Until Cece (Happily Ever Alpha World)

“You don’t need a man right now.”

“Ever.” I take a drink of water from my glass, the ice clinking. “I… I just want my girls to be happy and to get myself sorted. I don’t want another man.” Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll start believing it.

She looks at me for a moment, so closely it makes me think she might sense I’m holding on to something, keeping my secret about Winston. But instead of calling me out, she only says, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” My expression softens, and my eyes water a little. “I see good things with you and Talon, so I hope you let him in and actually give him a chance,” I whisper, then I clear my throat before walking my glass to the sink. I turn back toward her. “I’m gonna head to bed, and don’t worry about getting up in the morning. I’m taking the girls to school, since I don’t have class until after noon and didn’t work tonight.” I walk around the counter, and she turns her stool toward me as I wrap my arms around my little sister. “Love you,” I repeat for good measure.

“Always,” she replies, and I head for bed.

15

Winston

“My son is going to need therapy when he grows up. If not sooner,” I murmur to Steph in her office before the dinner rush starts. Jared, our other evening cook, had to take the day off in order to get some work done on his house. Contractors have been backed up for what seems like forever after the tornado, and he was finally able to get on the Maysons’ schedule after I put in a word for him.

“At least you got her hysterics on camera this time,” Steph replies, shaking her head. “No offense, but that girl needs to be sedated.”

“None taken. I agree. Thankfully the restaurant wasn’t too crowded when it all happened. We lost a small fortune by offering everyone free dessert for having their meal ruined last time she pulled that shit.”

“Where is Nick now?” she asks, since it’s not often I work in the evenings on the weeks I have him.

I smile. “In his fort,” I reply, referring to the empty storage room down the hall that we piled with blankets and pillows for him to chill in with his iPad on the rare occasions I have to bring him to work with me. The perks of owning my own restaurant and being the boss.

“You going to introduce him to your new girlfriend when she arrives?”

She asks it so nonchalantly, yet I still choke on the water I was drinking out of my stainless-steel bottle. When I stop hacking up a lung, I look at her, my brow furrowed. “What are you—”

“Oh, come on, boss. You’ve been watching and panting over Cece like a lost wolf pup since the day I hired her. And all that ‘naekkeo’ mess… dude… you haven’t given anyone else around here a cute little pet name. You are so smitten kitten it’s embarrassing,” she says, and I swallow thickly. I thought I’d done a better job of hiding my feelings for her than that. “And the way she avoided you on Sunday, something must’ve happened between you two.”

I slouch down in my seat. “Yeah, well it certainly wasn’t her becoming my girlfriend. The opposite actually. I think I fucked up any chance of that happening in the future.”

“Uh oh. What happened?”

“I told her the truth about Corina, how we’re technically still married,” I murmur.

She sighs, shaking her head. “Well, it had to be done. It’s not like you can be openly in a relationship with Cece anyway, or your cunt of an ex will nail you in court for cheating, even if y’all haven’t been together in three years. Do me a favor and never sign another prenup for the rest of your life.”

“That, I can agree to. And I know. So it’s not fair to even try to have anything serious with her right now anyway. I still have three years to go before I can get divorced without losing everything. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t… stay away from her. I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m—”

“In love with her,” she states matter-of-factly, and it’s like she’s slapped me, because it rings true. I can’t even deny it. “You are head-over-heels for a woman for the first time in… God, I don’t even know. I’ve never seen you in love before, because I started working here after you were already well into the ‘hating life’ part of your marriage before y’all separated.”

“I’ve never felt like this for anyone before,” I admit, and she gives me a sad smile.

“Well, now you know. This is what it feels like to be in love with someone. It just sucks because there’s nothing you can do about it… not unless you want to give up everything you’ve worked so hard for to a bitch who’s done absolutely nothing but make your life a living hell for the past seven years. Has she shown up to any barbeques or dinners lately?” Steph asks, referring to all the times Corina’s arrived at my friends’ events without having been invited.