her way past the awkwardness. The simmering anger in his eyes suggested that wasn’t likely.
“Friends?” he echoed with a lift of one brow. “That’s not exactly the way I remember it. Maybe my memory’s faulty, but I thought we were more than that.”
Heat stained Abby’s cheeks. “It was a long time ago, Trace. A lifetime, in fact.”
He hesitated for what seemed like an eternity, his gaze level, then finally he looked away and reached for a folder with an ominous red sticker on the front. “I imagine you’re here about this,” he said, his tone suddenly abrupt and very businesslike. “Jess has gotten herself into quite a mess.”
Taking her cue from him, Abby opened her briefcase. “We’re aware of that, and we’re prepared to give the bank every reassurance that things will change from here on out.”
“You’ll have to do quite a bit of tap-dancing to pull that off,” he said. “She doesn’t have any management skills. I think that’s plain. I have no idea why the bank approved these loans in the first place. I imagine they did it as a courtesy to your father.”
Just then the door to his office opened again, and Jess stepped in. She frowned at his words. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Trace. They did it because it was a sound investment. That’s exactly what your father said when he called me to tell me the mortgage and the loan had been approved.” She regarded Trace unflinchingly and added, “It still is.”
“Not according to these papers I have in front of me,” Trace countered. “It’s time to cut our losses, and that’s exactly what I intend to recommend to the board tomorrow.”
“No,” Abby said fiercely. “Not until you’ve heard us out.”
She tried not to notice the alarm on Jess’s face or the brick-red color that flamed in Trace’s cheeks. Instead, she plunged on, throwing diplomacy to the wind. “If you have even an ounce of business savvy in that rock-hard head of yours, you’ll see that this plan makes sense.”
“Why should I believe anything you tell me?” he asked.
Abby swallowed hard. This was all going to blow up just because she and Trace had a history. Why hadn’t Jess warned her? If she had, Abby would have stayed far, far away from the bank. But since she was in the thick of it now, she refused to let him goad her into backing down.
“Don’t make this about us, Trace,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t reflect well on you or the bank.”
Trace scowled at her. “Well, aren’t you full of yourself? Trust me, you had nothing to do with my decision. It’s all right here in black and white. People might lie, but numbers don’t.”
Abby knew he was right about that, but she wasn’t giving up without a fight. She’d seen the flicker of guilt in his eyes when she’d accused him of letting his feelings for her get into the equation. She intended to use that to force his hand and make him reconsider.
She tempered her tone. “Will you at least hear me out? You owe us that much.”
“Really?” he said quizzically. “How do you figure that?”
“You want to prove that you’re making a totally unbiased decision, don’t you? Then you have to consider all the facts. Otherwise I’ll have to insist on meeting the board myself, and you’ll wind up with egg on your face after barely a week on the job.”
Again, he gestured toward the file. “The facts are in here.”
“Not all of them,” she insisted. She handed him a set of the papers she’d spent all Sunday afternoon preparing, partly because she’d wanted them to be strong enough to make her case and partly as a way to steer clear of Mick. “Take a look. As you’ll see, there’s a new investment partner. Jess has more than enough cash now to make good on the loan payments and to capitalize the running of the inn for the first six months, longer if she’s careful. There’s a solid business plan on pages two and three. And on page four there’s a plan for refinancing that egregious interest-only mortgage that should never have been offered in the first place. I think we could make a case that the bank was hoping she’d get herself into financial trouble just so they could foreclose and lay claim to the inn once she’d poured a lot of money into renovations.”
Trace stared at her incredulously. “You can’t be serious. You think this was the bank’s fault?”
She smiled. “I do.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Want to test my theory in court? I think people are furious over the kind of lending practices that turned the whole industry upside down. I think we could make Jess into a very sympathetic victim.”
Trace regarded her with a glimmer of new respect. “Not bad. You almost had me going there for a minute.”
“I wasn’t joking,” Abby assured him. “My next stop will be a lawyer’s office unless I can make you see reason.”
He looked taken aback. “I’ll have to take this proposal of yours to the board,” he said eventually.
“Of course. They meet tomorrow?”
“At ten o’clock,” he told her.
“Then you should have an answer by noon?”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the yacht club at twelve-fifteen and fill you in over lunch.”
Abby hesitated. She could stay, had planned to stay, in fact, but with Trace involved it was too complicated. “Jess will be there, but I can’t be. I have to get back to New York tonight.”
His gaze clashed with hers. “You’ll be there if you expect this to be approved.”
“Why? This is Jess’s business, not mine.”
“You’ll be there because I intend to recommend that the board approve this on one condition only.”
Jess sat up a little straighter. “What condition?” she asked suspiciously.
Trace looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was even in the room. “That your sister take over as manager of the project.”
“No!” Abby and Jess said at once.
“It’s my inn,” Jess protested. “You have no right to dictate who manages it.”
“I do when this bank’s money is involved and you have a history of failing to make your payments,” he said, his gaze unrelenting. “Abby stays or it’s a deal-breaker.”
“But the plan,” Abby began.
“Isn’t worth the paper it’s written on unless you remain involved,” he said. “There’s no assurance it won’t be frittered away on who knows what before the next payment’s due.”
“Come on, Trace, be reasonable,” Abby pleaded. “I need to get back to New York. I have a job. Jess knows what has to be done. I trust her.”
“You’re her sister. I’m her banker,” he said. “Unless you agree
