Page 15 of Chasing Love: The Owens
He shuts the door.
Great. We’re alone with the door shut door in his workplace. Warp me back to seven years ago when my stomach was flat and my tits were perky, and we’re in the same exact place.
“You don’t need to shut the door.”
He doesn’t answer, just sits on the other side of the couch, coffee in hand, eyes on mine. Trying to appear as if his mere presence doesn’t affect me, I lift my cup, blowing on it.
“I want to apologize for how I acted when I first saw you. You being here… it took me by surprise.”
“You’re losing your touch. A coffee from a Black Friday, box-store-special coffee maker is your way of apologizing?”
“Would you prefer a bag of Hershey’s Kisses?”
“Yes.”
His smile deepens, and it spurs a mix of regret and nostalgia inside me. “I’ll get right on it.”
I glance at the door, then back at him. “I shouldn’t have ambushed you. I should’ve told Poppy no. But she’s so convincing, you know?”
He huffs. “How do you think I became half-owner of a flower shop?”
“She’s a dreamer,” I say, hearing my own yearning for how much I’ve missed her over the years. We haven’t been nearly as close as I would have liked, which is mostly because of me and the secrets I’m keeping.
“She’s right to have hired you. I’d like you to reconsider.”
“Why?” My head tilts. Why would he want me here every day? To see me and be reminded of everything that went down?
“Honestly?”
I set down the coffee. “No, I like it when you lie to me.”
He places his cup gently on a coaster, then looks at mine. “I know.”
I blink slowly. “You know?”
“About your husband.”
My breath catches.
“I’m sure you need?—”
I bolt up from the couch and keep my back to him, trying to hold it together. What little pride I have left feels as if it’s hanging by a thread.
Bennett lets me collect my thoughts. I want to ask how much he knows, but at the same time, I don’t want to have that conversation.
“I don’t need your handouts.”
“It’s not a handout. Poppy already offered. I don’t want you to turn it down because of me.”
I turn around. He’s leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“That’s not what you said though. You said it was because my husband was a drug trafficker who’s in jail, and I had to come live with my parents because I’m a thirty-one-year-old mother who can’t clothe and feed her daughter.”
Okay, that was a little too much. Way too much.
He stares at me.
“It’s good to know the gossip ring of Willowbrook hasn’t waned over the years.”
