Page 136 of Tangled up in You

And she also wanted to keep it a secret because maybe, if she didn’t tell anyone, she could pretend it never happened and somehow—somehow—force herself to get over them.

Telling someone else would make it feel…real.

That would multiply her pain.

Best she relegated it to a fever dream born in a cold Yellowstone tent.

Besides, other than the one text from Christopher, the men hadn’t bothered to call or text her. Their silence spoke volumes. She’d never responded to Christopher’s text.

Just shows I was right.

And since her father and Josie insisted on Jesse staying with them ever since their return, and going through the data she was receiving while curled up on her dad’s sofa, and then with Brandt being born, Jesse really hadn’t taken the time to process everything.

Brandt is beautiful and perfect and a very lucky baby. Dad can be there for him—hopefully—and so will Josie.

Josie currently napped in their bedroom and Jesse was torn between wanting to move in with them—because both of them begged her to—and wanting to go home and be alone and privately lick her emotional wounds.

Which as of late drilled through her brain with increasing frequency, sometimes catching her off-guard and making her weepy.

And she was so. Damned.Tired.

Allthe fricking time.

Her dad walked over and touched her shoulder, gently forcing her to turn to look at him. “Do you need to talk to someone about what happened? You’ve never…discussed it.”

She choked back a laugh because it was freaky how he could unintentionally tune into her thoughts without even realizing it.

But she didn’t want to talk about it. “No, Daddy. I’m okay. Really.”

He scowled, the familiar furrowed brow warming her, knowing he was worried about her.

“I’m serious,” she said. “I’m okay. Just… Emotional about this little guy.” She gently rocked the baby in her arms. “Plus I have a lot of work to do. I know you’ve insisted on me working from here, but I need to get back into my normal routine.”Ah,humor for the win.“How soon before I can start taking Brandt to the lab? Teach him the family business? I’ll need help, you know.”

Her dad finally smiled. “Give him a few months at least, kiddo. He’s not quite ready for advanced calculus.”

She managed a melodramatic sigh. “This means I need to learn about sports and cartoons and stuff, doesn’t it? Gawd, nowthat’storture.”

“I could waterboard you. Would that make you happy?”

She softly laughed, not wanting to wake the baby. “I’ll settle for having my fingernails pulled out. Deal?”

Now it was her dad’s turn to snort. “Thank you, honey.”

“For what?”

“Firstly, for humoring us and staying here. And for being you. For being every bit of who you are. I see your mother in you and it breaks my heart in good ways. And I see you, and how much you’ve accomplished, and I worry about you not being happy. About getting so wrapped up in work you forget to have a personal life.”

She shoved away overpowering thoughts about Mark and Christopher. “Iamhappy, Dad.”

Okay, so that was a little fib.

“I guess I’ll never get you to take time off again, will I?”

She shrugged. “We start production on the next-gen models in four days. It’s supposed to take nine weeks but that timeline is out of my hands. I have managers overseeing the QC through each stage. I’ll be crunching data and tweaking the algo for the final setup, but I promise I’ll take weekends off until we’re ready to deploy the upscaled mesh network. Plus, I’ll babysit this tater tot for free when you two need time alone. Deal?”

“I guess that’s the best I can hope for right now, huh?”

“Please take the W, Daddy.”

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