me, who seems terrified to look me in the eyes. And for the next month, I’m essentially a single parent. A child, though, not a baby. No diapers.
I can do this. I flip businesses, taking them from mess to money-makers. This is … different. But it’s not so different. I have a mess. An unclear path forward. I need to make a path.
I also need to eat something, I realize, as I sway on my feet. This feeling of weakness, of powerlessness, is going to kill me.
“That didn’t sound like it went well,” Zoey says.
“That’s an understatement.”
The silence is weighted with tension. “Gavin? Are you okay?” Zoey’s voice sounds softer than I’ve ever heard it. I wish the circumstances were different. That I didn’t feel like I might go timber any moment and faceplant onto the carpet. That I’d never married Eleanor. That Zoey would be speaking to me like this out of affection, not pity or sympathy.
“I just need a minute,” I tell her.
It takes more like three minutes, but my brain clears with awareness of what I need to do. It’s not conventional. It feels riskier than the worst business I purchased. I’ve never failed to see a profit, to achieve the goals I set out to accomplish. At least, in business. The only real relationship I have for comparison is Eleanor, which was an epic fail.
Is Zoey worth it?
Yes.
But am I worth it for her?
The answer to that question is less sure. I’m older, with a complicated ex-wife relationship. A daughter whom I barely know and met in the worst way I can imagine. I’m like the baggage carousel at the airport. The longer she’s near me, the more suitcases full of junk just keep appearing.
I open my eyes and stare out at the pool, remembering Zoey’s wide smiles, Ella’s laughter. I can still feel the remnants of my feelings as I watched them, how something warmed in my chest at the sight, even before I knew Ella was mine.
Zoey is an adult. I’m not going to make the choice for her when she can make it herself. All I can do is ask her, and hope she says yes, hope that she gives me a chance, baggage carousel and all.
I turn around, slowly enough that I don’t get dizzy. Zoey blinks up at me, dragging a hand over her ponytail before dropping it in her lap.
Feeling like an anvil might drop on my head any moment, I open my mouth and hope she can’t hear the nervousness in my voice.
“Come with me,” I say, immediately wishing I had asked her rather than demanding. Too late now. “Come with us to my parents’ ranch this weekend. Please.”
Zoey blinks in surprise, and though she has a way of keeping her emotions cloaked, I’ve become an expert at reading her. And I see the wheels turning.
One minute stretches into two, and I’m not sure I was more nervous before asking Eleanor to marry me. Why does this feel so much bigger than that?
“Are you asking for you, or are you asking for Ella?”
The question slices through me. I’m not even sure how to separate the two parts of what she’s asking. I want Zoey, but would I be asking her to come meet my parents if not for Ella? No. I’d be moving slower, with much more self-preservation. And maybe, because of Ella, I should be using more caution now.
“Both,” I say, feeling like this is the wrong answer.
Zoey nods, and I wish I could read her reaction. “I’ll come,” she says, and I can hear the but before she says it. “But I’d like it to be as a paid companion for Ella. That is, if you don’t mind being my boss times two.”
Zoey smiles, but I can’t fully return it. Because the last thing I want is to remember that I’m her boss.
Her boss times two.
Chapter Seventeen
Zoey
This is a mistake.
You’re going to regret this.
As I walk through the doors of Morgan-Beckwith that afternoon, I wonder if there are any clichés I’ve missed, working my way through my mental rolodex.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
You’ll rue the day!
Okay, maybe not so extreme. Then again, I’m walking into my office to finally resign. But only after I signed a contract with Gavin to be Ella’s nanny for the weekend, with a contingency for more time, depending on how things go. Then it’s home to pack and go meet his parents at their family ranch. Meanwhile, Gavin is alone