A Family-First Christmas by Tara Taylor Quinn

Author:Tara Taylor Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-08-21T19:07:33+00:00

Chapter Ten

He’d told Sarah about Sierra so that she didn’t look to him for something he couldn’t give. To explain to her, in real terms, why she wouldn’t ever have a committed romantic relationship with him.

But based on her reaction to the telling—trying to tend to him, not looking out for herself—he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded.

Still, over the next week of work and a trip to a couple of holiday events, he wasn’t sorry he’d talked about Sierra. He didn’t do it often. Had never told anyone about their sexual relationship. And probably should have. As cliché as the old adage was, talking about it helped.

With that thought in mind, he told Kelly, too, only to find out that she’d already suspected as much. All the partners had—back when Sierra had still been alive. They’d just never been sure. And after her death, when Win stayed silent, they just let it go. They didn’t want to ask in case they were wrong. And if they were right, they’d opted, as a team, to respect his right to his privacy.

After speaking with Sarah, he also told his partners that he and Sarah were hanging out after hours, expecting to hear valid and fair warnings to him about mixing business with pleasure. Instead, he was nonplussed by the chorus of “good for yous” that came his way. Along with Hud jokingly warning him about how quickly hanging out can turn into so much more.

Because Hud had been referring to his own recent and very quick marriage to a former client—his own mixing of business with pleasure—everyone had laughed.

But Hud’s situation had been very different, too. The client had called him because she’d had his daughter thirteen years earlier without telling him, and the daughter had gone missing. She’d wanted Sierra’s Web to help find her, and they did.

Mariah, too, had recently married a client, she’d more quietly reminded Win.

So the whole don’t mix business with pleasure thing—off the table with the partners, too, not just Sarah.

One thing became very clear to him throughout it all. Sarah was right that he saw the world through his own eyes, as everyone did, but failed to factor in the fact that others’ perspectives were sometimes very different from his.

He’d known the world was filled with varying points of view. He’d just never actually factored them into his equation when he’d interacted on an interpersonal level. He factored in differing opinions. Respecting them.

Just not vast degrees of varying perspectives.

Not sure what any of it meant long term, in the short go, Win found himself looking forward to the holiday season with more excitement than he had since his parents had been killed. For the first time in a decade, he felt hopeful in a personal sense.

Not necessarily hopeful that he and Sarah would someday get married, have kids, become a family.

But hopeful that the future held more for him than he’d allowed himself to believe.

When he came out of his office the following Friday afternoon, five

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