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I turned and started to walk out of the office, pulling the door closed again behind me, but then I stopped, lashing out in a last ditch effort to make him understand the pain he’d caused.
“And Brady? I quit. You’re a liar and a coward, and I’m sorry I ever trusted you.”
His eyes went wide again, but I steeled myself against the hurt I saw there and slammed the door shut before either of us could say another word.
I crossed in front of the counter, half-expecting—maybe even hoping for—the door to fly open and Brady to come out and tackle me or something. Tomakeme listen. To make itright.
But he didn’t follow me.
There was no more shouting. No chasing. No tackling. There was just me, stumbling out the front door of the shop and running to my car.
And then, once I was behind the wheel with my door closed and my seatbelt fastened, there were tears. Lots of tears. Tears for my job—myformerjob. Tears for the way Henry would have felt about selling his shop. Tears for the fantasy that I’d been living with Brady… the future I’d started to believe we might have together.
This chapter of my life—some of the happiest times I’d ever known—was over, and no matter what kind of explanation he might have, it wouldn’t change one fundamental fact: Brady was still thinking of selling… which meant that he didn’t feel the things I did.
Hecouldn’t.
Because if he had?
Selling just wouldn’t have been an option if Brady had fallen in love with me, too.
Chapter Thirty-Five - Brady
I was stunned. Even the couple of times that Joanne had been upset—even when she had been upset withme—she’d never spoken to me that way. Not with that kind of raw hurt and anger.
For several seconds, I sat in silence, reeling, trying to grasp what had just happened.
Nope.
I didn’t have time to figure it out. I just needed to make it right.
I stood up and walked around the desk, reaching for the door. I’d hopefully be able to catch Joanne before she made it out of the parking lot. I’d hopefully be able to talk some sense into her. But… what was I going to say?
I froze, hand still on the doorknob.
Was I rushing outside just to rehash the same ugly, bitter argument we’d just had? That hadn’t ended well the first time, and it would probably just get worse if I forced a second round without a plan. So, what then?
I didn’t have any better answers to her questions than I’d had before. Just my insistence that the situation wasn’t what she thought it was. But… wasn’t it?
Wasn’t I talking about selling the business? Even though I hadn’t sought the guy out, hadn’t I technically met with Mike? And then delayed telling Joanne until some future date?
This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to rush into anything, though—both with the business and with Joanne. It made an easy decision to sell the business complicated. Worse, it made a tough decision—to walk away from everything I might have had with Joanne—nearly impossible.
Slowly, I walked back around my desk and sunk into the chair, making it squeak and groan under my sudden weight.
There were just no easy answers. Once again, my father had left me alone to face the world, to face a problem that I wasn’t prepared to deal with.
I felt the fact that I had to make a decision atallto be a slap in the face—almost a big fuck you from the grave. It had been bad enough that Dad hadn’t been around—at least not emotionally—when I had needed him as a teenager. But now? He’d abandoned me again, leaving me stuck between a rock and a hard place, during a time when I could really use some advice.
If only Henry had taken better care of himself.
Or hadn’t opened the flower shop in the first place.
If only he’dbeen thereat any fucking time in my life.
“Fuck!”
I slammed the palm of my hand against the desk, almost welcoming the shooting pain that it sent up my wrist. Maybe it would numb some of the other feelings I was experiencing, or at least provide a substitute for the other pain. The one in my heart.
