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When I returned to the condo, I was surprised to find that Paxton had gone above and beyond what I’d expected from him. A huge “Welcome Home” banner hung from the entranceway pillars, and when I ambled into the kitchen, I found a charcuterie board loaded with meat, cheese, and veggies, like he was planning a party.
But Paxton was nowhere to be found. I found a note from him in the kitchen.
I went to relieve Kai at the hospital. Text me if you need me.
- P
A pang of jealousy hit me, not because I didn’t want him with Mylee, but because I had hoped to take the second shift with her. My surprise was going to have to wait until she returned.
At five, a FedEx courier hand-delivered her contract from the office, and I signed off on the offer after scanning the salary and benefits package, hoping that it would suffice.
Were we still going to give her the million that we promised her?
I put the question to Kai when he got back.
“I think she was anticipating it,” Kai replied slowly. “And it will give her a good nest egg.”
“Does she need a nest egg now that she has the job?” I asked.
Kai pursed his lips. “It gives her a cushion if she ever wants to leave.”
The idea gave me a pang of unhappiness, but it was a fair point. “I bought her a bookstore.”
Kai eyed me in surprise. “A bookstore?”
“She loves to read and write,” I explained. “It will be an escape for her, and honestly, it’s good for our portfolio.”
“Do we have any bookstores in our portfolio?”
“Hell if I know,” I snickered, popping a beer. “But it’s not for our portfolio. It’s Mylee’s.”
I offered him one, and he accepted it, sliding onto a kitchen stool. We drank silently for a moment, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
“Are we making a mistake with this?” Kai finally asked, as always, voicing the big queries when no one else would.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t feel wrong, does it?”
Kai shook his head. “Not at all. That’s what’s so unnerving about it, I guess. I keep waiting for doubt to surface about her.”
I took a long sip and settled across from him, pondering the same thoughts I was sure he was having. “If this was all an act on her end, she wouldn’t have agreed to stay on.”
“I don’t think she’s acting,” Kai said quickly, his dark blond eyebrows knitting into a vee. “I think she cares about all of us.”
“Me too.”
“But what if it doesn’t work out—”
“We can’t think like that,” I told him flatly. “That’s not how we’ve ever done things. If we sat around overthinking, we’d never have Silverpiece in the first place.”
“True.”
Although he didn’t continue to list his litany of concerns, I had no doubt that Kai stewed on them. He couldn’t help it. It was just the way he was built. There wasn’t much I could say or do to ease his mind, not when Mylee had spun our carefully scheduled world so haywire with her charm and charisma. We would just have to wait and see.
But unlike Kai, I was one hundred percent certain that she was exactly where she wanted to be.
Still, I would offer her the nest egg, penthouse, and the bookstore without the Silverpiece attachment. If she ever decided to leave, it would all be hers to do with what she wanted, no strings attached.
