Damn it. She looked down at her cup and took the top off. Scottie grasped her wrist gently.
“Ad. Talk to me.”
Adley sighed, then turned her gaze to the window. “I don’t know what to say.” It wasn’t lost on her that she’d just uttered the same words Sabrina had the previous night. She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Sweetie, nothing’s wrong with you. But I do think, like I said earlier, that you’re going through something.”
“Yeah, but what does that mean? I’m going through something. What? What am I going through?” She was edgy now. Again. Edginess was starting to feel regular. Normal. She didn’t like it.
If Scottie was surprised by that edge, she didn’t show it. She just shook her head and then sipped her coffee. “I think this woman has affected you more than you expected. I think…” She looked like she was thinking about her words, rolling them around before deciding to say them out loud.
“Just say it,” Adley said. “Say what you’re thinking.”
“Don’t get mad at me.”
“I won’t. Scootey.”
Scottie grinned, but it didn’t stay. She took a deep breath and looked at her hands as she spoke. “I think, for all yourthis is casual, this is just physical, just a releasetalk, you ended up developing feelings for her. And that makes who she actually is much more painful for you than if shehadonly been casual.”
The assessment wasn’t surprising. At all. Adley’d had the same thoughts bouncing around in her own head. But hearing them spoken aloud felt like a whole different plane. Like they were no longer in her head, but out in the Universe. Solid.
Real.
To her horror, she felt her own eyes well up. Damn it. A lump formed in her throat and she stared out the window, not trusting herselfto look Scottie in the eye and be able to hold it together. Keeping her gaze on the window, she whispered, “I hate her.”
“Mm-hmm.”
A swallow around the lump. “I also think I might be in love with her.”
“I know, sweetie.”
“What do I do?”
* * *
The grand opening of the new Sweet Heaven was two weeks from tomorrow. Exactly fifteen days away.
And Sabrina couldn’t care less.
Normally, she was fully submerged. Normally, by this point, she was spending twelve to fourteen hours a day on a new location, supervising the finishing touches on the store, doing marketing, introducing herself around town, building up excitement, getting everybody psyched up to hit the new shop on opening day. Normally.
Here? In Northwood? Nothing felt normal. Nothing. She wanted to go back to her Airbnb and cuddle with her dog and order pizza and shut out the world. The business world, at least. She wanted nothing to do with work or the grand opening or Sweet Heaven. Nothing. At all.
When had that happened?
That was the stupidest of all questions, though, wasn’t it? She knew exactly when it had happened—the night she’d spent with Adley Purcell. That’s when. That’s when all this had happened.
Adley.
God, how could she miss somebody who so clearly hated her? How could she want nothing more than to spend time with her? Why did she want to apologize over and over when she was simply doing her job? Adley, of all people, should understand that, shouldn’t she?
Currently, she sat at a table in a small conference room in the hotel where Bryce Carter was staying. Rather than renting an Airbnb like she did, Bryce preferred a hotel room. Sabrina was sure it was because he liked having his room cleaned for him, his bed made for him, and food delivered to him. It didn’t matter to him that it was likely more expensive for the corporation to put him up there than have him rent a condo and have him take care of himself. No. He liked being catered to.
Tilda James was on the large computer screen in front of them. Joining her and Bryce around the table were Matt, the head of construction, Grayson, the guy in charge of getting equipment delivered, and Maggie, Sweet Heaven’s interior designer. Matt had been in Northwood all along. Grayson and Maggie had only arrived in the past week or two.
“Well,” Tilda was saying now as Sabrina did her best to return her focus to the meeting at hand, “everything looks to be on schedule. I’m very pleased.” Not that you could see the difference with her mother.Very pleasedlooked pretty much the same asvery unhappy, as far as Sabrina could ever tell.
Bryce’s grin grew large at her mother’s words, and Sabrina had to force herself not to roll her eyes. “What about the new flavors?” he asked before Sabrina’s mom could end the meeting.
