Page 19 of Never Say Yes To Your Best Friend (I said Yes)

“You’re right.”

She gapes at me. “Excuse me?”

“I will. I’ll own it. After this. After we break up from our…uh…fake relationship, I’ll put my foot down and say no more,” I say.

“That’s not owning it. That’s just part of the scheme.”

“We’re both knee-deep in the scheme now. There’s really no way to backtrack.”

“You could tell her the truth about all of it. If you went to these crazy lengths just to make her happy over telling her the truth, I think she would understand that she needs to back off.”

“Or she would be so heartbroken that she would never talk to me again.”

“Or that.”

“It can’t be that,” I tell her.

“Then I guess you’re left with only one option,” she replies.

“It would take time, a restructuring of that size.”

Those sharp green eyes of hers get even sharper and narrow into tinier slits. “Then let it take time. No one here is going anywhere.”

“Does that include you?”

“If it’s Option A, then it includes me staying.”

She’s right. I’ve boxed myself into a corner. I’ve been ridiculous and taken the coward’s way, the liar’s way, the ball-less way. It all looks so silly from the outside, but living it is another thing entirely. I can see why she has so much scorn for me. I have scorn for myself, too. But we’re here now. I’ve made the choices I’ve made, and I can’t undo them. I can’t break my mother’s heart by telling her this was all a scam. She won’t understand. She just won’t. To her, there is nothing better in life than love, and she wants it so badly for me. She just…she won’t understand. She won’t forgive me fully.

There will always be a part of her that remains broken, and I’ll have done that because I couldn’t act sooner. The only option I see now is riding out this mess until I can clean it up and then grow a set of balls and tell my mom no more. She won’t have toknow, and I’ll just move on and live my own life. The dates will stop, and the endless push for me to find someone will stop. I’ll have my freedom, and my mom’s heart won’t be shattered. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I’m going to be able to do at this point.

There’s a very real chance I need to evaluate my life up to this point. While I’m rather successful in business, I’ve been anything but in other areas.

Evilla knows what choice I’m going to make before I even tell her. She nods at me like she doesn’t approve, but she understands. One thing is clear. She might not like me, but she clearly loves this place and the people here, so much so that she’s willing to do this with me even though she detests everything about it. Even though I’ve gone about this the wrong way and probably appear completely unhinged at best or a mega asshole at worst. Wait, maybe it’s the other way around. Well, whatever. I don’t look good, and I’m never going to look like a good person to her.

“Good decision,” she mutters under her breath. It sounds absolutely menacing. “I’m going to dry off the best I can and try your mom’s pudding. We could always use more flavors around here, especially because we’ve been bought out. People will expect great things. We’re still looking to crack the one-hundred mark. The next one has to be momentous.”

Why did I ever think this was a good idea?

Why did I get carried away and impulsively and wickedly buy a pudding company?

How did I end up here now? How did things get this out of control? I barely even recognize myself right now.

Evilla walks to the door and leaves me with her last, icy words. “Better get cracking on the great things, Mr. Montfield. Oh, I mean…darling.”

Chapter seven

Evilla

Awhole lot of restructuring can take place in five days. As far as I can see, Mont is keeping his end of the bargain. I can live with myself if everyone else gets a good deal, too. So far, the hostile takeover hasn’t been so hostile. In fact, morale around the place is pretty darn good.

Compliments of Mont’s mom, we now have a new pudding flavor. Mother’s Marvelous and Miraculous Magic. That way, the ingredients are kept secret. I think everyone likes a mystery, and not naming a flavor or giving hints as to what it tastes like is guaranteed to get sales just because people want to try for themselves what the box promises. That it’s darned delicious.

As far as pudding goes, the womanisa miracle worker.

We don’t have our own offices here, mostly because the previous owners thought it was bad for morale to lock everyone away from each other or call some people more important and worthy of limited space than others. All the desks are prettymuch out in the open, with very few of the soul-sucking cubicles typical of most offices.

Since I don’t have a private space, and Mont isn’t going to call me into his office to have a one-on-one meeting, as that would only arouse suspicion, he corners me in the lunchroom when I’m fixing my third coffee of the morning. Don’t judge. The coffee here is seriously watered down, and I hardly ever step out to get my own. Espresso makes me wild, and I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m wild enough already. All my life, people have told me that I’m too extra.

---