Page 15 of Stuck with my Boss Daddies

I nodded, gripping the strap of my bag like a lifeline. “Of course. Thanks for your time.”

My voice was steady. My hands weren’t shaking.

Outwardly, I was fine.

I pushed back from the chair, painfully aware of three sets of eyes glued to me.

Adam’s polite interest. Samuel’s brooding intensity.

And Kai, who hadn’t stopped staring at me since I walked in.

I turned on my heel, forcing myself to walk at a normal, human pace toward the door.

No rushing. No fleeing. That would be too obvious.

Except my foot caught on the chair leg.

Of course.

I stumbled, catching myself just in time.

Kai made a low sound that sounded suspiciously like a choked-back laugh. Samuel exhaled through his nose.

Adam, still blissfully unaware of the personal apocalypse happening in front of him, grinned.

“Careful there, Collins. You good?”

I flashed a bright, totally normal, absolutely not panicked smile.

“Totally fine,” I said. “All good. Not a problem at all.”

I pulled open the door, the little bell jingling way too cheerfully for the actual crisis I had just endured.

The crisp morning air hit my flushed skin, and I exhaled sharply, dragging in a deep breath of freedom.

I wasn’t that girl anymore.

I wasn’t the girl who’d let Medford crush her.

But as I walked down Main Street, my pulse still pounding, I could feel it.

The weight of the past pressing down on me, waiting.

And behind me, through that glass door, were two ghosts I wasn’t ready to face.

CHAPTER FIVE

Kai

She was here.

Sitting across from me like she hadn’t shattered me into a thousand pieces and left me to pick them up alone. Like she hadn’t disappeared without a goddamn trace.

I couldn’t breathe.

For a second, I thought I imagined it. Some cruel trick of my exhausted mind.

But no… Sadie Collins was real.

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