It was a slow Tuesday night, but that was good. It meant that I didn’t have to feel guilty about telling Ariene not to come in. Gilly was able to handle things without any problems, and it made for a more peaceful work environment. I hadn’t told her about what happened yet, but she was smart. Plus, she’d already suspected what Billy had been up to with Ariene. I had a feeling that if she saw me with Ariene, she’d figure it out. I planned on telling her later tonight when she’d have to decide between going home at a fairly decent hour and going over to Ariene’s and bitch-slapping her, then going to Billy’s and bitch-slapping him.

Right now, however, I was busy training Doug. Doug was my new bartender. He’d never done it before, but he assured me he’d drunk at least half of the drinks we served. He looked and sounded like the stereotype of a frat boy. Which basically meant he was good-looking and not-too-bright but loved to have fun.

I just hoped he could do more than smile at me and nod. For the last fifteen minutes, that’s all he’d been doing.

It was better than what everyone else was doing when they saw me though. I’d put on more makeup than I’d ever worn before, doing my best to hide what that guy had done to me, but my left eye was still swollen almost completely shut, and no amount of foundation could fix that. Only a few customers had asked about it, but they’d seemed to accept my story about how I’d taken a tumble down the stairs.

Gilly would see right through that though. The bar was just one story.

Which was why I’d been keeping my distance, using training Doug as an excuse. But now we were closing in on the end of what I could reasonably call training. I’d gone through all the nit-picking stuff, and he’d watched me make drinks for the past three hours. Now, it was time for him to start mixing. I’d keep watching him, but things were slow enough that Gilly would want to talk to me. I just had to decide what I wanted to tell her.

“All right, time’s up.” Gilly’s voice came from behind me.

“What do you mean?” I asked without turning around.

“I’ve given you space because you clearly don’t want to talk about whatever’s got you moving around like that.”

I closed my eyes. Shit. I should’ve known she would’ve already figured out that something was up.

“You need to talk to me, Syll.”

I took a slow breath, but not a deep one because my ribs still hurt like hell, and then I turned around.

Gilly let loose with a string of curses that had half the bar staring at her. She came around the bar, ignoring the looks she was getting. “What the fuck happened?”

What the hell. Might as well give the excuse a try. “I fell.”

Her eyes narrowed down to slits. “Don’t bullshit me, Syll. If Billy did this to you, I’ll cut his fucking balls off and stuff them down his throat.”

“It wasn’t Billy,” I said. “Someone broke into the bar and beat me up.”

“Like hell. You think I didn’t notice who’s not here right now? Ariene. And now that I see you, and no Billy anywhere in sight, I think the shit hit the fan.”

I sighed and pressed my fingers to my temples. “I told Ariene she didn’t need to be here.”

Gilly leaned one hip against the bar and folded her arms. “If you’d said that without gritting your teeth, I might’ve believed you. Now, spill.”

“I’m telling the truth about this.” I gestured to my face. “The guy came in, beat me up and threatened me. He told me to…make wise choices.” I decided that leaving out the part about Jax wasn’t lying. It wasn’t relevant. “Billy didn’t hurt me. In fact, he found me after it happened.”

“Why the hell aren’t you at the hospital? They couldn’t have let you go so soon, not when the police are involved…fuck. You didn’t call the cops, did you?”

I shook my head, swallowing a wince at the pain. “I can’t afford to lose any more business. If I called them, they’d consider the bar a crime scene again, and I’d lose even more business.”

A different sort of concern crossed her face. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“A lot,” I admitted. “Some because I didn’t want you to worry, but some because I didn’t want to hear you say I told you so.”

“What would I – that fucking piece of shit!” She straightened. “That fucking bastard!”

“Keep your voice down,” I warned. “This isn’t something I want the whole world to hear, okay?”

She kept going with the insults, but at least she lowered her voice.

“You were right. He was cheating on me with Ariene, and it’s been going on for months. And I don’t think it’s the first time he’s done it.”

She reached out to touch my left arm, then glanced at my face, and switched to the right arm. She squeezed my shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t been right.”

“I know.” I met my friend’s gaze. “I went over to his place yesterday, and Ariene opened the door. Words were exchanged. He came by today to try to get me back, and that’s when he found me.”

“How do you know this wasn’t him setting you up? Like so he could come in and play the hero?”

I laughed. “I know it wasn’t him, because he wasn’t a hero. In fact, all he cared about was getting me to a place where he could say what he wanted to say.”

“Fucker.”

I shrugged. “Fortunately, he’s not my problem anymore.”

“But you still have one.” She lifted a brow, studying me closely. “Don’t you?”

I nodded. “Someone’s trying to buy my bar, and they’re not being subtle about it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve gotten a couple offers to buy the bar, and I turned them both down. Someone connected to at least one of them trashed the bar and left a threatening note. Then one of the guys showed up at the cemetery on Sunday.” I didn’t have to tell her what Sunday had been. She knew. She’d been with me on the actual day, and on the first anniversary.

“I ever see the asshole who did that, I’m going to knock out his teeth.”

I didn’t doubt it. “The man who hurt me, he’s connected too.”

Gilly sighed. “Syll, what am I going to do with you?”

That was an excellent question, but one I couldn’t answer because someone had just come into the bar and he required all my attention.

“Who is that tall drink of water?” Gilly asked. “I’d like to ride him like a Mustang.”

I gave her a sideways look, but there wasn’t any jealousy in it. Jax wasn’t Gilly’s type.

“Hey, can I get some scotch? Best you’ve got.”

I blinked at the abrupt request. Not even a hello. I hadn’t been expecting declarations of love and commitment, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring at his phone just like every other jackass douchebag who thought the world revolved around them.

“You would not believe the day I’ve had.”

“I’ve got this,” I said to Doug and Gilly. My friend gave me a strange look, but I motioned for her to go. Doug ambled down to the other side of the bar to take a couple orders there.

I poured two fingers of my best scotch and set the glass in front of Jax.

He drained it all in one swallow without looking up from his phone. “I got a call from my grandfather’s attorney, wanting my brothers and me to come into her office. Get this, he put conditions in his will, things that my brothers and I must do before we receive our inheritance. It’s not about the money, you know. It’s him trying to control–”

“Jax–”

He kept going like I hadn’t said a word. “Like we aren’t all adults with our own lives. He just expected us to drop everything because he snapped his fingers with no regard for anything we might–”

I’d had enough.

“Look, I’m sorry you’ve had a bad day, but you’re not the only one,” I snapped. “My day hasn’t exactly been sunshine and roses.”

He finally raised his head, and I watched the annoyance in his eyes turn into shock, then concern, then anger.

“What hap–”

I cut him off. “I get that you’re upset about your grandfather, and that sucks, but you have three brothers. Some people don’t have any family.” Everything that I’d been trying to hold in came spilling out. “Some of us have to fight and scrape to hold on to every little bit we have, and we have to do it all alone because there’s hardly anyone we can trust. We don’t all have money to buy whatever whim we’re currently jonesing for, only to throw it away as soon as we get bored with it.”

He frowned at me, reaching across the bar to touch my hand. “That’s not what I did. I mean, that’s not what last night–”

“I don’t want to talk about last night,” I interrupted. “That’s not what this is about. It’s about you coming in here, plopping your ass down at the bar, and acting like you’re the only person here who’s had a shitty day.”

I knew I was being a bit of a bitch. His grandfather had just died, and I knew how much that hurt him. I’d seen him at the hospital. Just because he was going on about his brothers and the will didn’t mean he was upset about either of those things. Sometimes, when people were upset, they latched on to unrelated things.

Like me going off about his complaints because I was having some issues of my own.

“I need some air,” I announced, turning away from him.

He was around the bar and in my personal space before I’d gone more than a few steps. Damn, he smelled good.

“Is there somewhere we can talk alone?”

I nodded. “You remember the way?”

The heat in his gaze made me blush.

“I remember all of it.”

And so did I.

Fuck me. I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to go my way.