Only a Millionaire (The Sinclairs #6.5)(4)

She looked at me with a pair of expressive, beautiful blue eyes. “I’m better,” she explained. “I needed some time alone, and I found it here in Maine. Everybody has been so kind, for the most part. It’s a great town.”

“Except for the fact that it’s overrun with billionaires,” I grumbled.

One by one, every Sinclair sibling had made Amesport their home. Not that they weren’t good for the town. They’d all made significant investments into the small coastal area to improve the economy and the quality of life for its residents. But it was still strange to see their jets take off and land at the airport outside of Amesport.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Brooke teased. “You aren’t exactly poor.”

She’d done my taxes, so she knew my financial status. I was far from being broke, and even though I wasn’t a billionaire, I had millions in my investments and money-market accounts from safety gear and other equipment I’d patented while I had still been working special effects in Hollywood. “But I’m not a Sinclair,” I countered.

“Who cares?” she said. “You’re still loaded.”

I was, but the money had never been all that important to me. I’d striven to save when my parents had died and my sister, Tessa, had gotten sick and lost her hearing. I’d wanted to make sure she could afford the best doctors and medical care available. But after she’d married Micah and recovered her hearing, all that money just kept accumulating. I had the life I wanted, so I’d never spent much of it.

I shrugged. “I don’t care much about the money anymore.”

“You love the restaurant,” she said.

“I guess I do. I didn’t know that running Sullivan’s was really my dream until I came back home. I guess lobster rolls are in my blood.”

“The best lobster rolls on the East Coast,” she reminded me. “And your steaks are pretty damn good, too.”

“They better be,” I told her. “Otherwise, I spent a hell of a lot of time getting shitty beef.”

I took pride in having the best steaks I could get. I’d invested some serious time searching out the best on the market.

“You could have just sat on a beach somewhere and collected millions,” she pointed out. “But you didn’t.”

“I don’t think I could ever stop working,” I admitted.

“Because you want your life to have purpose?” she probed.

“I’ve never really thought about it. Sullivan’s is an iconic place. It’s been in our family for generations.”

“I admire that about you,” Brooke said earnestly. “You always keep striving to make the restaurant better when you could have very easily hired a manager and not worked here at all.”

“We’re similar in that way,” I observed reluctantly. “You could have been an average employee instead of making it your mission to be the best employee you could be. Most of the kids who work here just show up and do what they have to do.”

I saw her visibly flinch at my comment. “I’m not a kid, Liam. I’m twenty-six years old, and I was never a child. Our family was poor. Every one of us had to step up to the plate so we didn’t get split up. We all became adults pretty early.”

I had to admit, I’d never really felt the age difference between us all that much, even though I tried to use that nine-year gap to push myself away from her. Hell, I tried just about everything to keep her at a distance. “Are you sure you want to go?” I asked gruffly. “I can make you management, give you a title and a higher salary.”

“You pay me well enough now,” she argued. “I make pretty damn good money for being a waitress.”

“You’re more than that, and I think you know it. You know almost as much about the running of this place as I do.”

She hopped down from the counter. “It’s a really thoughtful offer, but I can find something in California. I don’t have any reason to stay.”

I thought about that for a minute. She had no friends here because she’d never really gotten close to anybody. I liked my privacy, but Brooke was secluded in a way that had to be almost unbearable. She could be in a roomful of people and end up lonely, because she’d never been free to talk about herself. “I’m sorry, Brooke. I should have been a better friend.”

She smiled at me weakly. “It’s okay. I get why we couldn’t be friends.”

Brooke headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” I called.

“Back to my apartment. I want to clean up and get dressed for my shift.”

Now that she was leaving, I really hated to see her walking away from me.

She left the restaurant, locking the door behind her.

I wanted to go after her, but what in the hell could I say?

I couldn’t tell her how fucking lonely Amesport would be without her around.

The air grew still, like it was a sign of what was going to come.

It was too quiet, too silent once she’d left.

As I started to prep for the afternoon opening, I told myself to get used to it.

Brooke was going back to California, and I was going to have to get used to my solitude.





CHAPTER 3

BROOKE