I could understand it, yes.
But did I need it?
Fuck no.
Not a single thread of my soul had wavered the day I dropped Watt outside that bar. Not a single thread had wavered the day after, the week after or any minute between the start of this scandal and where I was now.
Holland Maxwell was the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.
And as torn apart as I had been when she left, I wasn’t remotely worried right now. Because I had meant what I said to her brother a little over three weeks ago, the day he found out about us.
I would go anywhere for Holland.
I would stop at nothing to make her happy, to make her mine forever, and it didn’t matter where she was now.
Because I was going to find her.
“I mean there’s gotta be a way to get
information out of the roommate,” Drew said for the tenth time.
“I think you underestimate the laws of girl code.”
“Trust me, I do not. My wife has a best friend too, and I’m well aware of how it goes,” Drew snorted, referring to our friend Emmett’s wife, Aly. “I’m just saying maybe you can Jedi mind-trick the roommate into telling you something useful, because she’s the only one who knows anything, and without her telling you shit, you’re going to have to become a mindreader.”
I paused, looking up from Holland’s letter in my hand to stare at Drew from where I sat in the kitchen. Because I knew he’d made his last comment to be a smart ass, but it had just given me a small epiphany. No, I wasn’t a mindreader.
But I’d always been able to read Holland.
To know what she was thinking.
I knew her in a way that no one else did, and now that I’d confirmed Adam and A.J were as in the dark as I was—that Mia wasn’t going to betray Holland’s trust—I could take the time to use my own brain. To rely on the skill I’d had since knowing Holland.
That I’d recently sharpened once again.
“Look, Kai! What’s that?” Drew faked a gasp, using his excited dad voice as he picked up Kai and turned him to face me. “You know what that’s called, buddy?” He bounced a laughing Kai as he grinned at me. “That’s called a breakthrough.”
And as much as I didn’t want to, I had to grin back, shaking my head at Drew and his endless ability to give me shit. But as much of an asshole as he was, I couldn’t hold it against him.
But he was spot on.
40
HOLLAND
Eleven days in and I was still comparing everything to New York.
It was hard not to.
After all, this was another brand new start since my first one three months ago. And once again, I was in a new city that was sleek, sophisticated. Exciting.
And home to Minx.
Since leaving the New York office, Freya had been emailing our team constantly about Milan. It was a source of our daily giggles at work the way she constantly dropped more than a few hints by telling us about the open positions at headquarters. Jobs they were hiring for. Because as amazing as it was working in Milan, she missed her team from New York, and Minx was good about transfers, so she always signed off with the same line.
You never know! It might be the perfect opportunity for you.
And as it turned out, she was right.