The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,101
ferociously every night. She was always exhausted when she fell into bed after a long day at the bakery, but then... Griffin was in her bed, and there was something magical about it. And she didn’t want to turn away from him. Couldn’t even if she had wanted to. Because he was magical, and amazing, and he created feelings in her body that only he could.
Because there was something as wonderful as there was unsettling about him. And being with him.
“Yes,” she said.
“I see. It seems like I kind of missed the boat with the Daniels women.”
Even now, he was lumping her in with her sister? She couldn’t even parse what he said enough to realize that he was expressing regret over not being with her. It didn’t matter. She was second pick. Second pick to Rose. It was worse than not being picked at all. To know that he was working his way down the list, and she was beneath... Just like she had always been. Why was that how it was for her?
She was so happy to have Griffin in her house. And she had committed to keeping him in her life, but the fact of the matter was, he hadn’t said that he loved her. He cared. He wanted to see where it went. But he was in love with his wife.
He had loved her first and best, and he always would.
And you help him. And you know how happy that makes people...
Her entire life she had felt like she was playing second fiddle to someone else. To sisters who were brighter and more intense. Sisters who had required more attention. A special kind of love, while she had been trustworthy, so she had had to be a caregiver. Even when she was a little girl. So she hadn’t gotten all the attention. And then it was too late. It was too late, and her parents had been gone and she had to fill the void. She had to fill the void, because they weren’t there and there was no other choice.
And if she didn’t take care of them, who would?
But who was going to take care of her?
Griffin takes care of you.
That felt uncomfortable. It felt sharp and painful, and she didn’t want to think about it. It was better to focus on what he needed from her.
Because if he didn’t love her she was going to have to do a whole lot to keep him there.
She knew how that went.
To matter, you needed to be doing something that mattered.
She hadn’t mattered to Elliott. She didn’t want to matter to Elliott. It was clarifying, standing there, wrestling with these hurts, these doubts, these thoughts. It was clarifying, because through this whole thing she had convinced herself she had feelings for Elliott when she really didn’t, and she had found that somewhat... Disturbing. That she had been so willing to settle. For somebody who didn’t light her on fire, or even start a smoldering in her soul, just because he had given her some measure of attention. Or, she had believed that he did.
Knowing that she had been somewhere on his list validated that he had, in fact, been flirting with her. Maybe even hedging his bets.
But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the thing that got her. The thing that got her was the realization that the real pain that had come from this was being chosen second. Was that he had loved Rose, and hadn’t seen her.
Because that played a much bigger role in her life than she had realized before. It had brushed up against the edges of her consciousness, yes, and she could remember having that discussion with Griffin. About how her sisters were beautiful and special in a way that she wasn’t.
But she hadn’t realized...
She hadn’t realized that it stung in quite this way.
And until she married it to the situation with Griffin and his wife, she really hadn’t quite understood how deep of a wound it was.
Maybe there’s something wrong with you. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe you are just a backup. Second-rate. Second pick.
Some people are.
You’re strong.
Griffin’s words echoed inside of her.
You’re strong.
He had said that early on, he had seen something in her that she hadn’t before seen in herself.
But strong might just mean strong enough to endure this particular kind of life as a Clydesdale. Steady, working. Taking care. Not a Thoroughbred, who existed to simply be out there in the field, tossing its mane and being beautiful.