Never Let You Go: A Small Town Single Dad Romance, page 1
Never Let You Go
A small town, single dad romance
Bella Rivers
Copyright © 2024 by Bella Rivers
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or places, is purely coincidental.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Developmental editing: Angela James
Copyediting/Proofreading: Grace Wynter, The Writer's Station
Cover: Echo Grayce, Wildheart Graphics
Contents
1. Alexandra
2. Christopher
3. Alexandra
4. Christopher
5. Alexandra
6. Christopher
7. Alexandra
8. Christopher
9. Alexandra
10. Alexandra
11. Christopher
12. Alexandra
13. Alexandra
14. Christopher
15. Alexandra
16. Christopher
17. Christopher
18. Alexandra
19. Christopher
20. Alexandra
21. Alexandra
22. Alexandra
23. Alexandra
24. Christopher
25. Alexandra
26. Christopher
27. Alexandra
28. Alexandra
29. Christopher
30. Alexandra
31. Christopher
32. Alexandra
33. Christopher
34. Alexandra
35. Christopher
36. Alexandra
37. Christopher
38. Alexandra
39. Alexandra
40. Christopher
41. Alexandra
42. Christopher
43. Alexandra
44. Alexandra
45. Christopher
46. Christopher
47. Alexandra
48. Christopher
49. Alexandra
50. Alexandra
51. Christopher
52. Alexandra
53. Alexandra
54. Christopher
55. Alexandra
56. Alexandra
57. Christopher
58. Alexandra
59. Alexandra
60. The Promise Of You
Acknowledgements
one
Alexandra
You ever have that feeling that your day started off wrong, and you might as well give up ’til tomorrow?
I’m the opposite.
Take today. January’s first Monday morning in Manhattan, sidewalks full of people shoving me to the side so they can get to their nine-to-five, city buses splashing snow and mud and salt on my new boots, my two coffees spilling off the container.
Because of this, I’m looking forward to the rest of the day. It can only get better. Bright, beautiful mornings? They set up the wrong expectations. Trust me—I’ve been there. At least tonight, I have something to look forward to: microwaved ramen and wine from the box with my roommate and BFF, watching a trashy show. Now, that’s a day with an upswing.
My stomach clenching, I slosh through the marble floors of Red Barn Baking headquarters, the chain of industrial bakeries owned by my late grandmother and my current place of employment. As I swipe my card through the turnstiles and make my way to the row of elevators for the first time since her passing, the finality of her death hits me like a slap. What am I even doing here? It’s not like she’s going to start noticing me now.
The pit in my stomach grows while I make my way to my cubicle in the Marketing Department, returning the fake smiles of my coworkers. I quickly switch my boots for the pumps I keep under my desk, smooth my skirt, fluff my hair, and take my two dripping coffees to the office of the CEO’s assistant, Barbara.
Her warm smile greets me, but she waves her hands, No, across her desk.
“Organic, sustainably harvested, soy milk and honey, just how you like it. Don’t you want to make your Monday better?” I’ve known Barbara my whole life. She was my grandmother’s assistant. And from the day Mom died fifteen years ago, she’s been there for me. So, although she’s now the CEO’s assistant and I’m barely above entry level, I take some liberties with protocol. Especially since Rita, my grandmother, died last week, and her constant frown and pursed lips are no longer here to chase me away like she did whenever she patrolled the hallways of her empire.
“Sweetheart, you’re the best,” Barbara says. A whiff of patchouli hits me like a sweet memory. “I just don’t want you to spill it on my desk again, is all.”
“Spill already happened this morning, and it wasn’t even my fault this time,” I say, handing her a messy cup and pulling up a chair.
“Don’t sit down, honey. Boss wants to see you ASAP. Conference room.”
Oh shit. I’m never called into a meeting with the CEO. It’s so above my paygrade. “What about?”
She raises her eyebrows and makes a my-lips-are-sealed gesture.
“Does this have anything to do with Rita?”
She tilts her head, maybe. “Be smart,” she says. Her eyes are kinder than usual. My stomach bottoms out. Am I being let go? This company is the last tether to any form of family I have. Please don’t let it be that.
I square my shoulders and force a smile. “I’m very smart.”
“Not that kind of smart. And leave your soggy mess here,” she adds, pointing to my coffee.
I put the tray down. “Gotta make a bathroom run.”
She shakes her head. “No time for that. Robert already asked twice for you.”
Am I really that late?
She waves me out. “They’re waiting for you.”
Who’s they? I clench my bladder and take a deep breath. Doesn’t look like the day is getting better just yet. Ramen and wine, and a trashy show. Focus on the little things that’ll get you through the day.
The big boss, Robert Norwood, is sitting at the top of the conference table with two other people in suits on one side, a man and a woman. Stacks of paperwork are lined in front of them in neat piles. On a side table, a silver tray holds a steaming pot of coffee, croissants, and immaculate porcelain mugs with our new logo on it. I love that logo. It’s a stylistic rendition of a red barn, not unlike the one on the giant picture frame hanging on the wall right above. It’s been a pain to get everyone to agree on that logo, but after exhausting the patience of two external firms, we ended up doing the job ourselves and—
“Alex! Are you with us?” Robert’s voice booms, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Help yourself to some coffee. You look like you could use it.” He sounds even more annoyed with me than usual.
“Thank you.” I almost take him up on the offer, but my bladder rings the alarm, so I choose the safer route of sitting down and getting this over with quickly. I smile at the people across the table from me. They smile back, lips pinched.
Not good.
“Alex, this is the law firm representing your grandmother’s estate,” Robert says. He doesn’t bother with their names, and for some reason that makes me feel a little closer to them.
I nod their way and smile again.
“They’ve come here for the reading of the will, as a convenience to us. Save us some time.”
My eyes drift from the snow now falling steadily on Manhattan to the picture on the wall. A red barn, horses grazing in a lush meadow in the background, and a guy in a flannel shirt holding a massive round bread, flashing a smile too white to be true. For all its fakeness, every time things felt awry in this company, I’ve taken solace in the picture that’s supposed to symbolize it.
I take a deep breath. This is just a formality. For a minute, I thought I was in real trouble, but then again that meeting would have been with HR. This is all making sense.
“Ms. Pierce,” the woman across the table says, “Your grandmother, Ms. Rita Douglas—”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your names,” I interrupt softly, my gaze darting between the two of them.
The man reaches for two business cards from his suit pocket and hands them to me. Robert shifts in his seat, like he doesn’t approve. I’m just being polite. It looks like these people are about to get personal about me and my grandmother. The least we could do is introductions, no?
“We would normally do this type of thing at the deceased’s estate, or at our offices, but this seemed more convenient than having you come to Long Island,” the woman says.
“This is perfect,” I reassure them. “Thank you.” My grandmother practically lived here, having founded the company decades ago, and managing it almost to the very end of her life. She had a mansion that was never a home. Not to her, and certainly never to me.
I glance at their business cards while the woman clears her throat and starts reading from her stack of papers, never making eye contact with me. The man next to her is fidgety. I wonder if they’re concerned about my reaction when they get to the part where I get nothing. Or rather, when they get to the end of the document and my name never came up. I bet they rarely see that. The sole heir of a tycoon getting absolutely nothing. Although, if they want to see me, there must be something they need to tell me. I clench my bladder again. This should be quick.
Rita raised me like that. You’ll never get anything from me that you didn’t work for, she would tell me.
Now, there’s something to be said about tackling your twenties with a knack for budgeting and penny pinching. I have Rita to thank for that. Her stinginess made me stronger. It turned out to be her gift to me.
It wasn’t Rita who’d recruited me to work for Red barn Baking. I’d followed the standard application process. I never knew whether she was proud, annoyed, or pissed when the head of Marketing hired me. Or how she felt when I quickly became their best asset.
My name comes up in the monotone reading of the will. Rita left me with a sum of money that would have covered maybe three days of her living expenses but amounts to about two of my paychecks.
That’s a nice chunk of money. Fuzziness spreads inside me, but I suppress it quickly. It doesn’t sound right to feel happy under these circumstances.
I twitch in my seat. Surely this is close to being over. I really need to use the bathroom.
Hearing my name again, I straighten my shoulders. A part of my brain listens while the other part drifts back to Rita. To be honest, I don’t miss her. I just have to accept that the opportunity to connect with her will never present itself now. I thought that by working for her company it would happen. With time. When I became an adult.
It didn’t.
End of story. I need to move on.
“Alex, did you get that?”
I jump. Yes. Yes, I did get that. I internally repeat something totally outlandish. The gist of it is, if I want to be vested in the ownership of Rita’s shares of Red Barn Baking, giving me a controlling vote on the board, I have to complete a baking apprenticeship. Said apprenticeship needs to happen in a specific bakery in a village in Vermont.
Um… what? My gaze drifts to the picture of the red barn. Several things don’t make sense: Me potentially being at the helm of Red Barn Baking. Me becoming a baker.
And also, why didn’t this ever come up before? If she wanted me to take over after her, why didn’t she prepare me? At least sit me down, have a conversation?
“Can you run this by me once more?” I ask, and while they do, I wonder what Rita’s intentions were. And as usual, when trying to figure out my late grandmother, I come up empty. “What does this apprenticeship consist of?”
Robert snorts.
The man explains, “You would be working part-time at the bakery in Emerald Creek, under the supervision of their baker, a Mr. Christopher Wright. The rest of the time is for you to study the theory and practice your skills in the bakery. You’ll have to pass the French baking exam. An examiner is scheduled to visit a culinary school in the state, and he will validate your apprenticeship.”
Rita Douglas, founder of an industrial bakery, wants me to undergo a traditional French baking training? “How long is this apprenticeship?”
“It’s on the very short side. Five, six months. Lots to pack in, according to the examiner, unless you have solid baking experience and knowledge.” He cocks an eyebrow at me, and Robert scoffs.
“Can’t I do this here, at a culinary school?” I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, but what’s the harm in asking? “If I pass the exam, what’s the difference?” I am actually thinking about this.
I know. Crazy, right?
Robert sighs and shakes his head while the woman cuts in. “These are the terms set forth by the late Ms. Douglas. There can be no modifications, I’m afraid. You need to follow the rules of a traditional French apprenticeship, one where you live on site and are under the baker’s responsibility for most areas of your life, regardless of your age. The late Ms. Douglas also prescribed the one bakery where the apprenticeship is to take place.”
Robert is rubbing his face like he’s super tired. It’s what—ten in the morning on a Monday? “You don’t need to worry about all this,” he says. “You can’t be seriously considering it. You’d be setting yourself up for failure. You realize that, right?” He flicks his pen nervously. “Supposing you pass the exam, do you seriously see yourself presiding over the company?” he snorts.
I would kinda be his boss? That’d be awkward, and I see now why he’s more pissed than his usual self. But I can’t let that distract me.
“What’s the valuation of Red Barn?” I ask him. I should know this, but I don’t. I can tell you how my most recent tweak on our latest social media campaign increased click through rate, in what measure this directly impacted each of our five regional territories, and the net dollar amount generated by that adjustment. I can tell you what color scheme in our graphics is sure to generate greater customer engagement. But I’ve never known the big picture of the company itself, its margins, its real estate holdings, its investments in mills, and all the other components of this empire. Rita never shared this with me, which makes her posthumous offer even more surprising to me.
Robert moves his hands like my question might require an audit.
“At the close of the books last year, what were the assets, what were the liabilities, and what were the revenues?” I ask him slowly, mentally patting myself on the back for remembering Small Business 101. Not too incorrectly, I hope.
His gaze narrows on me. He gives me three numbers, then adds, “give or take a few dozen million.”
Holy shit. I swallow hard but hold his gaze. So much for small business. “I’m going to have to think about this.”
The woman interjects, “You need to make a decision—”
“This does look like a lot of money,” Robert interrupts, “but it’s more of a headache than anything else. However, in consideration of the circumstances, the board has authorized me to share an offer they want to make.” He pulls a paper from inside his jacket and unfolds it.
“What circumstances?”
“Pardon me?”
“You said the board wants to make an offer in consideration of the circumstances.” I have to pee so bad, I switch the way my legs are crossed.
“Y-yes. The fact that Rita—Ms. Douglas—didn’t provide for you in her will. The board understands that this might be… difficult… and they want to help make it right.” He takes his glasses off.
“So the board knew? I thought a reading of a will was like—this surprise revelation.”
The woman stacks her papers back into a neat pile. “The late Ms. Douglas, as many prudent entrepreneurs, chose to share her succession plan with her board.”
I chuckle. “You call that a plan? It’s a frigging monkey wrench.” I blush at my near use of the f-word. I don’t know what’s gotten into me this morning. I’m blindsided, and angry about it, but that’s no excuse to be rude.
“I’m sure she had her reasons.” She purses her lips. “Though I can’t see which.”
“That makes two of us.” My heart drums hard, pushing words out of me.
Robert extends a pacifying hand. “Rita was… a special person. Very few people could ever understand her. But here we are,” he says, gesturing to the sprawling offices, and the stylish logo stenciled on his crystal glass. “So we have an offer. Handsome compensation in exchange for declining Rita’s—Ms. Douglas’—offer.” He slides a two-pager signed by the board members across the table.
In between a couple of dense paragraphs, I read a number, and I learn the monetary equivalent of the word handsome. I’m speechless.
“It’s very generous,” Robert says. “They really don’t need to do this.”
Then why are they doing it?
My bladder is ready to explode now. I stand from the table. “If you’ll excuse me a moment.”
“We need your decision now,” the woman cuts in.
I’m about to ask her why, but I can’t hold it any longer. “And I need to pee now.”
As I dash past her office, Barbara scowls at me. But when I exit the stall, she’s leaning on the bathroom vanity. “How are you doing, honey?”
“Do you know what’s going on?” I take time lathering my hands, observing the soap suds form and pop, before rinsing them under scalding water, trying to calm the thrum in my body. Despite my pitiful efforts to be loved by her, Rita barely tolerated me. So, why this?
Barbara turns sideways to face me and crosses her arms. “Robert asked me to prepare a packet, Just in case, he said.”
I shake the droplets off my hands and turn toward her. “You know why Rita would do that?”
