Page 92 of The Wrong Boss

But Cole might’ve been the exception. Maybe, if I’d been braver, he would’ve stood by me for life.

“Carrie?”

I glanced over to see Cole frowning at me. “Sorry,” I said. “Stuck in my own head.”

“It’s your turn to choose a word for Evie to spell.”

“Oh, right,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to smile at my daughter. “How about…‘sprinkle?’”

“Easy,” Evie said, then spelled the word without hesitation.

Cole’s grin drew my gaze. He looked over and arched his brows, pride shining in his eyes. My heart gave another pulse of pain, but I buried it deep and painted a matching smile on my own face. Maybe this was my penance. I would forever see what a good man he was—and know that I’d lost my chance to be with him.

The Museum of Ice Cream was a blast. Evie ate so much ice cream I prayed for future me, knowing I’d need it. When an older lady saw me taking a photo of the two of them in the sprinkle pit (like a ball pit, but with sprinkle-shaped balls), she offered to get one of the three of us.

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I said, forcing a smile.

“I insist! Everyone needs a good family photo.”

“Mom, get in! It’s fun.”

Throat tight, I glanced at Cole, who was stretched out in the pit of plastic sprinkles. Dressed in black as he usually was, he looked like a shadow among brightly colored candy. He shrugged and tilted his head, inviting me in.

That was enough to make my stomach flip-flop, which was another bit of evidence of how far gone I was for this man. The rest of my life was going to be rough.

I got in the ball pit and smiled for the camera.

Later, when Cole dropped us off and Evie trundled up to her room to get changed out of the shirt she’d splattered in ice cream, Cole lingered at the door to the townhouse and cleared his throat. “So, I was thinking…”

With my foot holding the door open, I leaned against the frame and tilted my head. “Yeah?”

“What do you think about having a meal and trying to hash out this custody thing? No lawyers, no mediator. We see if we can do it on our own. You’ll want to get your lawyer to review everything, of course,” he hastened to add, “and that’s fine. But I just figured…if we’re going to be doing this for at least the next twelve years, until Evie’s eighteen, we might as well see if we can agree on the particulars without conference rooms and lawyers standing in the way. We could have dinner and talk. No pressure.”

My heart thumped furiously. We hadn’t been alone together since… Well, since he’d been naked and in my room at the company retreat. The fearful part of me screamed that he wanted to take advantage of me without lawyers present, that he would take my daughter away and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

But the fearful version of me wasn’t in charge anymore. She’d ruined my life one too many times, and I wasn’t going to listen to her anymore.

I swallowed half a dozen times, then finally nodded. “That sounds good, Cole. I’d like that.”

It must have been a trick of the light that looked like relief flashing across his face. As I closed the door and listened to his footsteps recede on the other side, I felt just like I had seven years ago—like everything inside me screamed to open the door and call him back.

Instead, I let out a long breath, threw the lock, and headed inside to find my daughter.

THIRTY-NINE

COLE

It wasn’t a date.It definitely wasn’t a date. The dinner I was about to have was as far from a date as could get; we were basically broken up—had we ever been together?—and were about to discuss the future of our lives as definitely-not-romantically-involved coparents. So why did I feel like a sixteen-year-old kid driving up to his crush’s house to take her to prom?

The car rolled to a smooth stop outside Carrie’s townhouse, and I didn’t give myself time to overthink it. I strode up to the door and rang the bell, then listened to the stomping of six-year-old feet. The door flew open, and Evie beamed at me from the other side.

“Hi!” she said, letting me in, then turned toward the house and hollered, “Mom! Dad’s here!”

I froze. It was the first time she used the word “Dad.” The first time she called me anything other than Cole—and it rocked me. Heat prickled behind my eyes, and I suddenly had the urge to clear my throat a thousand times or two.

Carrie appeared at the top of the stairs, busy slipping an earring into her ear. She’d swept her hair up out of her face and put on a black dress that was cut high over her collarbones and went down to just below her knees. It left everything to the imagination, and it looked fantastic.

“Tonight you’re having a bath,” she told Evie. “Listen to your aunt Hailey and don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

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