Page 81 of A Winter Wish

“Theo,” she began. “I—”

“Don’t.” His voice was a mixture between a snap and a plea. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t do what I did—don’t keep running away.”

She tilted her chin in the air defensively. “You said it yourself. It’s different for me.”

“I don’t think it is, this time,” he said quietly—and the truth of his words hung in the air between them. “And Lexie, Mike will back me up, if you want to—”

“It’s not about that,” she interrupted, and he frowned. “I mean, it is. It was a dickish thing to do, no matter when you did it.”

He grimaced. “I know. But I also know I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I was just angry and grieving.”

“Even so.”

He nodded slowly, accepting that.

She heaved in a breath, and her hands dropped to her sides. “But it’s not just that.” She hesitated, trying to find the words to explain why this had made her see that she couldn’t stay. In the end, she settled for, “The company was his. My dad’s. Not mine.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t make it yours,” he said softly. And when she said nothing, the corner of his mouth drooped down. “Please. Don’t do this. Stay.” She remembered his voice, his hand on hers in that room in Ireland. Stay. She felt a rush of emotion, and closed her eyes against it.

“I can’t,” she whispered. And when she opened her eyes, Theo’s expression had hardened. Like he knew that it was about him as much—more, maybe—than the company. That this wasn’t just her leaving the company, it was her leaving him.

With that thought, she found she couldn’t look at him anymore. She turned, fumbling for the door handle. She could hear Fran’s voice in her mind. You’re not the fuckup you seem to think you are. But Fran was wrong, wasn’t she?

Even as she got the door open and stepped one foot outside, there was a small part of her that was hoping Theo would grab her, stop her. That he would be able to find the right words to make her stay—even if she didn’t know what those words would be. But he didn’t—he said nothing. So she kept walking.

The fact that Ange came up to her the moment she stepped into the main office made Lexie think she’d been waiting for her. Her pale green eyes scanned Lexie’s face searchingly, before her bright red lips twisted and she shook her head, the big gold hoop earrings she was wearing moving as she did so.

“I wish you wouldn’t do this, Lexie,” Ange said softly.

Lexie didn’t ask how Ange knew. She found she couldn’t even meet her gaze, looking down at the carpet instead.

“Your dad asked me to look after you for this year,” Ange continued, in that same quiet voice. “And I hope I’ll be able to look out for you long after that, too. But you’re making that rather difficult if you run away.”

The carpet was blurring in front of Lexie’s eyes, and she blinked to try to clear her vision. She didn’t bother to contradict the running away part, like she had with Theo—she knew Ange wouldn’t buy it.

Ange sighed. “If you walk away, if you don’t fulfill your end—the company will all go to Theo, Lexie.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lexie said thickly. “He deserves it more than me anyway—this was never mine. And I can help, from afar. I can…” She swallowed. “If you need me, I can still help.”

When Lexie glanced up, Ange was watching her, her expression thoughtful. “Your dad guessed it might come to this, you know.”

Lexie frowned, but before she could ask Ange to elaborate, Ange held up two envelopes—envelopes she must have been holding the whole time, without Lexie noticing. Her name was written on both. Her name—in her dad’s handwriting.

“I don’t know what’s in them,” Ange said, and now she weighed an envelope in each hand. “But I was under strict instructions to give you a letter, if it looked like you might quit.”

Lexie glanced between Ange’s hands, and Ange gave her another small, slightly sad, smile.

“But there’s a choice. One letter is for if you really do decide to quit, the other is for if you choose to stay.” She held out the letter in her left hand, and Lexie knew—this was the letter Ange wanted her to take.

She felt a lump clogging her throat and it wouldn’t go away when she swallowed. Her dad had known she might want to quit. And, if these letters were anything to go by, he’d hoped that she might change her mind, and stay anyway.

“I suppose it’s up to you, which letter you take.” Ange said, and now she held both out to Lexie. The staying letter in her left hand, the quitting letter in her right. Lexie took a shuddering breath. She didn’t want to take either letter. She didn’t want to read her dad’s writing, didn’t want to open up the floodgates. But she couldn’t leave without taking one. She couldn’t turn her back on this final thing her dad had wanted to say to her.

The I’m sorry she wanted to utter didn’t get as far as her lips, and instead echoed inside her head as she took the letter in Ange’s right hand. So maybe she was more like her dad than she’d thought. Because she was leaving his company, just like he’d left her all those years ago. The thought made her eyes blur again, and she turned on her heel, away from the disappointment in Ange’s eyes, gripping the letter in her hand.

She didn’t know if she’d work up the courage to read the letter. Not right now, that was for sure. Maybe in a while from now, when she’d managed to move on, put the past nine months behind her. Because that’s what she had to do—put it behind her, remember her own identity. No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much she was shaking as she stepped onto the street outside, she had to leave it, in order to keep herself safe.

So when the door shut, Lexie didn’t look back.