Page 61 of Boss Level

I know you lo—I silenced her voice from the past. “Good. Busy. You know.”

“Yeah, I do.” Rosie frowned. “Saw the game. It’s incredible.”

“It is.”

Maddox’s loud cough was as forced as the rest of this conversation. “I didn’t say a word.”

“Good. Thank you,” Rosie said. “Which I suppose brings us to why we’re here. I want to sell this place.” She gestured to the home. “And I need your help with it, Xander.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “I’m a tech investor, not a real estate agent.”

“But I want to see it restored. Used as a bed and breakfast or have the orchard producing again or anything that brings it back to life, and you know people.”

Mom’s dream. That was what she’d wanted for this place, that Rosie argued against for years.

—She’d put all of her energy—

Fucking voice from the past. “You know people too.” It didn’t matter that Rosie walked away from the family when she was younger. She had been too happy to use their connections and money anyway, to build herself a place in the world.

I didn’t have a problem with that, but it did mean there was no reason for me to be here. “If you want my blessing, do what you want with the place, otherwise, you don’t need me here.” I turned away. “Do you want a lift back to town, Maddox?”

“Lewis.” Rosie sounded so much like Mom when she called me by my middle name. The family name. The one Dad wouldn’t give me, because damn it, I was his son.

I shook my head, trying to rattle away the thoughts, but I didn’t look at her. “What?”

At the stretch of silence, I almost turned to face her again.Almost. She wouldn’t win.

“I was hoping to do this with you.”

—You were selfless in those moments that counted—

I clenched my jaw. “Maddox.”

“I’ll catch a ride back with Rosie,” he said.

Fine. That meant I could get the fuck out of this place now.

I floored it leaving town, but the ten minutes it took for me to hit the interstate were too long. Holding back the voices of the past, Rosie’s voice, wasn’t an option now.

I know you love her, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. That was Rosie from Judith’s wedding, drunk and doting on the closest thing to a little girl she’d ever had.But she’s better off this way. She’d put all her energy into you instead of herself, if she ended up with you.

That was ages ago. The words had faded with time and both Judith’s and my successes. Until Mom’s funeral. Until that quiet moment when Rosie pulled me aside. The one thing that loosened lips more than alcohol was grief.

I know you worry sometimes about becoming your father. You’re not.The words had warmed me before I heard what came next. You’re a far better man, and you were smart, selfless in those moments that counted, to not hold back the woman you love.

Fuck, I didn’t want to be tied to that memory. I didn’t want to have it haunting me. It had stayed gone, locked away, silent, for years. It should’ve died and vanished, not returned louder than ever.

Instead, it played on repeat in my mind the entire drive home, no matter how loud I cranked the radio.

I couldn’t go back to the office today, not that anyone expected me to. Most of our clients were busy with holiday and end of year plans, and we were doing a lot of the same.

Arriving at an empty house devoured me, though. I took my time setting my keys by the door, hanging up my jacket. Fishing my wallet and phone from my pocket.

The missed calls and messages caught my attention. Cell reception must’ve been ultra shitty in Haddarville today, for me to not have heard any of those. I skimmed the text transcripts for most of them to know they weren’t important.

But the one from Dominic… Seeing I’d missed his call clenched like a fist around my heart. Odd reaction. Hearing hisI love you. I’ll see you tonight, intensified the ache. The feeling that surged into me, the desperateneedto hold him, to feel him, threatened to overwhelm me.

I was clinging to a past and questioning decisions that had been the right ones to make. There was no reason for it, especially since I had something—someone—perfect and amazing in my life.

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