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“But you do. I do, too. Hell, even Anne does.” She sighed, her shoulders dipping. “We have pretty great parents who worked really hard to give us every advantage they could.”
“We do,” I agreed.
“But they also really fucking suck when they dump all their expectations onto our lives. Honestly, all three of us need to take a hard line with Mom and cut her off from information regarding our careers until she understands that she doesn’t get a say.”
“That’s not a half-bad idea,” I mused.
“You can’t let Mom’s absurd expectations affect your relationship with Daisy,” Harper said softly. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you, Ash, and if you let her get away—”
“She’s already gotten away, Harp.” I gestured to my empty office. “She’s gone. She threw the whole you’re just embarrassed of me and love isn’t enough at me and left.”
“And you just…what? Let her go?”
“What was I supposed to do?” I stood from my desk and started pacing. “Beg? Fight? Force her into a relationship she clearly doesn’t think will work?”
“That woman loves you,” she argued, standing up. “I’ve seen it, Ash. She loves you like one of the characters in her books. So what, you had a fight. Fix it! You had to fight to build this company, Ash. I saw it. You built it from the ground up with blood, sweat, tears, and a hell of a lot of battles. Are you seriously telling me you’re willing to fight for your business, but not Daisy?”
“She doesn’t see herself in my life!” Hurt and misery echoed with every word.
“So you show her that you can make room!” Harper stood in front of me, making me pause, and gripped my shoulders. “You show her that she belongs in your life, and you belong in hers. You compromise.”
“And you honestly think that will work?” A tiny kernel of hope took hold in the center of my chest.
“I think you won’t know until you try. And if you do try, you do fight, you do pull out all the stops and leave it all on the table…and she still doesn’t want you? Then she isn’t who I think she is,” Harper said softly.
I sat back on the edge of my desk, piecing together the argument I’d had with Daisy, the reasoning she’d used to push me away, and what, if anything, I could do.
“I know that look,” Harper said, perching next to me on the desk. “You’re thinking of something.”
“Yeah, I am.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I just don’t know if it will work.”
But I had to try.
18
DAISY
I clicked send and shut my laptop.
It’d been almost a month since Asher and I split up. A month of tears and three rounds of edits, and now the book I’d dedicated to Asher was off to print.
Usually, I’d call my girls and we’d go out to celebrate. A nice dinner, some drinks and dancing, any excuse to let loose after a long deadline. But I didn’t have it in me this time. The accomplishment felt hollow, despite knowing how hard I’d worked on it.
If being with Asher had taught me anything, it was the realization of how hard I worked. Before, I’d never accredited myself in the way I should because I didn’t fit into a normal corporate schedule. I wrote when my characters spoke to me loudest and plotted new ideas as they came to me. But all that aside, when I really looked at it, I worked more hours than most nine-to-five jobs, and even when I took my last-minute trips, I brought my laptop and cranked out words before I found the fun.
I worked just as hard as Asher freaking Silas, but that hadn’t made me good enough for him.
Stop. My inner voice was definitely team Asher, and had been ever since I’d taken some time to cool off and rehash the fight we’d had a million times in my mind.
Had his intentions been in the right place? Maybe. But he hadn’t denied it when I’d said I’d never be accepted for me in his world. He was a smart man, the smartest I’d ever known. He had to see the hurdles between us weren’t worth the effort he’d have to put in to stay with me. And I’d meant what I said, I couldn’t be with someone who made me feel small for just being who I was.
Even though Asher had never once made me feel small up until that point.
“Knock, knock!” Fiona called as she let herself into my apartment, Maddison following close behind her, two bottles of wine clutched in her hands.
Fiona carried three massive pizza boxes.
“Happy finished a book day!” Fiona said, setting the boxes down on my kitchen counter.
“You sent it right?” Maddison asked, setting down the wine before looking at her watch.
