Can't Let Go by Jessica Lemmon Page B

mom?”
    “Yeah. She’s making lunch. My siblings are in town.”
    Longing clenched her heart as she pictured meeting Aiden’s Chicagoan ad exec brother, his brother the tattoo artist, and his sister the graphic designer. She wondered if they were each as warm and honest as Aiden. And if they’d like her.
    “I called to tell you I’m making you dinner tonight,” Sadie told him. “But don’t worry, I have a backup pizza if I screw it up.”
    Again, he didn’t laugh. He seemed distracted. Sadie pressed the phone against her ear and heard background voices, his mother again. She was giving instruction, in the kitchen, from the sound of the clattering of pots and pans. “Harmony! Can you help?”
    Sadie blanched. Harmony?
    “Yeah, I’m not sure I can make it tonight, Sadie,” Aiden muttered into the phone.
    This wasn’t happening. Not after she’d had a moment of stark clarity. Aiden wanted her, not Harmony. There’s no way he’d folded his ex back into his life so seamlessly within days of telling Sadie he missed her. Her brow beaded with sweat. This was one of those situations she worried needlessly about. One of those things she conned herself into only to later realize she’d been blowing things out of proportion…
    “There’s…something I have to talk to you about.” Aiden lowered his voice and she heard shuffling, like he was hiding their conversation. Her stomach flipped. So it was true. “Now isn’t the time, though,” he said.
    She used her free hand to pinch herself in the thigh. Pain shot through her leg. God. This was real.
    “I’ll give you a call Monday night,” he said.
    Before she could argue…or drive her car off the nearest overpass, he hung up. Sadie held the phone in the palm of her hand for a second, her thoughts swirling like angry black smoke around her. She tossed her phone to the floorboard of her car and turned up the radio.
    Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.
    But her brain had already concocted one scenario after another. No matter how she tried to convince herself this was all a big misunderstanding, there were two irrefutable facts she’d heard with her own ears.
    Harmony and Aiden were together at his parents’ house. And he wasn’t coming to see her tonight.
    Sadie couldn’t see a silver lining to save her life.

Chapter 7
    P erry hovered in Sadie’s cubicle, hands folded into a pleading gesture. “I’d owe you. Big.”
    “Perry, did it occur to you I don’t want to work late for you tomorrow? Especially if it helps you save an account?” She smiled wryly.
    “I did consider that.” He dropped his hands. “That’s why I’m offering you five percent of my bonus check.”
    Intriguing. Sadie leaned back in her chair, rolling a pencil between her fingers. “Fifteen.”
    “Ten.”
    “Twelve.”
    Perry narrowed his eyes at her. “Fine. Twelve. But only because the appointment I’m going to will secure my salesman of the year award.”
    Bastard. He got that stupid award every year. She hated herself for it, but no matter how stupid Sadie tried to convince herself the award was, she wanted to win it. Just once. After Perry left her cubicle, she opened her planner to block out the overtime tomorrow and her eyes landed on an appointment she’d forgotten all about.
    Drinks with Crickitt.
    Crap. She dialed her best friend’s number to cancel. Or reschedule for another night.
    “Tell me to stop worrying incessantly,” Crickitt answered.
    “Stop worrying incessantly. Is this about your hot boss?” Sadie asked, knowing her best friend’s ongoing issues with one very tall, very dark, very handsome billionaire.
    Crickitt’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’m not answering that question.”
    But Sadie could relate. Who among all of womankind wasn’t worrying incessantly? And about men, no less. While Crickitt fretted over Shane, Sadie fretted over Aiden’s call tonight. Ridiculous. All of it. She and Crickitt should declare themselves forever