How To Wife Your Nanny A Billionaire Single Dad Romantic Comedy- Melinda Minx Page 0,64

be millions poorer than we are. Probably hundreds of millions when you factor in how much having him boosted our entire brand.”

“You’re in this for the long haul, Noah. I can tell. You want this to last forever. You want Naomi to have a mother, and you want Lacey to be that mother. If you go back there right now begging on your knees, like some giant fucking pussy, she’s going to see you forever as a giant pussy. She’s going to walk all over you. Every fight, she’s going to sit there and wait for you to come begging and apologizing like—”

“Like a giant pussy. Got it.”

Silas smirked with satisfaction. “You’re Noah fucking Black. You can risk waiting a bit. Making her wonder if she’s going to lose you. She doesn’t want to lose you, I saw how she looked at you, man. You know when you want to cook chicken, and you have to marinate that shit overnight?”

“You cook?”

“Not anymore, but I used to. Before I was fucking rich. Anyway, marinating gets the flavors in, but what about the salt?”

“What about it?”

“The salt helps get the meat tender. It dries it out too. It makes chicken taste fucking good, but you have to give it time to work its magic.”

“You think I should marinate Lacey?”

I knew what he was saying, but I was so sick of his metaphors. I just wanted him to tell me what he wanted me to do. I had originally planned to just ignore whatever he told me. I just wanted to give him the courtesy of listening to his advice and hearing him out. Now that he’d mentioned this whole idea of “setting the tone for the rest of our lives,” I had started to think he may actually be onto something.

“I think you haven’t waited long enough. She’s still feeling all self-righteous since you were a little bit mean to her—”

“I was a pretty huge dick, objectively speaking—”

He slammed his hand on his desk and furiously shook his head. “There is no objectivity here. It’s subjective. It’s always subjective. There is no such thing as objective truths in relationships. Women are too irrational for that, man. How do you not know this shit already? Anyway, there is only subjective truth for women, and what happens when you let Lacey stew for a bit? She starts forgetting how big of a dick you were. Well, maybe she remembers it, but it stops being so fresh in her mind. It no longer feels as real. What starts feeling real instead?”

“I don’t know, Silas, just tell me.”

“The pain of being away from you. She starts feeling that instead. She realizes that she needs you. That she can’t live without you. She starts asking herself why she gave up everything you two had together because you lost your cool for a few minutes. The pain of not having you because her new subjective truth. The fact that you were a raging asshole is just...yesterday’s news.”

“So I wait then?”

He nodded. “Not too long, of course. There are diminishing returns on waiting. If you got really lucky, she might come back begging you to have her back, but she might not. She might just get more mad at you when you finally buckle and go say you’re sorry. There’s a sweet spot.”

“Three days? Four?”

“A week. Wait a week. And stop calling her. That just makes you look pathetic. It reminds her that you were being a dick. You need to ghost her for a bit. Make her wonder if she’s lost you. That is you sprinkling that nice chunky kosher salt all over her. Once you’ve marinated a chicken, you let it sit. You don’t keep fucking poking it.”

“Thanks, Silas. I think I’ve had enough cooking metaphors for the rest of my life.”

After a few days, it got hard to follow Silas’ advice. Naomi kept asking where Lacey was, and I had to keep telling her she’d be back soon. Even though I didn’t know for certain that Lacey would come back. Aside from that, it hurt. I fucking missed her. I needed her. And I wanted to just tell her that.

Still, she had rejected my calls for almost two days before I’d spoken to Silas. If she wanted to ignore me for two days, then I could ignore her for five more.

I’d been thinking about how I should apologize once it was time. Once she’d marinated long enough. Calling her was not it. I couldn’t make her