The Wrong Boss: Chapter 38

Evie was thrilled to meet her father. I watched as she charmed him within minutes, then spent the next month and a half wrapping him around her little finger. Cole seemed delighted by her jokes and constantly impressed by her wit. He became the primary spelling bee practice partner, calling her every night with words of ever-increasing difficulty. Every night, she came off those calls looking like she was floating on air.

I pretended I wasn’t jealous.

Cole took us to the aquarium, the zoo, and to a pottery painting studio. He organized lunches and dinners, and as the end of our two-month trial approached, I had the sense that the animosity between us was almost gone. I wasn’t naive enough to think he’d forgiven me, but I appreciated that he was putting my daughter first. Our daughter. I kept having to remind myself that she wasn’t only mine anymore.

The night before we were due to meet Cole for our next visit—the third-to-last before we needed to go back to mediation—Evie was busy speaking to him on the living room couch while I put away leftovers from dinner and got started on the dishes. Seth was at work, finishing up a big contract for a client, and Hailey was passed out on an armchair across from Evie.

As I had been ever since the day at the Gershwin Theater, I was stuck in my own head, wondering if I’d ever forgive myself for my mistakes.

And Evie let out a squeal.

I snapped back to the present moment and looked over my shoulder. Her face was pure childish joy. “Mom!” she cried. “We’re going to the Museum of Ice Cream tomorrow!”

Wiping my hands on a kitchen towel, I crossed the space and dropped next to her on the sofa. She had her tablet propped on the coffee table as she bounced on the cushions, a ball of excitement.

“Hi, Carrie,” Cole said when he saw me, and my name didn’t have the bite it usually had when he said it.

“Hi. The Museum of Ice Cream?”

“Mom, they have a sprinkle cave!” Evie threw her arms around my neck and squeezed so hard she choked me.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “All right. Sounds fun.”

“I’ll pick you guys up at one o’clock,” Cole said, then looked at Evie. “How do you feel about one last rapid-fire spelling round before we hang up?”

Evie sat back down on the cushions, gripping the edge with her hands. She nodded, her lips pressed into a determined line. “Let’s do it,” she said.

I kissed her temple and went back to the dishes, one ear on their conversation. Cole’s laugh was warm caramel as he congratulated her on her spelling prowess. Evie sounded as happy as I’d ever heard her.

While I dried the last plate from dinner, my heart gave a familiar, painful squeeze.

We’d be back in mediation soon, and I’d have no excuse to keep Evie from him. And truthfully, I didn’t want to keep Evie from him. Cole was a good man, and from what I’d seen, he’d make a good father. Evie deserved to know him, and Cole seemed to want to make up for lost time.

The pain I felt came from the usual litany of what-ifs. What if we’d been honest about our chemistry the first time? What if I’d found him? What if I hadn’t messed up so monumentally by not telling him about Evie right away?

Maybe, if I hadn’t been so scared of losing even a minute of time with her, I could’ve had my cake and eaten it too, with a double scoop of ice cream on top. I could’ve had a happy family with my amazing daughter and the man of my dreams.

But that’s all it was—a dream. At least I could watch Evie’s relationship with him develop, and I had Carla in my corner to advocate for me legally. If Cole stayed in the picture and kept treating my—our—daughter the way he had been so far, Evie would have a wonderful childhood.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

That night, when Evie was in bed, I leaned my head against Hailey’s shoulder and let out a sigh.

She tilted her head so it rested on top of mine and said, “I see why you like him.”

Tears filled my eyes. “‘Like’ seems like such an inadequate word.”

Hailey said nothing, and I let melancholy wash over me. I was getting exactly what I deserved, wasn’t I?

The next day, Cole showed up at our door at one o’clock, sharp. Evie flung the front door open and threw herself at him. Cole caught her and spun her in a circle as she laughed. I forced myself to remember that this was a good thing. Evie deserved the best, and I was happy that this was all going well.

But it was torture. Watching them together was every secret fantasy I’d ever had, and it would never come true. The pain was exquisite and unending, especially when Cole gave her one of those rare, brilliant smiles that he seemed to save only for her.

I used to get them too.

“Ready?” Cole asked.

I wound a scarf around my neck and tossed a hat in Evie’s direction. She yanked it down over her head and yelled, “Let’s go!”

Cole’s car was parked outside our building. He’d bought a booster seat and installed it in the middle of the back seat of his car, so I put Evie in and then slid into the passenger side and clipped myself in. The car smelled like him. From the corner of my eye, I watched the way his hands gripped the wheel, how his body filled out the seat in easy, confident repose.

I realized, as I listened to Evie and Cole chatter about the Museum of Ice Cream, that I would always love him. He’d be in our lives, and he’d forever be the one who got away. The one I pushed away. It was my punishment for giving in to my fears.

I should’ve learned my lesson from Derek. I’d been afraid to leave him, and I spent way too long in a bad relationship. When I finally worked up the courage to break it off with him, I’d felt free and elated and alive. But I hadn’t changed—not really.

I was still the girl who’d lost her mother, the one who clung to relationships like they were the last life raft on a sinking ship. I’d clung to Derek when he was all wrong for me. I’d clung to Hailey and Seth so hard I wondered if they secretly harbored resentment. And I’d clung to Cole when I should have stood on my own and been honest. I’d latched on to the mirage of our relationship because a part of me believed that love was fleeting. People died, or left, or turned out to be monsters in disguise.

But Cole might’ve been the exception. Maybe, if I’d been braver, he would’ve stood by me for life.

“Carrie?”

I glanced over to see Cole frowning at me. “Sorry,” I said. “Stuck in my own head.”

“It’s your turn to choose a word for Evie to spell.”

“Oh, right,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to smile at my daughter. “How about…‘sprinkle?’”

“Easy,” Evie said, then spelled the word without hesitation.

Cole’s grin drew my gaze. He looked over and arched his brows, pride shining in his eyes. My heart gave another pulse of pain, but I buried it deep and painted a matching smile on my own face. Maybe this was my penance. I would forever see what a good man he was—and know that I’d lost my chance to be with him.

The Museum of Ice Cream was a blast. Evie ate so much ice cream I prayed for future me, knowing I’d need it. When an older lady saw me taking a photo of the two of them in the sprinkle pit (like a ball pit, but with sprinkle-shaped balls), she offered to get one of the three of us.

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I said, forcing a smile.

“I insist! Everyone needs a good family photo.”

“Mom, get in! It’s fun.”

Throat tight, I glanced at Cole, who was stretched out in the pit of plastic sprinkles. Dressed in black as he usually was, he looked like a shadow among brightly colored candy. He shrugged and tilted his head, inviting me in.

That was enough to make my stomach flip-flop, which was another bit of evidence of how far gone I was for this man. The rest of my life was going to be rough.

I got in the ball pit and smiled for the camera.

Later, when Cole dropped us off and Evie trundled up to her room to get changed out of the shirt she’d splattered in ice cream, Cole lingered at the door to the townhouse and cleared his throat. “So, I was thinking…”

With my foot holding the door open, I leaned against the frame and tilted my head. “Yeah?”

“What do you think about having a meal and trying to hash out this custody thing? No lawyers, no mediator. We see if we can do it on our own. You’ll want to get your lawyer to review everything, of course,” he hastened to add, “and that’s fine. But I just figured…if we’re going to be doing this for at least the next twelve years, until Evie’s eighteen, we might as well see if we can agree on the particulars without conference rooms and lawyers standing in the way. We could have dinner and talk. No pressure.”

My heart thumped furiously. We hadn’t been alone together since… Well, since he’d been naked and in my room at the company retreat. The fearful part of me screamed that he wanted to take advantage of me without lawyers present, that he would take my daughter away and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

But the fearful version of me wasn’t in charge anymore. She’d ruined my life one too many times, and I wasn’t going to listen to her anymore.

I swallowed half a dozen times, then finally nodded. “That sounds good, Cole. I’d like that.”

It must have been a trick of the light that looked like relief flashing across his face. As I closed the door and listened to his footsteps recede on the other side, I felt just like I had seven years ago—like everything inside me screamed to open the door and call him back.

Instead, I let out a long breath, threw the lock, and headed inside to find my daughter.