Wrapped in Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 4)

She’s silent for several pounding beats of my heart, and I can see the war on her face as she tries to decide how much she wants to tell me. “I heard you talking to Ethan in your office on Saturday.”

I still, beer halfway to my mouth. Slowly, I lower it to the table. Shit. If she heard me talking to Ethan, she knows how I feel about her. She knows I want to try to pursue something personal, despite our professional relationship. But what the hell—I revealed as much when I opened her private little collection, didn’t I? “You did?”

“Yes, and I never would have taken the job if I’d known you didn’t want me.”

That’s . . . What? “What exactly do you think you heard me say, Molly?”

She scans my face and swallows. “I heard him say you never wanted to hire me. And you said you wish you hadn’t.”

“Jesus.” I rub my forehead. “Did you hear the rest of it?”

“Why would I want to?” Her blue eyes fill with tears. “I’m really proud of the work I’ve done for you—both as your sales manager and banquet center manager—but I’m not going to cling to a position where I’m not wanted. After Christmas, I’ll help to find and train my replacement, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You need this job.” I laugh, because this is so ridiculous. “More than that, the banquet center and your staff need you. I need you.”

She blinks at me, as if those words surprise her. I must be the shittiest boss ever if she doesn’t understand what an asset she is.

“I can’t stop you if you want to leave, but certainly don’t do it because you think it’s what I want or what’s best for the business.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t need your pity, Brayden. This is just like Saturday night when you assumed you needed to protect me and—”

“You were drunk, and I told him not to start anything with you. I told him you’d been drinking, but the sonofabitch took you to his car anyway.”

She slowly pushes back from the table and stands. “You did what?”

“Come on, Molly. You were downing tequila like it was your job. You wouldn’t have let him touch you if you weren’t trashed, and he knew it.”

She stalks toward me. “Are you so sure of that, Brayden?”

“Yeah. I am. You were in a mood, and—”

She slams her palms against my chest. “You don’t know shit about me, and you had no right to tell him he should or shouldn’t touch me. Jesus. I’m a grown woman. I chose to drink too much. I chose to get in that car with him, and when I changed my mind, I chose to get back out.”

You were crying. I swallow back the words and meet the anger in her eyes with my own stubborn stare. “Jason has a reputation for sweet-talking women into his bed and then dropping them. Do you want me to be sorry that I was looking out for you?”

“I want you to apologize for interfering in my life. You had no right. I don’t want you punching guys for me, and I don’t want you giving me jobs you don’t want to give me. Quit treating me like I’m some breakable doll who needs protecting.”

Her hands smack my chest again, and I ball my hands into fists at my sides to resist the urge to pull her into my arms. “I never said you were breakable.”

“You’re right. You didn’t say I was breakable. You said I was broken.”

I close my eyes, trying to remember exactly what I said and imagining how those words sounded to her. Less than two months ago, I found out the real reason she avoided Jackson Harbor for the last eight years. She wasn’t just trying to keep Noah a secret from everyone here. She was protecting her son from the man who abused her most of her childhood. The man who raped her when she came home from college. “You have had a brutal year, and half of that was on me for bringing you back here.” It’s true, if not the full truth. I’ve had a lot of time to regret my role in returning her to the hellish reminder of her past. “If you’d stayed in New York, the mess with your dad wouldn’t have happened.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” she whispers. “Don’t you think I realize that my returning here set Colton off? But it was my decision, Brayden. Not yours. I hate that I brought such a mess to your family when I moved home, and I’m sorry that learning about my past made Colton turn to his addictions again, but it was my choice. That wasn’t your fault.”

“You had a horrendous childhood. If I had known about what you’d been through when we met in New York, I never would have—”