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“They talk to you about it?” he asked, frowning. She couldn’t see his face.

“I think they just talk in general. Doesn’t that happen at Duke’s? Some know I do the social media posts too. They don’t know the rest that I do and maybe they think I’ve got more say with you.”

“You do have say with me,” he said, rubbing his fingers on her bare shoulder.

“In the bedroom but not at work. Anyway. I just wanted to bring up the fact there were a lot of comments on the brunch. The picnic idea wasn’t what I had in mind to talk about now.”

“Let me think about it some more. Maybe once a month would work.”

“The same Sunday each month,” she said. “Then people get into the habit of knowing when it’d be. You could have some catchy phrase or something. Like if you did the last Sunday of the month, it could be Last Sunday Brunch and you could play off of the last supper type thing. Corny I know, but if you do something that sticks in people’s minds they will be like ‘oh yeah, last supper, last Sunday’.”

He laughed. “I guess that is why you’ve got the marketing background and not me?”

“Not much of one at times,” she said.

“There you go again. Not giving yourself credit for things. You’ve got great ideas. You’re an awesome baker. The staff and the customers love you. Though you’ve had no experience running a pub.”

“And I still don’t,” she said, laughing.

“You learn fast. You’ve got skills that I don’t.”

“Not like you think,” she said. “Never that. People come for your food. Even if you weren’t doing more marketing and advertising, Southside would be thriving.”

“The food is part of it,” he said. “And they are coming for your desserts now too and you know it.”

She put her head on his shoulder. “It’s so nice people want something from me in a positive way.”

He hated that she felt that way, but he understood too. “It really is,” he said. “There is satisfaction in people praising your finished product.”

“There is,” she said. “I almost want to do a happy dance when I see people using their fingers to wipe up the last crumb off the plate. It probably sounds silly, but I think I just needed some kind of validation like this in my life.”

“We all need validation in our lives,” he said.

“I find it hard to believe that you do,” she said. He heard the humor in her voice.

“You’d be surprised.”

“Well, I’ve got so many things to be thankful for and they all start with you. You’ve made me see things I wouldn’t have been able to on my own. You’ve pushed me to speak up when it means something. You don’t tell me nice things but make me see it. If that makes sense. Pushing me to work at the desserts and then letting me see the rewards of that work, you telling the customers that it’s me. That’s showing me I’m good at something and it’s easier to believe it that way.”

He hated to hear her talking like that but understood what she was saying too.

“You should always speak up when it means something,” he said. “Otherwise you are sitting in the back just watching the world go by and wondering. Don’t ever let yourself be put in a position of regret. That you have to look back and say you wish you’d done something.”

“I never thought of it that way before.”

“Maybe it’s time you did,” he said.

28

Never Have Regrets

The following Sunday, Hadley had finally worked up the courage to talk to Duke.

He’d told her never to have regrets.

He made her feel good about life in general.

Not just on a personal level but a professional one.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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