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Chapter Two

STELLA

“Thank you for doing this,” my boss, Paige, says from the speakerphone of my cell on the counter. “We didn’t expect your first actual client to be so last minute. I wanted to go over everything with you before the meeting, but Garrett’s nervous the client will get cold feet if we wait any longer.”

“We’ve gone over everything more than enough times. I’m ready. Thankfully, I got my printer set up yesterday, so I have a copy of the contract ready to sign with me.” I glance at the clock on the stove while zipping the purple lunch box closed. “If I have any issues, I’ll call you immediately. But I need to get my little hellion out the door so that I’m not late.”

“Okay, okay. Let me know if you need anything.” Paige’s reluctance to hang up is clear through the phone, but I don’t have time to fight off all her worries now.

The company was originally built on publishing and design, but over this past year, they have expanded to encompass more assistant and help options. Which is what I was hired for.

None of us planned for my first SweetHeart Assistance client to happen with only fifteen hours’ notice, but I’ve been here for just over a month, training and preparing. Sometimes the only way to find out if your studying has paid off is to dive right into the deep end.

I set the lunch box next to my sleek brown laptop bag.

“All right, little miss!” I call out, my voice echoing through our new townhouse, and make my way to the bottom of the stairs. “Did you pick out what you want to wear today?”

The thuds of tiny feet patter overhead before Harper appears at the top of the stairs holding a sparkly purple playdress.

“Dis!” she exclaims, starting her wobbly descent down to me. It’s taken her a few weeks to get the hang of the steep incline, and for as much as I offer to carry her up or down to fight off my own paranoia, my four-year-old’s independence streak is hitting hard.

“You’re lucky we don’t have more time, kid,” I mumble to myself. If we weren’t in such a hurry, I would try to convince her to wear something more practical for daycare. However, this is not a battle I want to pick right now. Besides, there’s a spare set of bike shorts and a T-shirt in her backpack if she ends up needing to change.

Harper jumps off the final step and holds her dress up toward me.

“Pretty dress pwease, Mama!”

As she grins innocently up at me, my breath catches at the uncanny resemblance she has to her father. Aside from sharing my bronzed skin and pale blue eyes, Harper is practically the spitting image of Greyson. Especially when she smiles.

“Sure, Princess. Let’s get dressed and do your hair quickly so we’re not late.”

Harper squeals in excitement and flings the dress at me as she runs into the living room, pulling her sleep dress off as she goes.

The familiar twinge grips my heart as I watch her run amuck and I force the ache down, just like I do almost every day so that I can focus on getting my daughter out the door.

Even after these past few years of doing everything on my own, it’s nearly impossible to make it through an entire day without thinking about how quickly my life changed. I might have only been nineteen, but I was convinced I had a good grip on how things would play out. Thought that no matter what was thrown our way, the love we had would make it through anything.

It only took a car crash and a positive pregnancy test to prove me wrong.

To this day, what hurts more than anything is the fact that he couldn’t face me. He spent years getting through my walls and weaving himself in, until one day he was my safe space. Then, at a time when we both should have turned to each other for support, he shut me out. What’s worse is that he couldn’t even do it himself. He sent his mother to do it for him.

Thankfully, I had one last place to turn. All it took was a phone call to my nana and I was leaving Georgia two weeks later to move to upstate New York with her. She gave me a place to live, helped get me into one of the colleges where I met my friends Eva, Thea, and Addison. None of them blinked twice when they found out I was pregnant. If anything, they were excited to live vicariously through me and get some baby time in. Without them, I might not have graduated.

I hadn’t second-guessed my decisions once since leaving.

Until I accepted the job here in Tampa.

I had kept up with Greyson’s career on the down-low. Maybe it was a masochistic tendency, but no matter what, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. He was always the best at hockey in high school, so it’s no surprise that he went on to play for one of the top teams in the league. His team has already made it to the playoffs three times and won twice during his time on the Bobcats. Something I doubt he would have been able to do if he was tied down with me and our baby.

The dangerous thought about what it would be like to run into him now that we’re in the same city again creeps in. What would it be like to show him the amazing tiny human he is missing out on?

But then Harper’s little giggle breaks through my haze of thoughts, reminding me that it’s not my job to convince someone to be in our lives. If he wanted to, he would be here.

My daughter deserves the best I can give her. One day I know she’ll ask about him, and I’ll have to explain how he chose his career over us. Until then, I’ll spend all my time making sure she knows just how loved and wanted by me she is.

“And done,” I tell my daughter after securing the hair tie at the bottom of the French braid. While her hair color closely resembles her father’s, genetics blessed her with the same curly hair I got from my mother. Harper shakes her head back and forth, making the braid hit both her shoulders before she dips her head backward to smile upside down at me.

“Just like rapunle,” she says, missing more than a few letters from the princess’s name.

“You’re even prettier than Rapunzel,” I tell her, gently booping her nose before smushing her in a quick, giggle-filled hug. “All right, shoes on and out the door.”

We make it out of the house and into the car surprisingly quickly, only stalled by me having to explain why she doesn’t need to wear her old fur-lined boots even though it’s technically fall. The entire car ride to her new daycare is spent explaining how we won’t get snow like we did last year. Thankfully, I was able to fight off a breakdown by promising that we could go to the beach on Christmas and make a sandman instead of a snowman. That idea had her laughing once more and I sent off to daycare without another hitch.

I spend the ten-minute drive to the café where I’m meeting my client letting my brain switch gears into work mode. The sound of the warm breeze blowing through the open windows helps soothe my anxious thoughts and get my head on straight.

After graduating college, I was worried that the friendships I made during that time would slowly fade. We all had such different plans, all of them in different cities, so it made sense that things would change. I was, luckily, proven very wrong. We might have all been at different places, but we all made it work.

It helped that Thea, who recently moved to a beachy small town in South Carolina, implemented a Waffle Wednesday. Once a week, we each send a voice note or text update on life. It can be small things, like the weeks where all Addison did was update us on the new gluten-free foods she was trying. Or sometimes they are multiple four-minute voice notes complaining about the latest work drama. More often than not, mine are focused around Harper updates and pictures.

Basically, we just call it Waffle Wednesday because we jump between topics without any rhyme or reason. It’s also fun to say. Plus, if one of us is having a bad week, we just wait until Thursday and can send an update that starts with “happy twat-waffle Thursday…” and then proceed to trauma dump.

One random Waffle Wednesday was when my friend Eva mentioned her promotion and told our friend group about the company’s expansion. Aside from being happy for her, I was intrigued. The more details she shared, the harder it was to stop thinking about it. Something kept buzzing in the back of my mind until I finally caved and asked her if they were hiring.

My nana’s face when I told her about the job was priceless. Even by the time we left to move down here, she still wasn’t fully on board with it, but she still told me she trusted my judgment to do what’s best for me and Harper.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I had spent the past month training with Paige and a couple others on the team to get ready for this. But most of that had either been assistant work for her and our COO, Garrett Walker, or going through hypothetical contracts or situations.

From gala dates, red carpet walks, or even just casual parties, we had gone through every potential need for a non-permanent and professional partner to spend events with. Garrett’s ultimate hope was to help people who will be in spotlight situations to feel less alone or have some of the weight taken off their shoulders.

Considering I spend every single day remaining calm while navigating erratic toddler emotions, I fully believe I can handle whatever a client might need.

What’s even better is that I don’t have to worry about dating. My nana had been getting on my case a lot lately about dipping my toe back in the dating pool. The idea alone made me feel nauseous. I tried shortly after Harper was born to get back out there. My friends had even offered to help watch my baby while I did. But after multiple disastrous dates, I told everyone my energy was best spent keeping my daughter alive and getting through college.

Now that Harper is getting older, this job seems like the perfect way to keep everyone off my back about my dating life. I get the joys of going out and having mature, adult interactions with no expectations for anything more or deeper.

It’s a win-win.

I manage to snag a parking spot a couple storefronts down from Cal’s Café and am just approaching the door when my phone rings from my bag. Stepping back so I don’t block the entryway, I fish out my phone and see Eva’s contact on the screen. While she doesn’t work for the assistant side of things and instead is in charge of publishing, she has still been going above and beyond to make sure I’m fitting in. Since she’s most likely calling to make sure I’m not running late, I hit the decline button and open up a text thread.

Me: No need to worry about my time management skills. Walking into Cal’s now, call you when I’m done!

After switching my phone to silent, I drop it in my purse and turn to head inside. As the scent of coffee and baked goods assault my nose, I finally realize I never asked Paige for the name of the client or even what he looked like. Luckily, the café isn’t packed. While approaching the counter to grab a cup of coffee, I scan the quaint seating area and cross my fingers that whoever they are will stand out.

Just as the stunning woman behind the pastry case pops up to take my order, my eyes snag on the man seated at one of the tables by the window. And he’s already staring at me.

Everything around me seems to pause, the voice of the employee waiting for my answer coming out muffled as my heart stutters and drops to my stomach. The warmth drains from my face and for a minute I struggle to breathe.

A hand on my shoulder finally pulls my haunted stare off the last person I ever thought I’d see here. I turn and find the woman who was behind the counter standing beside me now and holding up a corded phone.

“Sorry, are you Stella?” she asks calmly and I can only nod numbly in response.

“Your friend Eva is on the phone. She said to look at her texts.”

Realization dawns on me and a strangled laugh escapes my mouth.

Clearing my throat, I glance down at her name tag and force a polite smile. “Thank you, Cal. You can tell her I’m fine.”

Looking at her texts and missed calls isn’t necessary. I don’t need to see them to know that she was trying to warn me about who the client is.

Squaring my shoulders, I force out a deep exhale before painting on a professional smile and cross the space to face Greyson.