Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Blair shrugs her shoulders. “I really don’t know. I was hoping to get it on the market before Christmas, but Estelle, the real estate agent, let me know I was dreaming. She won’t be able to get it listed until mid-January, assuming I’ve completed everything I need to do. And as for an actual sale, she thinks it could be months.”
“Fuck.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she says. “I need to get out of this place as soon as I can.”
Again, her words are like a slap across the face, a shot right through the chest. “Yeah, well fuck you too. Having you back in town wasn’t exactly my Christmas wish, but you don’t need to go acting as though being in the same area code as me is giving you hives.”
“I didn’t . . . that’s not what I . . . Fuck, Nick. Why do you always have to take everything so personal? I didn’t mean I wanted to get out of here because I can’t stand being around you. The thought of getting to be in the same damn room as you is the only reason I haven’t hightailed it back to New York yet,” she says, the cold forcing a little honesty into her words. “I was referring to my new business. I need to get home so I can start figuring out my next steps.”
“What are you talking about? What business? You went to New York for your dream job. What happened to that?”
“What do you think happened?” she mutters. “I fucked it up just like I fuck up everything else.”
“You got fired?”
She nods, shame flashing in those beautiful blue eyes. “I mean, it’s not the first time. My boss and I . . . we don’t often see eye to eye, and he certainly doesn’t understand my . . . humor. He’s fired me a handful of times before, but our clients love me, and every time he lets me go, they’ve pressured him to bring me back, and I always go willingly. Only this time . . . I don’t want to go back.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I’m going to start my own firm,” she tells me, sounding somewhat sheepish as though admitting one of her dreams is the hardest thing she’s ever done. “My best friend, Rena, is going to help me get off the ground, and I already have a great rapport with my clients from SC Corporate, so considering their current contracts, I think many of them will happily come with me. And I just . . . I don’t know. I think I have a good chance of succeeding with this.”
“Of course you do,” I tell her. “If anybody is going to build a successful business from the ground up and absolutely kill it against the bigwigs in New York, it’s you.”
Blair presses her lips into a hard line, her gaze falling back to mine. “You really mean that? You’re not just saying that because you feel like an ass for saying having me back in town isn’t exactly your Christmas wish?”
“I don’t feel like an ass for saying that. I was being honest. And yes, I really meant it. I think you can achieve anything you want.”
“You really are an ass,” she throws back at me, getting catty again, crossing her arms over her chest, pulling the coat even tighter as she picks up her pacing, probably wearing a hole through the ground by now.
I clench my jaw, the cold clearly fucking with my head as I storm out of the truck and stride around the front, goosebumps quickly spreading across my chilled skin. “What the fuck do you want from me, Blair?” I demand, holding my hands out wide. “You want me to lie to you and tell you that seeing you back in town is everything I ever wanted? Because it’s not. I’ve dreamed about bringing you home ever since the day you left, but actually seeing you again is like tearing the wound wide open. You fucking killed me when you left, and I’d give anything not to have to relive that pain again. You think I’m here, getting in your face because I enjoy this? Fucking hell.”
I shake my head, running my hands through my cropped hair and turning away from her as I try to find my composure. Then taking a breath, I turn back, meeting her tear-filled stare. “I’m falling apart, Blair. Just the sight of your face is destroying everything I’ve tried to heal over the past six years, and all you can manage to say is that you can’t wait to be out of this godforsaken town. Were you even planning on coming to find me? Did you even care to see where we stood after all these years? Care to see the destruction you left behind?” I take a breath, my hands shaking as I stare into those stunning blue eyes that live in my dreams. “You’ve come flying back in here without a fucking care of who it impacts, acting as though I’m the one who hurt you, hiding behind counters, and shying away from me as though we weren’t part of the same damn whole.”