TEN
Madeline
So far, everything at Cove is going better than I expected. The three weeks have been a blur of meetings, campaign edits, and trying to prove that I belong here. Every morning, I come in early to get a head start on my work and every morning Jesse Winters shows up not long after, sliding into the seat across from me like it’s his personal mission to keep my blood pressure volatile.
At first, it was unnerving, the way he’d just…watch me. Like he was trying to figure me out. I could sense his eyes on me, or the shift in the air whenever he was near. It would make me struggle to keep my focus. Now, though, I’m used to it. Or maybe I just like it more than I’m willing to admit.
The man is a distraction. He’s infuriatingly calm, always composed, relentlessly charming, and smells better than any man has a right to. When I made the mistake of mentioning that to Lottie, she’d practically squealed. “Some men smell so sexy,” she’d said. “So, whatexactlydoes he smell like.”
“It’s hard to describe,” I told her. “But…expensive. And it makes it almost impossible to concentrate.”
She groaned. “Jesus, Madeline, you’re doomed. Just marry him already. Can I be your maid of honor?”
I reminded Lottie that the man also makes me want to pull my hair out with his smart remarks and relentless confidence, and the way he somehow manages to get under my skin every single day.
“God, stop talking dirty, Mads,” she’d said, fanning herself with her hand as I rolled my eyes at her.
It’s all true. Jesse drives me crazy. He can be so infuriating, the way he looks at me with that entertained smirk on his face like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. And then there’s the totally out-of-the-blue way he offered to accompany me to my dad’s event; I’m still trying to figure out what that was about. I figured he would forget about it as soon as the conversation ended, but he’s brought it up a few times in the days since then. “You’ll change your mind,” he said with a wink just yesterday. So far, my strategy has been to ignore him, but that doesn’t seem to faze Jesse.
Still, I can’t deny that part of me—some tiny, traitorous part—enjoys the banter. And the attention. It’s the same part that can’t stop thinking about the morning I saw him on Front Street with that little girl. The way he looked at her, so protective and sweet—it stuck with me. But in all these weeks, he’s never mentioned having a daughter, so I don’t know what to make of it.
Which brings me to now.
I glance up from my screen to where he’s sitting across the table as usual, a pen tapping rhythmically against his notepad as he studies me with that infuriating mix of curiosity and amusement.
“What?” I finally ask, keeping my tone casual and my eyes on the document that’s open on my laptop. “Am I breathing too hard?”
“No,” he says after a beat. His pen stills. “You just look like you’re trying to solve the world’s problems over there.”
“I’m just doing my job,” I say, clicking through the campaign brief. “Some of us take that seriously.”
“Mm.” He leans back in his chair, still watching me. “And does glaring at your laptop like you wish it would spontaneously combust count as ‘doing your job?’ Is that something we’ve added to the Cove orientation?”
I glance up, narrowing my eyes. “Do you ever stop talking?”
“Not when I’m right,” he says, the corners of his mouth curving in that lazy, confident way that makes my pulse misbehave.
God help me, he’s so smug. And so unfairly good-looking, sitting there with his sleeves rolled up and that easy grin, like he owns the air between us.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter, shaking my head.
He taps his pen against the table again. “And yet you keep sitting across from me every day.”
Before I can argue that it is one hundred percenthimthat chooses to sit across fromme, footsteps in the hall catch my attention.
Ford and Landyn pass by the glass wall just outside our workspace. Even in the bustle of Cove, they stand out—him, tall and steady, with that quiet authority that seems to set the tone for everything and everyone around him; her, elegant and composed, stealing the spotlight in every room she walks into. I watch as they move down the hall, his head lowered slightly as she talks, her hand brushing lightly over his arm.
“They’re together,” Jesse says, following my gaze. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”
I glance at him. “I wasn’t sure,” I say, eyes flicking back toward the hall. “They look like the perfect couple.”
He nods, his expression softening. “Yeah, they are. Took them along time to get here, though.” Jesse follows my gaze, and for once, that teasing edge in his voice disappears. “They’re good together, but they had to fight for it harder than most people would.”
I glance at him, noticing the emotion in his voice. “You sound…protective,” I say softly.
“I am,” he admits after a beat. “Ford spent years building everything but his own happiness, and Landyn came back around and changed that. She reminded him what it’s like to actually live.”
His words settle deep because I know exactly what it feels like to build a life that looks perfect from the outside while slowly suffocating on the inside. I’d give anything to know what it feels like to live without permission, without rules, without my parents’ expectations wrapped around my neck like a leash.
