Page 140 of Worth the Fall
He glanced back up at the screen and back down at me. “Good work, Allegra. We can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”
I watched him file out of the room behind the rest of themen in suits and felt a thousand pounds fall off my shoulders.
Martha was bouncing toward me. “You did it,boss!”
I laughed. “Oh, I could get used to that!”
She hugged me as tightly as she could. “That was amazing. Seriously, you rocked it.”
I shook my arms as she released me. “I can’t believe that’s over. I’ve been working on that for months, and it’s just over.”
“You better feel good about it, because it was perfect,” she said, shaking my shoulders.
I nodded. “I feel good about it.”
“See you out there,” she said as she glanced back at Colton.
Colton waited until she was out of the room, until we were the only two people left, and ran to me, as quickly as he had after the rodeo.
He threw his arms around me and spun me around.
I was laughing. “Colton, you’re supposed to be resting!”
He set me down and shook his head. “This is your rodeo, Ally. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He looked back at the empty room. “Tough crowd, though.”
I nodded, gathering my papers and laptop. “You’re telling me.”
“I seriously can’t believe how smart you are,” he went on, making me shake my head and laugh. “I was doing my best to keep up with what you were sayin’, but you were blowin’ my mind.”
“Now you’re just trying to give me a big head!”
“Is it workin’?”
“Almost.”
“Good,” he said, kissing my cheek. “‘Causeyou deserve it. Gosh, I am so proud of you!”
I didn’t want to think about what my promotion meant forus.Yes, Colton was done with rodeos until December, but he still had a ranch and the Agri-Corp stores back in Oklahoma.
We lived in two completely different worlds.
But we didn’t need to think about that today.
We had each other; that’s all that mattered.
Chapter Forty-Four
“So then, Martha pushed him back and started screaming in his face!” I went on, trying my best not to laugh as I finished my story. “Once he was speechless, she dragged me to Mr. Sterling’s office and told him what happened. He fired him on the spot!”
Colton looked bewildered, shifting in the plush velvet chair that seemed a size too small for his shoulders. He looked from me to sweet, silver-haired Martha sitting beside her husband, Jeff.
“You did that?” Colton asked, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“We’ve been best friends ever since,” Martha said with a shrug. “She was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen, and I wasn’t gonna let anyone treat her like that.”
Jeff patted his wife’s hand. “Don’t let that innocent face fool you. She’s a mastermind. In this city, you need a shark in your corner. I think Allegra found hers early.”
Colton grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
