I have to fight back the sting of tears and this burning ache in my chest. I’m a stupid fool. A stupid fool who thought she could return to Jackson Harbor without consequences. A fool who thought maybe she might be good enough for a man like Brayden Jackson.
I swing around the corner into my office and stumble into Brayden, already dressed in his suit for the ceremony.
“Are you okay?” He takes my shoulders in his hands and ducks his head to study my face. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” The lie feels like a betrayal to my new life, to the woman I spent those long, lonely years in New York becoming. One word, and I’ve taken a thousand steps back toward the girl I used to be. Everything’s fine. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. My eyes burn, and my skin feels too tight. “Don’t you need to be at the ceremony site?” I’m shaking, and I know he can see it.
“Hey, tell me what happened.” His voice is gentle but firm.
I swallow. “Not now,” I whisper. Because I know if I explain, I’ll lose it, and I need to keep it together until we get through this day.
“Is that Austin?”
I follow Brayden’s gaze out my office window and to the parking lot nestled in the trees beyond, where Austin is tearing out of the lot in his fancy red sports car. His mom bought one of those for Gabe, too. I have vivid memories of sitting in the back seat with him and having him shove my head into his lap.
I swallow hard and lock away that memory. Not now. “We’ll be short two servers,” I say, the words too tight, but my eyes are dry and my head is up. I’m not the girl I used to be. Just ask Austin’s balls.
Brayden meets my steely gaze and seems to understand that I’m not going to talk about it right now. “Okay,” he says softly. “We’ll make it work. Tell me what I can do.”
Brayden
“Has anyone ever told you that you shouldn’t try to do everything yourself?”
Groaning, Molly opens her eyes. She’s lying on the couch in the break room, her head at one end and her feet stretched to the other. “It’s been mentioned a few times. By bosses before you.”
“But you do it anyway.” I slide onto the end of the couch, put her feet in my lap, and slip off her shoes. Upstairs, her staff is serving hors d’oeuvres at Ethan and Nic’s cocktail hour, and in less than an hour, the bride and groom will be here. “Let me help.”
“You’re the best man. There’s no way I’m letting you serve at this dinner,” she whispers. I can hear the anguish in her voice. She wants to make tonight perfect, to make every event perfect. To prove herself to me—as if she needs to. “This is a disaster.”
“It’s not.” I gently massage her arches.
She snorts. “Tell that to Nic and Ethan.”
I’m silent for a long time, weighing my words against her disappointment and frustration before speaking. I know I can come off as condescending—my siblings remind me frequently—and that’s the last thing I want right now. Molly is more than competent in her position. She’s motivated, organized, and passionate. If anything, her expectations are too high. As her boss, I’m pretty sure I’m not ever supposed to think that. As the man who loves her, I just want her to give herself a break.
“I’ll make adjustments,” she says. “To the staff. To the way we serve and the way I train them. I won’t let something like tonight happen again.”
“It probably will,” I say gently, and she winces. “And when it does, it won’t be a reflection of your efforts or abilities. It’ll simply be the nature of the beast. And if you always hustle to make it work like you have today and every day before, then our clients should consider themselves lucky.”
She blinks at me, then swallows. “Thank you, Brayden.”
“You’re welcome.” The words come out gruff, like they have to pass over the rough terrain of my raw emotions before making it past my lips. “Do you want to talk about what happened with the little shit who walked out?”
She’s silent for a long time, and for a minute, I think she won’t tell me. “I went to high school with his brother. Apparently, Gabe hasn’t grown up much in the last eight years and decided to share the escapades of his youth with his little brother.” She takes a deep breath, and I wait, knowing she needs to get through this without me interrupting. “Austin cornered me down here on our break. He suggested I supply him with the same . . . favors I once gave his brother.”
My whole body stiffens, but I try to keep the magnitude of my rage out of my voice when I say, “I hope you didn’t—”