miles behind him. It was a good thing he had the GPS on or he would have missed the turnoff for his office entirely.

Sebastian's face had just been so… cold. Angry. He’d rebuffed Neil’s offer to help and told him to leave without a second thought.

That hurt.

He knew that Sebastian was grieving the loss of the lovely cabin. Maybe even the entire lodge. This would have been devastating for any business, but when they were already so close to the edge…

Neil felt some of that sorrow too, imagining the place he’d found his greatest happiness being sold to uncaring new owners. But understanding where Sebastian was coming from didn’t make it any easier. Neil just felt powerless.

It felt horrible driving away.

Jamie had looked stricken, his arms wrapped around his own chest like he was giving himself a hug to keep the enormity of the problem at bay.

And Sebastian had just gone cold and empty.

Neil would have canceled his meeting in a second if they had asked him to stay. Surely he could do something. Apply for a small business loan. Work his way through Google until he found someone to cut down the tree. Hell, he could even pick up a mop and get to work on the puddle he’d noticed in the atrium on the way out.

Whatever caused that leak was probably going to be expensive to fix, and it worried him. He could already see the entries in the monthly report, and this could be enough to push them into bankruptcy. Businesses had closed for smaller reasons.

When Neil arrived at the office, he could scarcely remember how he got there. Jackson started thrusting papers at him and going over the finalized changes, but Neil just nodded along.

He got coffee from the machine in the kitchen, thinking about how much better the coffee was at the Meadowlark. How Sebastian had brought him a fresh mug while he was working in the atrium, and how all of it—Sebastian, the atrium, and the coffee—might never be the same again.

Fortunately, the meeting hardly took any of his attention. Most of the questions had been answered before everyone sat down at the table. As usual, one of the paralegals had added blue sticky tags for every change he made and yellow ones wherever anyone needed to sign.

All through the meeting, Neil kept seeing the devastation on Sebastian and Jamie’s faces.