Page 130 of Theirs for the Holidays

It feels like it happened to someone else, honestly.

When I didn’t relent on going in, they started insisting they should come with me, but I shot that down too. I told them I was just going to get the things I needed immediately, and that I would start moving more stuff out later.

When I get there, I’m glad they didn’t come because the sign on the door saying the bakery is closed makes my stomach twist and tears spring to my eyes.

I’ve cried in front of them enough.

I know they didn’t like letting me come here alone, the grim looks on their faces told me that much, but I really needed to beby myself for this. I need the space to come to terms with what happened and process all of it.

Being here just makes it feel all the more real. Especially when customers come to the door and I have to turn them away. It feels like the end of something that never even got to begin properly. I was picking up momentum, starting to really bring in some business, but now… Now that’s all over. I don’t know what I’m going to do or what comes next. I don’t even know where to begin.

I keep getting hung up on the fact that my own sister did this to me.

Isabelle and I haven’t always been close, not since we were kids and we started going down our own paths, but we never hated each other. At least, I didn’t think so.

I never wished bad things for her, even when she would get what she wanted when I didn’t or when it became clear our parents were always going to take her side. Or at least Mom would. Dad wouldn’t go against the two strongest willed members of our family if his life depended on it, which somehow was even more disappointing.

But I tried to move past all that. I took all the comments about my weight, about being single, about not having a ‘real job.’ I tried to get over the fact that Isabelle started dating my ex, and I agreed to be her maid of honor even though seeing her and Andrew together used to hurt so bad.

I never raised a fuss or called her out, and this—this is what I get in return.

I never in a million years thought Isabelle would do something like this. She’s always been spoiled and selfish, but I never thought she was just straight up cruel. She knows how much the bakery means to me, even if she never really cared, and for her to just snatch it away from me like this, for her own whims…

My fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms. I have to take a few deep breaths to calm myself down because I can’t start spiraling again. What’s done is done.

Here, in the quiet of what was my bakery, I can admit to myself that I’m worried. I’m so grateful that the guys support me and that when I go home, they’ll be there, but there’s a part of me that worries that this will make them see me differently.

I just lost everything. I lost something that defined me so entirely, something I was so proud of.

It’s silly to deny that I’ve been developing real feelings for them, and I’ve been starting to feel like maybe it was mutual.

But now… now I feel like I’m unworthy of them. They’re all intimidating, powerful men, who built a successful security company from the ground up. They have more money, separately and between them, than I’ll probably ever see in my life. They were already out of my league to begin with, and now I’m just a failed bakery owner with no prospects.

What could they possibly see in me now? I have even less to offer them than I did before.

My thoughts start to run away with me, but I’m startled out of them by a knock on the glass of the door. I take a deep breath and force my best customer service smile, ready to turn away another customer with the news that the bakery is closed, but when I look up, I see Simon standing there on the other side of the door.

I go to open it, swallowing hard. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

He gives me a gentle smile as he steps inside out of the cold. “Rhett called me. He told me what happened.”

“Oh.” I look down at the floor. “Yeah, it’s—” I don’t have the words to express how I feel, but Simon takes my hand, sparing me from finding them.

“Rhett thought maybe you needed someone to talk to. Someone with some distance from the situation.”

I’m filled with warmth, touched that Rhett was thinking of me and looking out for me even when I turned him away this morning.

“I’m okay,” I tell Simon, trying to put on a brave face. “It’s going to be okay.”

Simon gives me a skeptical look. “I think if I had been through what you’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours, I wouldn’t be okay. And there’s nothing wrong with that, Violet, my dear. It’s alright to feel hurt that your sister would do that. And it’s more than alright to mourn the loss of something you worked so hard for.”

His words break something open inside me, and I start crying all over again. It’s less panicky than yesterday, but it still feels like my heart is shattering in my chest.

“It’s just—how could she do this?” I ask, crying harder. “She’s supposed to be my sister. My family. I’ve done everything for her, everything she’s ever asked, and this is what I get back? She takes the only thing I’ve ever had for myself?”

“That’s the thing about family,” Simon says gently. “They’re the people you’re supposed to be able to trust the most, so it hurts even more when they betray you.”

I nod, and I don’t fight it when Simon takes my arm and gently steers me to one of the tables so we can sit down. He pats my hand as I cry it out, just letting me feel however I feel.