Tell Me You're Mine (The British Billionaires #1) - J. S. Scott Page 0,30
been thinking with a broken, grieving heart when I’d impulsively packed my stuff and moved back to Newport Beach.
“And you’ve done that, quite successfully I might add,” Kylie answered. “Give yourself a break, Nic. The company is still thriving, and it has so much potential for future growth.”
I shot her a doubtful look. ACM was flourishing as a result of my employees like Kylie, not because of my leadership. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have sold and stayed in my corporate law job.” I’d never actually said those words out loud, but I’d thought about it plenty of times over the last few months.
“I think Estelle would have been perfectly okay with that,” Kylie answered gently. “In fact, she expected it. She was proud of you, Nicole, and she’d want you to be happy with whatever you choose to do with your life. If I could, I would have been the first one in line to buy ACM, but I’m not in the position to do that right now. I don’t have that kind of cash.”
I stopped eating, and looked at Kylie. “I didn’t know you’d be interested.”
Never once had my best friend mentioned that she’d like to actually own an agency herself. In fact, she never stopped talking about how much she loved her job as director of ACM, and how it allowed her to pursue her personal interests outside work.
She shrugged. “I would like to have my own business someday, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I couldn’t have bought ACM, anyway.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I owned the business, and Kylie and I could have worked something out. We still could. Nobody was more qualified to step into my mother’s role than Kylie. After her short marriage, my best friend had come back to Orange County to work for my mother. Kylie had fallen in love with the PR business, and had worked to complete her college degree while she’d worked beside Mom.
ACM was probably never going to make me outrageously wealthy unless we expanded significantly, but it was a profitable company that made me a good living right now. Realistically, Kylie probably couldn’t afford to buy the entire company right now, but we could have come to some kind of understanding.
Because of my mother’s hard work, and the scholarships I’d been awarded, I’d gotten all the way through law school without a single student loan. I’d been making a good living as a corporate attorney. The last thing I’d needed was income from ACM.
Granted, I hadn’t wanted to see ACM go to a stranger, but I could have let it go to Kylie. My mother had adored her, treated her like a second daughter.
“I’m sorry, Kylie,” I said sincerely. “I should have thought of a way to bring you into ownership. I had no idea that you wanted that, or I would have done it.”
Her eyes widened. “What? No! Why would you do that?”
I sighed. “Because you loved her, too, and you belong here more than I do.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be silly, Nicole. You were her daughter.”
“She loved you, too,” I said softly.
She smiled. “I know that. Your mom was always there for me, even when we were kids. But she sure as hell didn’t expect me to take the business away from her only child. I’m happy in my job, Nic. I make a great salary plus bonuses. I’m saving. I have plenty of time to seek out my own company when I’m ready. I’m perfectly content exactly where I am right now.”
I eyed her skeptically one last time before I started eating again, thinking about how we could revisit the idea of her taking over ACM in the future.
“I wasn’t exactly levelheaded when Mom died,” I told Kylie ruefully. Normally, I was far from impulsive, but I’d nearly lost my mind when my only parent had died.
Honestly, I was still grieving Mom, and probably would for the rest of my life. Her death had left a big, dark hole in my world that nobody could ever fill up again. Yeah, the excruciating pain of losing her had dulled, but there wasn’t a single day that went by that I didn’t miss her.
Kylie nodded. “That’s to be expected, Nic. You were her only child, and she was your only parent. You guys were really tight.”
“We were,” I agreed. If I’d only known what was going to happen in the future, I would have spent more time in Southern California as an adult.