Molly

Brayden Jackson was, indeed, still there when I woke up, as real as the heat in my blood and the flutter in my stomach when he rolled me onto my back and trailed kisses down my body, wishing me good morning in a way I could certainly get used to.

I had breakfast with Noah and Mom then headed to the banquet center to get my employees started on the setup.

Within the first hour of arriving there, I found out that Bella’s stomach flu had spread to two other servers. I spent my morning making calls to employees who had the day off, but most had other plans or couldn’t get childcare at the last minute. By the time we’re on break and I’m preparing to run over to the ceremony site, I’m still short a server. That I can manage, but as I change into my dress for the ceremony, I say a prayer that the stomach flu won’t spread to any more of my staff before the night is through.

I adjust my dress and head to the locker room mirror to check my makeup. I have other staff members taking care of the less labor-intensive reception setup, and I want to be there to see Nic walk down the aisle.

I’m checking my lipstick when Austin pushes through the door and flips the lock behind him.

Frowning, I meet his gaze in the mirror. “We keep that door unlocked. The restroom and shower stalls have their own locks.”

He folds his arms and heads toward me. “I was hoping we could talk.”

I slide my lipstick back into my purse and turn to him. “Is everything okay?”

His face goes serious, and he shakes his head. “I’m really hurting.”

Oh, no. “Are you sick?” I cross the room and put a hand to his forehead, but before I can even register the temperature of his skin, he grabs my other hand and presses it against his crotch. I yank away and stumble back, and he unzips his pants and prowls toward me. His hand slides into his black briefs.

“Come on, Molly. I know what kind of slut you are. I know what you like. Everyone does. And I see how you look at me.”

“Fuck you.” I’m backed into a stall door, my gaze darting between him and the exit as he steps closer.

“Fuck me? It’s your lucky day. You can. And I know you want to.” He smiles, his eyes bright, as if this is some sort of game. As if we’re having fun here. “Nobody will know.”

“Don’t come a single step closer.” The old, sick terror claws at me, and I want to close my eyes and pretend this isn’t happening.

“Or what? You’ll tell my mommy? I think we both know what she thinks of you after she caught you and Gabe together. I’m just an innocent, curious kid. And you’re a slut who can’t get enough dick. Just ask Jason Ralston and Brayden Jackson and all the other guys you’ve fucked in your office.” He closes the distance between us with a final step, and I move fast, driving my knee up into his crotch. He shouts and crumples to the floor.

I dart around him, unlock the door with shaking hands, and run upstairs.

His shouts echo in the stairwell behind me. “We all see how easy you are. You aren’t fooling anyone!”

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—”

She flies upright. “I would never. Not at work, and certainly not with some child.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” But I see it on her face. That defensiveness. The shields she’s honed after a lifetime of people assuming she would. The little teenage punk believing she would. Even though she’s his boss, eight years older than him, and light-years better than him. “I was going to say that I hope you didn’t feel like your position as his boss meant you shouldn’t kick him in the nuts.”

She swallows. “Obviously, I tried to handle it professionally, but he was persistent, and it got a little . . . ugly.” She turns her head, her gaze shifting to the lockers, the shower stalls, anywhere but my eyes. “There are some moments when I’m not sure why I thought coming back to Jackson Harbor was a good idea.”

The pain on her face does something to me—a tug in my chest somewhere between an ache and a need to act. It’s the way I felt when I watched my father die, when I watched my mother fight cancer. The way I felt when Sara disappeared and cut herself out of my life so completely that I had no way of knowing if she was okay.

I exhale slowly and return my focus to her foot, digging my thumbs into her heel before taking her other foot into my hand and giving it the same treatment as the first. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came back. And not just because you’re my girlfriend or because there’s no one else I’d want in your position.” I swallow hard. “You make me happy, Molly, and despite the assholes, I think you’re blossoming here, and so is Noah.”

She turns back to me. “Why are you so nice to me, Brayden?”

I hate that she even feels like she needs to ask. As if she doesn’t deserve the same kindness as everyone else. “Would you rather I be cruel?”

She pulls her feet from my lap and scoots around to the seat next to me, never taking her eyes from my face. “I don’t know what to do with kindness.” A smile—wobbly and unsure, but a smile nevertheless. “Typical fucked-up girl with daddy issues.”

“Don’t.” The word comes out harder than I intended, but I don’t rush to soften it. I let it sit in the air between us, simmering with all the frustration I feel. When I speak again, my words are quieter, but the same steel is behind them. “Don’t talk about yourself as if you’re unremarkable, like you let them believe you were in high school. As if you’re worth nothing more than the cheap pleasure you can give the nearest asshole.”

“Why not? I earned it—my reputation. I earned it by blowing dozens of guys before I could vote. Austin didn’t do anything most of the men in this town wouldn’t do.”

“That’s bullshit.” Anger simmers in my words.

“Wanna bet? Follow me around someday and see how they treat me.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean it’s bullshit to think that you deserve to be treated like that. How many guys in your high school fucked every girl who spread her legs? How many would take action from the easiest target?” She blinks then lifts a shoulder in a careless shrug that I don’t buy for a second. “And if you walked up to them now and demanded sex just because they handed it over so willingly before, would that be okay?”

“Of course not,” she whispers.

“You don’t owe anyone any explanations for the decisions you made, and you sure as fuck don’t owe me an apology for firing an asshole kid who dropped his pants and expected you to—”

She leans forward in a flash and presses her fingers to my lips. “Don’t say it, okay?”

I exhale, letting go of the words I know she doesn’t want me to say. I focus on the feel of her skin against my lips, her taste a breath away. I dream about this skin. About these fingers. I constantly think about this amazing woman I love, and sometimes I’m not sure love is going to be enough to make her understand what I see when I look at her.

I knew about Molly’s reputation that night we were together in New York. We weren’t in high school at the same time, but my brothers talked. Hell, guys my age talked. I didn’t care about her reputation or about the choices she made back then. Some guys sleep around, and some girls sleep around. It doesn’t matter to me.

But all that time, I thought Molly gave herself to those guys because she enjoyed it. Until she moved back to Jackson Harbor, I never knew the truth of what drove her—her history with her stepfather. If I’d known, I would have understood why she begged me not to take her home that night eight years ago, and I would have done everything in my power to put a stop to it then. If I’d known, I’d have made different decisions during my visit to the city last spring. Maybe I’d have wooed her and seduced her slowly instead of taking her to bed and making her think I was just another asshole who wanted to get her naked and nothing more.

I wish I had known. Because then I’d have understood that there were reasons she offered herself so easily and freely that night—reasons that had nothing to do with me or the connection between us. I’d have understood that Molly McKinley is a woman who needs to be taught her value, and that if I ever want her to see herself the way I see her, those lessons need to come from me.

She pulls her hand away and blinks at me. “I need to get upstairs.”

“I love you,” I say softly.

She tries to hide her wince, but I see it before she climbs off the couch and slides back into her shoes. “Brayden, I—”

“Miss McKinley!” Bella says, flying into the break room in a rush. “You said to come get you when the bride and groom got here.”

“Thanks, Bella,” she says.

“Are you sure you don’t need me?” I ask again.

She shakes her head. “I’m beginning to think you’re just trying to get out of your speech, Brayden.”