“What truth?” I whisper, my throat tight with pain at the way his eyes are locked on mine so intently. I inch closer to him, desperate for the next words that will come out of his mouth. His gaze dips to my lips and then rakes over my face, taking in every tiny millimeter of my features like he’s committing them to memory.
His voice is guttural when he answers, “That the only reason you do less is because you’re afraid to want more.”
His words pop our bubble of tension where we were suspended from time and space. They poke a deep bruise inside me that I didn’t even know existed as I’m thrust back to reality. I pull back and my vision blurs as my eyes well with tears.
His words assault every part of me that I’ve been proud of the past seven and a half months. He thinks I’m afraid to want more? Then he doesn’t understand me at all. I don’t live this way because of fear. I live this way to survive. He doesn’t get it because he’s still in that world that I left behind. Which is why I can’t be with him. I don’t want a front row ticket to that life.
I suck my cheeks in and shake my head, ignoring the tears falling down my face. “Even if everything you said is true, Max, it doesn’t change the fact that Jenson will be your partner soon, and I can’t be anywhere near him ever again.”
“Well, give me a damn minute to figure that part out, okay?” he bites, his eyes glowering at me as he steps back and begins pacing in front of me. “I just found out tonight that I’m going into business with the man who almost killed the woman I love, so I need some time to figure out what the fuck I can do to fix that.”
“Love?” I gasp, my entire body erupting in goose bumps at the word that just tumbled out of his mouth. He couldn’t have meant that. It was a slip of the tongue for sure. My head jerks as I stutter, “You don’t mean that.”
He stops pacing and pushes a hand through his hair as graveness casts over his features. “Shit, Cozy…it has to be obvious. I practically assaulted the asshole for you tonight.”
Panic sets in over my whole body at how quickly this all escalated. How did I go from taking a summer job as a nanny for a rich guy to standing in his driveway, hearing him confess his love to me?
I’m not ready for this. I’m not healed enough. I just finally decided to make cock boards two seconds ago. Now Max wants to drop the l-bomb on me?
Love?
This can’t be love. Love means losing yourself to someone. Love means putting them first over everything. Love means diving in headfirst. I’m still learning how to swim after drowning in Jenson’s company. I can’t let love factor into my life right now. And I know that if I let Max Fletcher love me, like fully love me, I will drown all over again.
I’m just the nanny. That’s all this was supposed to be.
My chin trembles as I struggle to find my voice. “Well, whatever you decide to do on your merger with Jenson, please don’t make any rash decisions on account of me,” I croak, my face twisting up in pain. “I shouldn’t factor into your choice at all.”
The cold look on Max’s face as he stares at me for a long, pregnant pause hurts every bone in my body. I curl in on myself, fighting off the discomfort his disappointed eyes are causing me.
He nods once, and his voice is cool and detached when he says, “Then it’s good we hid this from Everly. It’d be a shame to break her heart.”
And with that, Max strides back into the garage, closing the door behind him and closing off whatever piece of his heart that he might have been offering, but I’m not defrosted enough to accept.
“Dad, why are we going to Aspen this weekend?” Everly asks, sitting criss-cross in the seat across from me on the company jet.
“You love Aspen.” I frown and set my phone down to give her my undivided attention.
“I do, but we haven’t gone anywhere all summer, so I wondered why we’re going now?” Her blue eyes watch me curiously like she can see directly into my soul.
“That’s exactly why we’re going. I haven’t taken my kid anywhere all summer, and I feel horrible about that.” I force a smile that I don’t feel as I reach over and tug playfully on Everly’s braid.
She looks out the window thoughtfully as we begin to taxi out. “You don’t have to feel bad, Dad. I like doing nothing, and I’m really good at it.”
Her words sound horribly familiar, and my chest does that knocking sensation that happens every time I think of her.
The nanny.
It’s like a fucking defibrillator pressed to my chest when she darkens my thoughts this past week.
I turn my head to look out the window as well and hope I’m as good at hiding my pain as I think I am.
The past seven days have consisted of work and Everly. Work and Everly. Rinse and repeat with a splash of an Everly night out with Uncle Calder…giving me more time at the office.
Then back to Everly and work.
It’s all I can handle.
I don’t look at Cassandra. I don’t talk to Cassandra. I rush out the second she enters the house. I give the obligatory thumbs-up to the text messages she sends me about how Everly’s days are going, and that’s it.
I don’t even reread the texts before bed at night like I used to because it’s too painful. Reading her words, even in her stilted texts, is like I can hear her voice, see her smile, feel her body next to mine in my bed…which still fucking smells like her. My entire bedroom smells like coconut still. I don’t know how it hasn’t faded, especially when Bettina has been by to clean the house.
Or perhaps the smell has faded, and my mind is just torturing me with the memory of that scent. None of it makes sense. And every bit of it hurts.
Which is why we’re getting the fuck out of Boulder for the weekend. I even booked a hotel room with a waterpark for Everly because I was too afraid that my Aspen house would haunt me with memories of Cassandra as well.
Only a few more weeks to go…then Jess will be home, Cassandra will be gone, and life can get back to normal. I just have to keep putting on a happy face for Everly. I can’t let her see what’s going on inside my head. Because if she did, she would know how incredibly angry I am all the time.
I’m angry I didn’t see that Jenson Hunsberger was a fucking awful human. I’m angry I never mentioned the name of that company before the charity gala. I’m angry I let Cassandra sleep in my bed. I’m angry I asked her out on a date. I’m angry I let myself fall for her. I’m angry I didn’t see the walls she built up. I’m angry I let her infiltrate every part of my life…even down to my own fucking heart.
I’m angriest about that. I let myself love again, and once again, it wasn’t enough.
I thought our differences were what made us work. I thought they were what I’d been missing my whole life. I was fucking dead wrong, and I hate being wrong.
Which is why I’m harnessing all this anger for my Monday morning meeting with the board of All-Out Properties. I have some revisions to this merger that they better fucking accept. Cozy or no Cozy, this is a problem that needs dealing with.
For now, it’s back to all eyes on Everly as it always should have been.
“I’ve never seen so much hard cock in my life!” Kate, aka Mercedes Lee Loveletter, exclaims as she appears in the doorway of my workshop. She’s holding an infant car seat against her hip as she walks over to inspect my work. “Holy shit, you’ve been busy, Cozy!”