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Anthony perked right up in his chair and looked around the patio, as if trying to spot her. Gage looked slightly less grumpy and also glanced around.
The trip was for the afternoon only, a quick turnaround. No hotel room, no overnight stay. We wouldn’t be in town long, but we had wanted to see her and at least talk about everything that was happening.
“There she is,” I said, standing from the table as I saw a hostess leading her our way.
Anthony jumped from his seat, and even Gage seemed to have a little more pep in his step as he got up from the table.
I couldn’t blame them. She looked so damned good. Better than I imagined. She was coming straight from work, so she was dressed professionally in a gray pencil skirt and matching suit jacket. Her hair was pulled into a slick bun at the back of her head.
Her smile was infectious as always.
“Guys! I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, but I’m so happy to see you!” she exclaimed, hugging me first. Inhaling her scent brought back so many memories and it was hard to let her go when she pulled away to hug the other two guys.
“How’s everyone else? Please tell me that this whole thing with Hunter isn’t causing too many problems for you.”
“Not at all,” Anthony said. “It’s a minor blip, and I’m confident that we can prove that he’s full of shit.”
“Good, I hope so,” she said, taking a seat next to me. “And I’m willing to do everything I can to help. He’s made my life a living hell ever since I came back.”
“Is he still being creepy?” I asked.
“Yeah, a little. He’s being an ass more than anything else, though. Not surprising, but it sucks that I have to work with him every day.”
“Did you ask your stepmom to fire him after what happened?”
“I mentioned it, but she found a way to turn everything around and blame it all on me, as usual.” Snow rolled her eyes and glanced at the menu. “I have a couple interviews next week though, so here’s hoping I can quit and never see either of them ever again.”
Then, as if a lightbulb had gone off over her head, she perked right up and her eyes grew wide. “Oh! You guys haven’t heard yet! My article about your resort got picked up byGlamourmagazine. It’s not a travel magazine, but the byline is super impressive, nonetheless. It should open a lot of doors.”
“Wow, that’s huge news,” I said. “I’m happy for you. Do you think this will help you kickstart your travel writing career?”
Her shoulders slumped a bit. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. I’ve approached a few different magazines about sponsoring my travel, but so far, I’ve been told I don’t have enough experience for anything like that. I would need to fund my own travel for a bit, until I’ve got a few more articles under my belt.”
“Well you know you can always come back to the resort. You wouldn’t have to pay anything, and you could write a follow-up article about everything you missed due to cutting your trip short,” I told her.
“While amazing as that sounds, and I appreciate it very much, it’s more of a time issue at the moment. Hilda and Hunter aren’t going to let me take any more time off, and I probably won’t be able to when I first start a new job… so sadly, it could be a while. But that’s fine, things are looking up.”
“I’m glad to hear that, and if there’s anything we can do to make it easier for you, just let us know. I know I speak for all of us when I say that we are more than happy to help you.”
That put a smile back on her beautiful face.
“Y’all are so sweet, I swear. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve your kindness, especially since it seems I’m the reason trouble has come to your business.”
Anthony once again brushed it off. “Hunter isn’t going to cause us any problems. It just gives us an excuse to visit you if anything. I’d consider it a net positive. I just hope that you speaking out against Hunter doesn’t hurt your career any more. You don’t have to join us—”
“Oh no, I’m going to do the right thing. Besides, Hunter can’t really treat me any worse than he already does at work, and my stepmom… well, same, honestly. If they fire me, they’ll have a lawsuit on their hands, so I’m pretty confident that things will be fine until I find another job.”
A waitress came and took our orders. We would have a quick lunch, then head over and meet with the lawyer. Anthony seemed confident. I wanted to be too, but I knew that it wasn’t as simple as he was making it out to be.
Glancing over at Snow who was chatting with Gage about something unrelated to all the drama, I prayed that this wouldn’t come back and bite her in the ass, too. I didn’t want anything to happen to her. Dammit, I cared about her. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I did, and there was no way I would allow anything to hurt her.
29
Gage
“Chuck Peters. Sounds like a douche already,” I muttered as we waited for the lawyer and Hunter to show up. They were late. Wasting even more of our time than necessary.
We were sitting in a meeting room at Peters, Peters and Waterstone, Attorneys at Law. Snow was sitting on one side of me, Reed on the other, the two people most likely to keep me calm if my anger got the best of me.
