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They continued to talk about Kingston and his wife like I wasn’t here.
Like a little part of me wasn’t dying with every comment.
Did he still love Ariel? Was that why he didn’t want to talk about her? I’d assumed they were on the outs before her death.
My chair screeched when I pushed away from the table. I mumbled something polite before racing out of the room. I couldn’t look at either of them. I didn’t want to see their pity when they realized every one of their words were flaying me alive.
I’d been a fool to get involved with my boss. And an even bigger fool to get involved with someone who was still hung up on their perfect, dead wife.
What had I been thinking?
I raced upstairs and headed for my room. I just wanted to collapse on my bed and pretend this whole shitshow had never happened. Maybe if I wished hard enough, I’d wake up in another reality—one where I wasn’t falling for my boss who was most likely in love with his dead wife.
“Briar?”
Eff me. I froze and closed my eyes. This was the day that just kept on giving.
I sighed and headed in that direction. “Yes?”
When I reached the open door, I found Kingston sitting on Zoe’s rainbow rug with her in his lap and a zillion books surrounding them. I had to smile. He really was the best dad. It melted my heart every single time I saw them together.
With his arms looped around his little girl, King tossed me a grimace. “I’m sorry for the scene downstairs. Like I said, I’mgoing to handle bath and bedtime tonight since I’m home. You can have the rest of the night off.”
“Oh. Thank you.” The reminder that I was here as an employee was a slap in the face. We weren’t a couple. I was here because he paid me. And somewhere in the last few weeks, that had gotten lost in the tangle of our blurred lines. At best, I was a booty call. A hookup. I wasn’t his partner. I tried my best to smile politely at him—like he hadn’t just stabbed me in the heart with his words—then I turned to the little girl in his arms. “‘Night, Zoe. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She didn’t look up from the board book in her lap. Zoe was too busy reciting the story I’d read to her a thousand times already to even notice me standing there.
I shook my head with a more genuine smile this time. “’Night,” I repeated vaguely and didn’t even get a step away before King called for me again.
“Briar. I’d like to talk to you after bedtime, if that’s all right with you.”
“No.”
I don’t know where my iron spine came from, but I was glad I said it. Honestly after the way dinner had gone down and his little reminder of the hierarchy, I needed some time to myself. I had to think through what I was doing with my life. And what I should do next. I couldn’t do that anywhere in the vicinity of Kingston Grier.
And judging by the way he’d boggled at my answer, he wasn’t used to hearing that word.
I hitched a shoulder in apology. “Not tonight. We can talk tomorrow, if you want.”
And I made it clear from my tone thattalkingis all I meant.
After a beat, he nodded reluctantly. “Okay. Tomorrow. Good night.”
I gave him a half smile as my reply then walked away. When I reached my room, I locked the door before collapsing onto my bed, still fully dressed, and buried my face in my pillow.
This felt like the beginning of the end. I was finally forced to face the fact that I was—predictably—falling for a totally unavailable man. Zoe’s dad. My boss. The Sexiest Man Alive.
I was such a fool.
Because he was still hung up on his wife or at the very least hardened about relationships—like he’d told me before we even got together.
The only way this was going to end was with heartbreak.
I should’ve seen this coming.
Somehow that wasn’t comforting.
Tears raced down my cheeks. I’d barely gotten over the pain of my miscarriage and failed marriage, and now this.
