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“The Liam Croft?”Gunther sounded like a teenager who just found out his hero was in front of him.
“Haley…do you realize who that man is? He won two heavyweight titles in the span of five years…that’s…I can’t even.”
Haley laughed and it was so sweet it made my chest ache.
“Gunther, I need you to be professional here. Come up with an offer you feel is fair. I don’t want anything to do with it. I’ll send you the address so you can deliver it, and I would be so appreciative if it could be soon.”
He lowered his phone.
“My assistant records business calls for me when I’m in the office…it helps us both remember what needs to be done afterward,” Gunther explained, sliding his phone back into his pocket.
“So it wasn’t really her. I mean, the suggestion was, but it was all you?” I tilted my face to catch his glare.
He gave me a firm nod. “That girl has been tossing me businesses to financially back for years, and she’s never wrong. I trust her gut. And while she may have been trying to help you, she knew I’d ask for numbers. I didn’t just say yes because of her. I did my own research.”
Well, fucking shit. That made me feel a thousand percent worse for what I said.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
Gunther put his hand on my shoulder and leveled me with a scowl. “Because you’re an idiot. Pay off your debt and work with me.Iwanted to invest in your gym. And maybe you can talk Haley out of leaving something she helped build.”
Fuck, if I could do that, she’d be with me right now. Because she had helped us to rebuild our home. Our entire lives.
But she wasn’t going to forgive me for this.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
Surprises
‘Goodnight, Mommy’
All variations of mom
Chalkboards
Lists
Family Photos
Lilac
It finally happened.
I heard it.
Maddy did it first, and I thought I’d be ready because the girls had warned me. They had flat-out asked me if they could call me mom, but since that day, there wasn’t a reason for them to directly call me or ask me anything, and if they did, they reverted back to Haley.
It was fine, I wasn’t going to sweat it either way, but I was anxious about it. Particularly knowing that Liam was watching and listening too.
I kept trying to dodge him, but Liam was a force of nature. He was mine, and while I was hurt and angry with him, my possession of him didn’t change. He was buried under my skin, deep in my heart. Fatally so.
There was no dodging him.
He was ever-present and always on my mind, even as I slept alone and woke with an ache between my legs and a stinging in my heart. He was everywhere and nowhere, and it was maddening.
So when Maddy walked into the kitchen, holding her backpack, and sweetly said, “Mom, can you help get my zipper unstuck?” I dropped a glass.
It shattered on the floor, which probably gave Maddy trauma, but I swooped in and hugged her to my chest so tight, I didn’t think it would stay. My tears wouldn’t stop, even as I did, in fact, unstick the zipper.
