Page 15 of Worth the Try
I give Rosie a zerbert on her fat little cheek, delighting in the squeal I get in response. “Or what?”
“Or we’ll both have to tickle you!” She holds her hands up like claws.
“I’ll be nice,” I promise, holding my pinkie up and glancing at Elodie, who’s watching us. Rosie loops hers with mine, and we both kiss our pinkies.
Our ritual complete, I put her down and direct everyone back outside to the screened-in area, then hustle to the front to takecare of the driver’s tip. After I get the pizza set up and everyone’s getting their slices, my phone buzzes.
Figuring it’s Lennox, lamenting he’s missing us even while he’s visiting family back home in Glasgow, I don’t hesitate to pull it from my shorts pocket.
UNKNOWN
I messed up.
I stare at the text, willing it to make sense, yet terrified that I know precisely who it might be.
Before I can think too much about it, I type back.
ME
You know exactly what you did. Lose this number.
Chapter 6
Elodie
FALLING ASLEEP IN a new place is never easy for me.
Falling asleep in the next-level guesthouse that belongs to my new employer, who also happens to be incredibly hot…is much, much harder.
It doesn’t matter that the air conditioner works flawlessly, that the mattress is incredible, that Cleocatra has settled in perfectly, or that I’ve got my own pillows and satin pillowcases. None of it matters.
Because I can’t get him out of my head.
The easy way he was with his daughter, and how he didn’t hesitate to pick her up and shower her with love and affection?
So fluffing sexy.
The way all the other guys looked up to him, not hesitating to do whatever he asked. The smiles he delivered without hesitation. His treatment of me as an equal.
And that’s throwing me for such a loop. Because apparently, I’ve spent yearsnotbeing treated like an equal at work. Always getting the coffee and printing copies and taking notes and setting appointments, even though there were people more junior than me who should have done it. Always doing the lowest level of work even as I pitched brilliant event idea after brilliantidea. Never allowing myself to get too worked up over any of it, though, becausethat’s just the way it is.
It’s only now, lying in the dark and staring at the ceiling, that I think maybe—no,definitely—I was taken advantage of. For years. Years that I spent being nice. So very, very nice. Of doing whatever was asked of me, even if it wasn’t my job. Of smiling and gritting my teeth when my boss took credit for my ideas after watering them down. Of staying in that stupid cubicle.
Getting fired was a gut punch.
Realizing that I should have walked away a long, long time ago? Devastating.
Today, none of the guys looked at me with anything but respect. None of them made crass jokes. I never caught them looking at my body with disgust or in a way that made me feel like I existed just for them to gaze upon. And somehow, I knew they behaved because of Ansel. Or maybe that’s not quite it. Ansel set the example, and they followed suit.
And that…that is sexy.
Did I mention the glasses? Because he was wearingglasses.He didn’t have them on the first time, but today he did, and ugh, I don’t know why it made him so good-looking. But it did.
It’s probably bad that I think he’s hot. Actually, it’s notprobablybad; it’sdefinitelybad. So bad. I haven’t even officially started the job—I do that tomorrow—and I’m doing the very thing to him that I was thrilled not to have done to me today.
Great.
I’m not remotely a good person.
