Win Him Over by CoraLee June

Author:CoraLee June [June, CoraLee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-25T18:30:00+00:00

no daddy pun here

EMILY

Slamming the hotel room door behind me, I flopped against it with a huff that could’ve summoned all the congressional hot air from Capitol Hill. Eyes shut, I was back there in that stuffy room where those damn poker-faced suits had the gall to grill me about my mother. As if her cameo role in my upbringing was the star performance that shaped my entire existence.

Pardon my French, but fuck that.

She didn’t get any credit for how fabulous I was.

My mother was like a summer storm that blew through occasionally, leaving a mess but not much else. I could almost hear my younger self, the one who fell asleep to the sound of bedtime stories being read in her own voice because Mom was off being … well, whatever and wherever she fancied.

And Spencer—General Beckett—had to pop into my head, didn’t he? Mister I’ll distract you with the best kiss of your life in a locked-down elevator during a crisis. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to buy him a drink or punch him for making me feel like a lovestruck teenager when I was supposed to be a grown woman who’s got her shit together.

Standing there in the stingy glow of that hotel lamp, I was hugging myself like a straightjacket—not for comfort, but as a get a grip memo. The day had been a marathon of suck, and when the running was done, it was just me. Always me.

Well, me and Sadie. And Rachel. And the uncles who got saddled with a niece who was more trouble than a political scandal.

But here’s the kicker: Sadie had Jack, and those two were having a baby soon. I’d be … an outsider. The uncles, they had each other’s backs. And Rachel, sweet Rachel, she’d fall in love and leave sooner or later.

That’s what people did—they took off.

Everybody always did. They left, leaving behind their promises like unpaid bills, piling up on the doorstep of my life. And me? I was the one constant, the girl who stayed, the one still standing when the party was over and the confetti turned to litter.

And General Beckett, Spencer, was another person with an expiration date.

Liking him wasn’t an option.

I stood motionless, the murk of the hotel room cloaking my silhouette, as a stream of unspoken confessions swirled in my head. Abandonment issues? Check. The kind that you didn’t just get over with a self-help book or a feel-good montage. I had fears of being left, fears of leaving—of turning into a carbon copy of my mother with her suitcase permanently packed.

Yeah, I had issues. Enough to start my own subscription service. But I was done adding to the collection. My emotional capacity was about as stretched as a budget at a dollar store. There was no room at the inn for someone who could kiss the sense out of me.

As the room threatened to spin with the gravity of my thoughts, a sudden chirp from my phone pierced the quiet.

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