AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I consider his words for a moment, rolling them over in my brain to see if they make sense. “So you’re saying the problem wasn’t with her, it was with me? The problem was that I was a bad boyfriend?”
He shrugs. “You probably were a bad boyfriend. I won’t argue with you about that. It’s not in your nature. Ava knew that going in. She just thought she could change you. She thought she could make you care about her. When she couldn’t, it pissed her off. That’s on her, not you.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you’re my lawyer and not my therapist, because as far as pep talks go, this one is total shit.”
“You’re not paying me to give you pep talks. But if you were, consider this: just because you never cared enough about Ava to put in the effort, that doesn’t mean you won’t ever care about anyone else. You’re a smart guy. Beyond smart. If you wanted to be a good boyfriend, you could learn how.”
I think about Martin’s words all the way back home. Maybe he’s right. There are a lot of things that I didn’t know how to do. Programming came naturally to me. It always has.
Business? Finance? Not so much. But I had an idea for an app that would help people manage their money. I had the knowledge and skill to build it. I could have sold it and moved on to the next big idea, but I didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to run my own company. I wanted to build something from the ground up that I was proud of. I wasn’t going to hand my baby over to someone else until I could get what it was worth.
So I learned the rest. I either taught myself or hired people to teach me how to get venture capital, how to become a CEO, how to run things myself.
If Martin is right, I could learn how to be a boyfriend as well. If I wanted to.
Which sounds like a great idea in theory.
But here’s the bit Martin is forgetting.
I worked my ass off on Cookie Jar for a solid decade. And then one day, I realized it bored me. I’d done all the things I wanted to, I had a buyer offering me a shit ton of money, and I was just tired of playing CEO.
So, could I learn to be a great boyfriend? Yeah. Do I want to? Nope.
Ava and all her drama cured me of that.
It’s a moot point anyway, because no one—not Ava, not Savannah, not anyone else—is even asking that of me.
Besides, I like my quiet life out by the lake just as it is.
I like the solitude. I just need to ignore the fact that there’s a beautiful woman living on my property and cooking me meals.
If I have the option of putting forth the effort to learn how to be a good boyfriend, or to learn how to forget she exists, I’m gonna choose the latter. Not because it’s easier on me, but because it’s easier on her.
Savannah
Hours later I’m still … flustered.
And I’m fully ready to admit that I am being ridiculous.
Okay, so my boss is hot. Big deal.
Just because I pictured him as old and weird, like some sort of modern, American Ms. Havishman—and then he turned out to be no such thing—that doesn’t mean I should quit. After all, many people have hot bosses. It happens to the best of us. Just because I’ve never had a hot boss before, means nothing. Especially given that all of my previous bosses have been family members.
Obviously, the thing I most want to do is Google Ian Donovan.
I can’t do that, because if I do it will void my NDA and my contract. Voiding my contract and saying goodbye to the rather sizable bonus I’ll get at the end of the year. There’s no point in even staying if I don’t get the bonus. Which means I can’t Google him.
So what am I supposed to do? Just… exist, not knowing who he is?
When I thought he was old and ill, his behavior made sense. Maybe not great sense, but at least I could understand it. Now that I know he’s young, fit, and hot, nothing about this situation makes sense in the least.
He seemed surprised that I didn’t recognize him. Which means he’s either delusional or famous. Which does me absolutely no good in narrowing down who he actually is because I have spent the past two decades of my life in a weird foodie bubble. The only famous people I know are celebrity chefs.
He is definitely not that, because if he was, he wouldn’t have needed to hire me and he wouldn’t say things like “tacos are fine.”
Everyone knows tacos aren’t fine. Tacos are the best.
