“I saw that you put yours in. Again.” The bite disappeared from Valerie’s tone. “If you take time like this, it’s going to negatively affect your career, Kendall. I can’t have a sales manager who disappears for… how long are you requesting?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” Valerie echoed. “You must know I can’t approve that.”
She guessed she did. “You were never going to give me that position, were you?”
“You’re very good where you’re at. I have to manage my assets accordingly.”
That answered that, didn’t it? She looked back over all the wasted years of breaking herself in that job to prove her worth. For what? So her boss could keep her pigeon-holed and then not even have the empathy to allow her to take time off for this family emergency? Was that really the company she’d sacrificed so much for?
In the end, there was no choice at all. A weight she’d been carrying for far too long fell away and she stood straighter. “I quit.”
“Excuse me?”
“I. Quit. Expect my emailed resignation in the morning.” She hung up and sank onto the bed. Holy crap, she’d done it. There was no safety net. No backup plan. She’d just have to make it work.
She reached for her phone, driven by the urge to call Alex and tell him…
And stopped.
She’d just quit her job. Her rent was paid through the next two months, but she’d have to get back to New York and figure out what to do with it since she didn’t have an income any longer. The very last thing she’d expected when she rushed to her sisters’ sides was that she’d be… moving back to Ruby Creek. That’s what was happening. No point in side-stepping it. Gretchen needed her, and there wasn’t a timeline on when that would stop. It would take a miracle for Ethan to recover, and even then he wouldn’t be able to be the partner on this renovation project like they’d planned. A renovation project that would overlap with her sister’s pregnancy and the birth of her new baby.
Kendall pressed her hands to her chest, the echoes of Gretchen’s pain nearly sending her into a fetal position. She couldn’t put a timeline on her older sister finding her feet again. She wouldn’t. Gretchen had been such a force of nature, a steady point to guide her life. No, her path had never been Kendall’s, but her presence and confidence had grounded Kendall when she needed it time and time again.
Realistically, she was looking at years in Ruby Creek. Once the restaurant was done, it would have to be opened and run.
She might never leave this town again.
It was one thing to try for a long-distance relationship when she had a job and an income and a hell of a lot of vacation days saved up. In the course of a few hours, her entire life had been derailed. She couldn’t ask Alex to shoulder the burden of flying to see her—or paying for her flights to him. If they were both occupied with running businesses…
No time.
There was simply no time.
She set her phone down and nudged it away. It hurt so much to think of never seeing him again, but it was the right choice for both of them. It had to be. Better to let them mourn the idea of what could have been now, rather than drag it out and sink emotions and money and time into something that was destined to fail.
No matter how much it hurt now to contemplate never seeing him again.
Chapter 14
It took two weeks for Alex to fully give up hope of hearing from Kendall. Two weeks of jumping every time his phone rang, quickly followed by sour disappointment. Two weeks of trying to convince himself that maybe his worst fears were wrong.
He prowled around Pop’s, aggressively cleaning until everything shone, going over the menu for the specials over the next month, reconfiguring his filing system. Doing everything in his power to stay busy so he didn’t have to think too hard about what he’d lost. Who he’d lost.
Kendall.
It shouldn’t be possible to have his heart broken after less than a week with a person, but he couldn’t deny the truth ticking beat by jagged beat in his chest. Lust didn’t hurt like this. It didn’t leave him feeling bruised and battered and still wanting to see her more than anything else in the world. It didn’t tip his entire life upside down and shake it for all it was worth until he questioned the priorities and rules he’d lived by for a decade.
Only love did that.
He didn’t look up as someone walked through the door to his office. “I’m busy.”
“Really? Because it looks like you’re moping.”
The gravely voice was so unexpected, it took Alex a few moments to process it. He looked up and, sure enough, it was Pop standing there in his office. He stood a little straighter than the last time Alex had seen him, his skin browner from spending a lot of time in the sun, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt similar to the ones he’d insisted Alex don for the cruise.