Page 15 of Tempted By the Broken Cowboy
“You went to Vegas?” Louis chirps excitedly while my mother’s jaw drops in shock.
I turn to Landon with an accusing look. “You snitched on me?”
“No, he saw my Instagram,” he quickly explains.
It’s been less than four hours, and the cat is already out of the bag. There is no such thing as keeping a secret in this family.
“So tell us, how was your ‘business trip’? Did you manage to get the money from the Morgans?” Rhett asks, a bit too sarcastically for my liking.
“I’m still working on it,” I grumble, filling up my plate with rice.
“So that’s a no?” he mocks.
I sneer at him, reaching for the chicken.
Of course he’s not vouching for me to be successful. If I am, it’ll mean I’ll have done more in my two years on the council than he has in his ten years under my father.
“Why are you here? Don’t you have your own house, a wife, and kids to get back to?” I retort.
“Jess took the kids to see her parents, and besides, this is my house too. I can come and go as I please,” he smugly explains.
Oh, how I wish Jace had signed off on the investment—it would have been so satisfying to slap that look off his face with a fifty-million-dollar check.
“Sweetheart, you’re already doing great work on the council. Why do you have to go so far?” Mother asks.
“Because if I don’t, no one else will.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” she sympathizes.
Of course she thinks that. Her whole existence is centered around being a wife and mother. There is nothing wrong with that, but I want more for myself.
“I’m not being hard enough.”
“Your mother is right, Quinn. You bit off more than you can chew. It’s okay to accept defeat and realize your limitations. Now you can give up on your silly idea and focus on your true responsibilities,” Father speaks up, his words direct stabs to my heart.
“You mean being your glorified secretary?” I scoff.
His face turns sour at my jab, but he doesn’t respond because he knows I’m right.
The more they talk, the more I realize that they were all banking on me failing.
“None of you thought I could do this, did you?” I ask, my voice cracking.
They all fall silent except for Landon and Louis, who raise their hands, making me smile. “We did.”
“Thank you, guys,” I say, then turn to the other three. “I was doing everything I could for the sake of our town, but now I’m going to do it out of spite. To show you three that I can do this. I don’t care what it takes—I am going to get that funding. You can bet on that,” I grit out, pushing my chair back and getting to my feet.
“Sit down, Quinn. It’s rude to walk away before we’re all done eating,” Mother demands.
“And it’s even ruder to have a family that makes fun of my efforts to make our town a better place,” I retort, picking up my plate and walking out of the dining room in a huff.
I’m not going to sit through a whole meal and listen to them make fun of me. If their words have done anything, it’s to make me realize that turning away such a great opportunity just because it’s challenging is not the way to go.
Working with Beck has got to be less torturous than facing the ridicule from my family and not achieving my dreams. But I am not going to rush into it—I am going to take a few days to make sure that I’m making the right decision as I come up with a plan.
I’m going to get that investment, one way or another, and watch those three choke on their words.
6
