Well Built (Book Boyfriend #3)(35)

"Taken advantage of, no," Betsy said with a slight, knowing smile. "But woman-to-woman, I'm guessing things didn't go too horribly with Kyle."

Startled by Betsy's observant comment, there was nothing Ella could do to stop the mortified blush that seared across her cheeks. There was no possible way that Betsy knew how she'd spent last night, but clearly she'd assumed, and Ella had just confirmed the other woman's hunch by her physical reaction alone.



       
         
       
        

"Ahhh, that's what I thought," Betsy said without judgment. "But don't worry, my lips are sealed."

So were Ella's, because what had happened in Chicago was going to stay in Chicago.

Once Betsy was gone, Ella kicked off her heels by the back door and returned to the dining room to get this conversation over with, because it was unavoidable and inevitable. She took the seat across from her father, and it didn't take him long to say what was on his mind.

"Why did you go to see him?" he asked, his tone just shy of being surly.

"For the reasons you'd think," Ella replied, keeping her answers succinct. Her father didn't need to know anything more than what she absolutely needed to tell him. "I wanted to see if he'd sell me the building, but he declined my offer."

Charles grumbled beneath his breath, and Ella figured that was for the best because it was probably something quite rude.

"That building should have been yours," he said, poking a finger at her to emphasize his point. "I don't understand why he'd just come along after all this time and snatch it right out from under you."

Her father made it all sound so nefarious, and while Ella had thought initially that his reasons had been out of spite, Kyle had quickly diffused that notion. "He bought the building for his mother."

Charles frowned at her. "What the hell is Patricia going to do with a big old building like that?"

"He's renovating part of it into an event center and another section into a bakery, which is something she's always wanted," she said, keeping her voice neutral, because the last thing she wanted was her dad thinking she was defending Kyle's actions. "Patricia will manage both."

Her father scoffed at that idea. "Well, I don't trust Kyle, and you shouldn't, either."

Too late for that, Ella thought. She might not like that he'd bought the building when she'd desperately wanted it for her own, but she knew, and honestly believed, that he hadn't purchased the property to hurt her in any way. It was just one of those things that hadn't worked out as she'd hoped and planned. It certainly wouldn't be the first time she'd lost something she'd so desperately wanted.

"We both need to face the fact that the building is being renovated into something else," she said, because she really needed to hear the words out loud. Like a pep talk to herself.

On the drive back from the city, she'd bounced ideas around in her head, trying to think of ways she could still bring in some of the artisans without jeopardizing the grocery store's main surplus of goods. This week, she was going to do a strict inventory check and figure out what were absolute necessities and what items had been around for years and were just sitting on the shelf gathering dust and taking up marketable space. In other words, out with the old and in with the new. 

She'd come up with some ideas about restructuring the store, moving shelving around, and giving the place a much-needed facelift to modernize the inside. She might not have the extra square footage that the building would have provided, but she wasn't giving up on her plans. It would just have to be on a much smaller scale, and she'd have to be more selective about whose products she decided to carry.

"So where did you stay last night?"

Her father's question demanded her attention, and like a kid caught in a cookie jar, her heart started to pound in her chest and echoed in her ears. Especially when she saw the speculative way he was looking at her. She couldn't tell if he was just curious or if he already suspected that she'd spent the night with Kyle. Or maybe that was just her guilty conscience that was making her imagine things.

"I stayed at a hotel near the auto shop that fixed my car," she said, hating that she had to lie.

But she knew her father couldn't handle the truth. It would never matter to her dad that Kyle was a good guy, because he would always see the bad.





Chapter Eight





Kyle picked up his fork and dug into the breakfast that his mother set in front of him. The plate was loaded with scrambled eggs, a few of her homemade biscuits, and chicken-fried steak smothered in country gravy that she'd made from scratch that morning. Kyle wasn't shy about inhaling the savory feast, because his mother was a freaking amazing cook and he certainly didn't eat like this all the time in the city.