Hopefully I didn’t scare him off. I loathe being dependent on others.
Lenora, who gets paid to assist me, doesn’t count.
But because I’ve spent a large part of my life around angry, needy men too caught up in their own shit to ever offer mehelp, I eventually gave up on expecting any kind of assistance, choosing instead to handle everything myself.
Being able to rely on Kellin felt…indescribably good. Like for once, I wasn’t alone.
Today, he filled a void in my heart that I didn’t know I had.
That little part of me still preserved from childhood. The Maeve that yearns to be taken care of.
To feel warm and coddled and…loved.
Shaking my head, I grab some glass containers from a cabinet to store the soups in.
I really misjudged him, which bothers me to no end.
I’d hate to become this cynical person who assumes the worst of everyone, but guardedness is in my genetic code. In the mafia, survival requires caution. Distrust.
Is that why I didn’t initially give him any credit?
He’s shockingly handsome. Stop-traffic hot. And he approached me with the exact solution I needed for this pipe dream of getting out from under my father’s shadow.
I’ve been asking myself all day—while he’s bopped in and out, sacrificing his own workday for mine—if those were the only reasons I’ve been paying him any attention at all.
Because he’s beautiful, and I hadn’t been laid in eons.
Because I hate my father.
I’ve behaved selfishly, protecting myself while Kellin puts himself out there. Allowing him to spoil me without offering enough in return.
I want to fix that by sharing more of myself with him…if he still finds me attractive after today.
More than that, I yearn to resurrect the younger, less jaded Maeve of the past.
If Kellin and I hope to move forward in any capacity—whether it be business, pleasure, or both—I want to share theversion of me that harbored bigger dreams. The Maeve that launched the Cypress from the ground up.
How do I recapture the positive mentality that started this hotel?
At what point did my hope die? And where did I bury it? Maybe I can start with that.
I refrigerate the soups for later as my mind wanders back to the day my mother died.
I hate when this happens, but it’s what I get.
I mean, given my thought pattern, I practically tied a leash around my mind and dragged it back to that tragic memory.
By that point, I’d been angry with her for years. For giving up on us all. For leaving her children to deal with our father while she hid inside her own head.
Still, my heart broke when she died.
I was raised around violence and death, but that didn’t prepare me for my mother’s gray skin, her hollowed cheeks, her blank eyes. Or how her skin felt like stone.
Even in death, peace evaded her.
That hurt the most. Anytime I picture her defeated expression in that casket, I hunch over until the pain dulls.
I sit down at the table to do just that when my phone pings.
