Page 71 of The Other Plan

“And... how did that go seeing her again? Did you... have feelings?” I peered over.

This time his eyes bulged. “What? No! God no! Nothing like that.” He threw an arm around my shoulder and pulled me against him. “The only feelings I have, and will ever have, are for you. Okay?”

I smiled and nodded against his chest. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Jesus, woman. Did you have feelings?” He snorted. “What the hell kind of a question is that?”

“I don’t know?” I defended with a laugh. “You just looked so serious when you said it.”

His chuckling petered off as he pressed a kiss to my head. “Well, it was kind of serious. Camilla also came here to try to win me back. Which is something she’s been trying to do for months now. Of course, I told her it was over, and I met someone else. I think she got it, but....”

“But what?”

“Um... so, to preface this story, I need to give you a little background. I met Camilla out of college when I moved to New York. She’s from an affluent family. Not money like the Bronson’s, but damn near. Her father, Harold Elswood, is an investor. A few years ago, when Camilla was pushing me to really make something out of myself, her father offered to loan me the money to start my company. He gave me a killer deal on the office space in one of his buildings to run it.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing now his ties to Camilla ran deeper than just the ring she’d taken off.

“I accepted, and now I run my business in his office building, and...” I stopped talking and bit the corner of my lip.

Jenna lifted her brows. “And?”

“And... Camilla just informed me last night she’s starting a new business and is going to be sharing office space on my floor.”

“What?” I sat up, spinning to look at him.

Carter slumped his shoulders. “Yeah. Not ideal, but it should be fine. I can handle her. I just thought you should know that Camilla will, unfortunately, be part of my day-to-day life once I return to New York. And you’re probably going to see her today, so I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

My heart pounded in my chest at his words, the jaded, terrified girl whose father cheated on his family and abandoned her rising to the top again.

“So, you’re telling me that you’re about to be working next to the woman you used to be engaged to... a woman hell-bent on getting you back? Across the country from me since that’s where you live, and this is where I live.”

“Well, it sounds way worse when you put it that way. That sounds bad.”

“It is bad!” I jumped up and moved to the other side of the kitchen.

“We can figure this out, Jenna. I know that we can.”

I pushed my palms onto the counter as I tried to get the spiraling thoughts of our demise back under control. We were already up against insurmountable odds, and this was just another huge obstacle getting dropped in our path.

Carter slipped off the counter and came up behind me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. “I know this is a lot to digest. But you just need to trust me that this changes nothing between us. I’ll handle Camilla. She doesn’t give up on things easy, but she will eventually move on, and this will be no big deal.”

I stiffened. “No big deal? This is a big deal for someone like me with serious trust issues. I mean, how would you feel if my ex was suddenly back trying to win me over and working side by side with me day in and day out? And you lived across the country, leaving us alone together most days?”

He sighed into my hair. “I would hate it. I don’t know if I could handle that either. Shit. This is just so much for me to process right now.”

“Yeah. I know how you feel,” I said with a sigh.

“We’ll figure this out. We will.”

I nodded, but tears started brimming my eyes as I realized the choices we would soon have to make. His town or mine? His dream or mine? The man of my dreams or the life of my dreams? The weight of the exact reasoning that had terrified me to even allow a sliver of hope to break through in the first place nearly dropped me to my knees.

“I... I need some time to think about things, Carter. This is all... it’s too much.”

“We have time to figure it out, Jenna. We will figure it out. We have to. Please don’t toss in the towel before we even give this a fighting chance.”

“Do we though? Do we have a fighting chance? Because it sure as hell seems to me like we don’t. Either I give up the place I love, or you give up the career you’ve worked so hard to build. I don’t see another path. We’re doomed, Carter. And the longer we prolong this thing, the more painful it’s going to be when it ends.”

If that is even possible.