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That part hurt like hell, more than listening to the rest of them talk about me. I shouldn’t let it hurt me, though. I knew what I was, who I was, and they did too. I just foolishly thought they saw more to me than my job. I mean, Sadie did, why didn’t they?
Molly said nothing, but the sympathy swimming in her big eyes was more than I could bear.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Molly. It’s fine, and more importantly, I’m fine. Some people deserve a happy ending, and they get it. Others, like me, well I’m not the type of chick who gets a happy ending, and I’ve made my peace with it.”
I still dreamed about it, about how I would act if I stumbled upon my very own happy ending. With Jasper. I imagined what that would look like—a big, broad-shouldered man with serious green eyes and ruthlessness that radiated from him—and even what our life would look like, but it was just a fantasy. A dream.
I consoled myself with retail therapy—courtesy of Sadie Ashby—and knowing that the men who allowed me to have the finer things in life wanted me, at least for a little while.
The sympathy was still there, in Molly’s eyes, and I tried not to let it piss me off. She’d been through what I’d been through, though at a much older age, and she would learn the truth sooner or later.
“Madison used to think the same thing. That a damaged girl from the trailer park who always wore dirty hand-me-down clothes would never get those dreams, and now she’s smack in the middle of her very own happily ever after. It’s great,” she said with a laugh, “and a little bit sickening to watch, but it gives me hope that I’m not so fucked up, that maybe one day I’ll find what she has. Someday.”
I smiled at the uncertainty in Molly’s voice. She was pretty and sweet and cute, the typical girl next door. I nodded and flashed a smile at Molly, who so obviously had wife and mother written all over her.
“Women like you always find nice guys who want nothing more than to love and protect you, Molly. I have no doubt you’ll find just that.”
She blushed and looked away. “Not after…everything.”
I nodded in understanding. “Yes, even after everything, Molly.” Her wounds were too fresh, but I couldn’t let the cruelty of men ruin another life, not of such a sweet girl.
“Look, I’ve been through what you have, except I was a kid, little more than a baby when it started. It fucked me up completely. You were, according to Maddie, a nice and sweet girl who was on track to have all the good things in life. Remember that girl, and don’t let her go. Do that, and you’ll get your happy ever after.”
“You sound so sure about me, but you’ve written it off for yourself. Why?”
“Because I am who I am, Molly. I don’t trust easily, and I’m not even sure I know how to love another person the way I already love my baby. No man can look at me and see past what I do, not even Jasper or the Ashby men. So what hope do I have that a normal everyday man can handle it?”
I shook off the hurt that snaked through me again and sighed. “What about Calvin? He’d love and protect you and give you everything your heart desires. And he’s rich as fuck. Only negative is that he’s still an Ashby.”
She blushed and looked away, shaking her head. “He is a fine-looking man for sure. Well, hot as fuck as they say. But, even if I knew how to start going after all that, I’m not ready to settle down with anyone. Not yet.”
I laughed out loud at that. “According to romance novels, that’s when the good guys are most likely to come around.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “I’m not so sure about that, but if you need anything, to talk, someone to do birthing classes with you, give me a call.”
I pointed at her and smiled. “See? There’s that nice and sweet thing I was talking about. Good men? They eat that shit up.”
And when she was ready, they would line up around the block for a chance with Molly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jasper
“Are you sure this is how you want to play this, Jas? It could backfire big time, and with Agent Beck running around with a hard-on for us, she could complicate things.” Virgil stood beside me just outside a brown and blue ranch house that sat nestled in a suburban neighborhood in Henderson, Nevada.
I scanned the house with blue shutters and a brown door. It looked like every other house on the block, except where the neighbors seemed to take care of the property with freshly mowed, manicured lawns, and nicer cars parked in the driveways, this house was mostly dark, all the blinds drawn in the middle of the day, the loud bump of rock music concealing whatever else might be happening inside.
