Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(102)

Derek broke in with a sharp, “That’s not true and you know it, Dani. You were born to that position in ways I never was. And as far as your decision-making, you ran into a string of bad luck. It happens. Hell, we both saw how much bad luck Dad used to have to overcome. And just like him, you did. You got us through it all.”

“Except one,” she argued back weakly.

This version of Dani standing before him was breaking Luke’s heart. Even her arguments held no fire, nothing but anguish, and suffocating guilt.

Over what, he still didn’t understand.

Derek gripped her shoulders. “The sheer amount of Dad’s hospital bills would have crippled most small businesses, Dani. You did what you had to do.” Turning to Luke, he explained, “Our dad didn’t have more than the bare minimum health insurance. Before the first heart attack, he’d been healthy as a horse. He rarely even came down with a cold. In our toughest years, shortly after our mom left, he cut back on a lot to make ends meet, his health insurance being one of the first to go on the chopping block. And none of us knew.”

Anger leapt into his voice. “Those vultures who’d been trying to distribute dad’s beers had done their research. Because they knew exactly how much we owed when they came knocking on our door with their offer.”

A bitter, self-flogging laugh drifted out of Dani. “And I opened that door wide open for them to come right in and take everything our dad worked his entire life to build, to be proud of, to leave behind as his legacy.”

When Derek started to object, a small spark of life ignited in her voice. “No! You don’t get to play this off. This was on me. I knew dad didn’t want to bottle his beers and I took the meeting anyway. A guppy thinking she could play in the same tank with the sharks. What’s worse, I did it without hiring a lawyer.”

That last statement had Derek’s mouth snapping shut, his jaw clenching harshly as if holding back a tidal wave of words.

This time it was Dani who turned to give Luke an explanation. “I didn’t hire a lawyer, I just trusted him is all. After finally convincing our dad that bottling was our last option, I had my boyfriend broker the deal for us.” Her eyes narrowed, her voice taking on a hateful edge he’d never heard her use before. “Eric was a corporate lawyer working in one of the biggest firms in Phoenix; deals like this one were child’s play for him. And when he refused to let me retain his services fully, I thought he was just being Eric. The great boyfriend he’d always been. The one man I’d allowed myself to fall in love with and actually trust.”

Her shoulders fell with the weight of utter disappointment her memories brought. “It wasn’t until long after we had no legs to stand on did I discover that the real reason he hadn’t wanted us to retain him officially was because he’d already been retained…to negotiate on behalf of the bottling company, who’d apparently also given him an exorbitant finder’s fee to set the whole thing up. To set me up.”

At Luke’s hiss of disbelief, she looked away.

In shame.

And that enraged him even more. “Dani, you couldn’t have possibly—?

“No. I don’t want to hear you trying to put it all on him. Yes, Eric was the lowest of life forms for what he did, but he wouldn’t have been able to do it if I hadn’t stood back and let it happen.” Her hands curled into her stomach as she detailed just how badly Eric had screwed her and her business over. “I trusted him based on love and love alone. Even when my gut was telling me something sounded off about the ‘branding clause’ in the contract. Even when his generic, non-descript answer to my questions about it had given me pause as well. We didn’t know until the week that the first shipment of bottled beer was scheduled to be distributed around the country that they had changed the name of our beer and erased all connection to our brewery on the label via their ‘re-branding’ rights. And my signature was what had allowed them to do it. Legally, in an iron-clad contract we couldn’t get out of.”

Disgust filled her expression. “At least I’d been correct in thinking he was the best to negotiate this deal. He was. There wasn’t a single loophole in that contract. And believe me, I paid good money in legal fees to try to find one. By the time we could fight it, they’d already begun selling the beer like hotcakes. When we tried to terminate the deal and retain sole ownership of our brew recipes, they threatened to sue us for breach of contract and losses—which was close to a million in start-up expenses alone.”

With a tired sigh, she continued with barely any emotion at all, “And in the end, they turned around and sued us for groundless public defamation and damaging press. We’d played into their plans perfectly. And we couldn’t afford to fight it. We couldn’t even afford to start the process of fighting it. So, we ended up giving up all our rights to my dad’s six award-winning beers to make the whole thing go away.”

She glanced sadly at the double-doors she’d emerged from just minutes ago. “After weeks of stress, that was the final straw that caused his heart attack...on Valentine’s Day three years ago,” she finished softly.

“Instead of sitting in front of a fireplace in the log cabin up in Flagstaff I’d booked for Eric and I to spend the first Valentine’s date I’d ever allowed in a relationship…instead of cooking him the perfect meal I’d spent weeks thinking about and preparing for…instead of starting to plan the wedding I’d finally let myself begin to dream about, with the man I’d told my heart it was to safe to dream with…” Her crushed gaze fell on Derek. “Instead of getting to see my big brother marry the love of his life two weeks later…I was here. Here in this exact E.R. watching the doctors jolt my father’s body over and over again to try and re-start his heart.”