Page 71 of Snowed In With The Second Chance Daddy

Always with a little unique addendum.

A year ago today we stayed out until two am playing board games at Guthrie’s.

Fuck him for all the memories. For all the wonderful times I have to remember now every time he sends the flowers.

The first time week, I tossed the cards out without reading them. Then Becca pulled one out of the trash, said it was romantic, and…I guess I’m a sucker.

“God, I hate him.” I shove the flowers to the side, trying to focus yet again on my work.

“Have you told him to stop?”

“No.”

“So, do that.”

I press my lips together.

Becca smiles, deviousness in her expression. “ Because you don’t want him to.”

I glare at her.

“Don’t glare at me! You’re the one still in love with your ex-fiancé.”

I sigh and rub my hands over my face. “Sure wish I wasn’t.”

“Girl, he loves you. Literally, there’s nothing stopping you from–”

“He wants thingshis way.”

Okay, that’s not totally true. At least this time he was open to making something work. “That’s triggering for me. He had never been controlling until I took this job.”

“Without talking it through with him.”

“You don’t even know him! Why are you defending him?”

Becca’s sass softens. “Because I think you’re self-sabotaging. He admitted he made a mistake. And you did too, you know that.”

“I admitted it as soon as it happened. Well, after I had to reveal it to him, but–”

“When you’re in a couple, you have to make sacrifices, right?”

I stare down at my keyboard. “Maybe I’m not meant to be a part of a couple, then.”

“Don’t say that.”

Since I left Chicago, I’ve been haunted not only by memories of Trevor, but memories of my past. Of my ex.

Trevor knows there have been men before. But he doesn’t know abouttheman. And though it’s been a decade since I’ve been with him, I can’t shake the fear of not measuring up. Of trying so hard to fit someone’s mold and falling short and being rejected because of it.

“Becca, I appreciate your perspective and support, but–”

“Galletto!” a harsh voice barks across the room.

I look up, finding myself frozen under the icy stare of our boss, Cole. We all go by first names here, but Cole acts like we should be calling him Mr. Jerkoff.

He wasn’t that way when he hired me.

He’s leaning out of his office door. Yes, he’s the only one with an office. It’s encased entirely by windows, but when he takes a private meeting, he can make them frosted with a push of a button. It’s some weird James Bond shit, if James Bond had an eyebrow piercing and thinning hair.

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