“All couples fight,” he said with a nonchalance that had my blood pressure rising. “Besides, you can’t tell me you prefer working with the lumberjacks instead of in finance. Was your MBA just a waste of money?”
I forced myself to breathe through the anger and the guilt. Teddy and I had met working for my dad’s finance company. Dad couldn’t just fire Teddy because he and I broke up, so I’d left. Teddy seemed to take my silence as an admission and kept going. “This isn’t you, Layne, you want more than this small-town, redneck shit.”
Internally screaming.
I had told myself a hundred times that arguing with him got me nowhere, but man, he made it hard some days. As I was about to lay into him, there was a knock at my door.
“Hang on.”
I crossed the smooth wooden floor, and opened the door without looking. I expected it was either my brother or my best friend, Sloane, coming to check on me. The two of them were a couple now, so they didn’t surface from the bedroom often, but when they did, it was to hover over me like mother hens.
Surprisingly, it was neither of them.
“Elias, hey.” I stepped back to let all six-plus feet of him walk through my door. The cabin barely felt big enough to hold him. A cold blast of air came in with him, and I slammed the door against it.
He looked the same as always in a thick winter jacket, layered over plaid flannel and jeans, dirt-streaked, and smelling of pine. He was broad and thick, had the body of a man who was over forty and had probably spent thirty of those years working his ass off at a physical job. On the other hand, he kept his hair and beard buzzed almost to the skin, and he wore thick-framed, nerdy glasses.
I shouldn’t be noticing those things.
It was too soon after my breakup with Teddy.
I also shouldn’t be noticing because he worked for my brother, Jace, at Wild Timber Homes. I also worked there, managing the office.
“I just need the file for the Beast project. Jace said you had it here,” he said, his voice low, his eyes darting from my face to the phone in my hand.
I nodded, and turned to dig through the paperwork on my table.
“Are you even listening to me, Layne?” I realized I was ignoring Teddy’s voice in my ear.
“I’m tired of listening to the same thing over and over. I just need you to meet me at the insurance place tomorrow morning so we can get this done.”
“We should meet up to talk first.”
I took a deep breath, then another, my eyes landing on Elias as they often had since I started managing Wild Timber two months ago.
As I took him in, an idea hit me. Potentially a really stupidone, but if it got me through this breakup, it would be worth it. “I’m seeing someone new, Teddy.” I blurted it out before I had the chance to talk myself out of it.
Elias jerked his head in my direction, eyes wide behind his glasses.
I mouthed the wordHELPin his direction, then put the phone on speaker.
“I don’t believe you,” Teddy said.
“It’s true. I didn’t want to tell you because it’s none of your business, but it’s true.”
Teddy had the nerve to laugh.
Again.
How the hell I had been with this guy for so long without noticing what an absolute tool he was, I had no idea.
“Come on, Layne. I didn’t think you’d stoop low enough to lie to me. We both know we’re going to work this out. You expect me to believe you found someone to replace me in that shithole town you’re pouting in?”
My blood boiled.
He thought I couldn’t do better than him?
I opened my mouth, ready to let him have it, but my phone was plucked from my hand.
