Page 7 of Broken By Her Mate
Tolliver was a little stunned by her rapid and unexpected retreat. Before he could react, he was left alone with Cora, the chatterbox, who stared at him accusingly.
“Great. Now, you’ve upset her,” she said.
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to.”
“What do you want, he-who-should-not-be-name?”
“Iwantyou to stop calling me that,” Tolliver returned.
He saw the teasing glint in the girl’s eyes. She was nowhere near as pissed as Laila was. She had been excited about him showing up to grovel. Suddenly, he saw an ally in Cora.
“Actually, you were right before, Cora… sort of. Laila and I rekindled our romance weeks ago.”
She eyed him with a suspicion that, thankfully, turned to interest. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“She never said anything…” Coar’s eyebrows dipped.
“I think that’s because she’s mad at me. I went on a… business trip. She didn’t want me to leave again for so long, but I had no choice. So, I guess I am here to grovel for her forgiveness.”
“Oh, my gosh.” She clutched her chest. “I think that’s so sweet. I knew there was still something between you two, or else Laila would have moved on by now.”
“With someone like your sociology professor?”
She was back to being suspicious because her eyes narrowed to slits. “How do you know that?”
Tolliver inwardly cursed himself for letting that slip. “I overheard…”
“Exactly how long have you been here?”
“Look, Cora, I was merely lingering around, waiting for Laila because she wouldn’t talk to me, and I had to resort to ambushing her before she closed up. I’ve been calling her for days…” The lie went off without a hitch because Cora’s eyes became less squinty.
“Oh. She never mentioned it. Sorry about the whole professor thing. Had I known you were back in the picture, I would never have tried to match make.”
Tolliver’s jaw tightened at the idea of Laila dating some human. “I need your help to win her over.”
Her eyes lit up. “Are you going to perform a big romantic gesture?”
“Sure…” Tolliver felt absolutely no shame lying to the girl or for the way he was about to whisk Laila right out of the bakery. He’d do whatever it took to keep her safe and deal with her anger later. “I want to take her on a romantic getaway for a few days. Quality time alone will help us to talk and work things out. I want to propose to her.”
Cora opened her mouth, and Tolliver knew she was about tosqueal. He placed a finger over his lips and whispered, “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
She pursed her lips, muffling her excited shriek. “A proposal?” she whispered. “That issoromantic. But if I know Laila, you’ll never get her out the door. She won’t want to leave the bakery.”
“But you’re capable of running things until she gets back, aren’t you?”
“I am.” Cora nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve been dying for her to give me more responsibility. She’s taught me everything I need to know. I can whip up pastries almost as well as she can.”
“Great. Maybe you can go back there and help me out. Convince her to come with me…? It would be great if we could leave tonight.”
Core grinned. “I can be very persuasive.”
“Thank you, Cora. I owe you big for this, and remember not a word about the proposal.”
Cora aimed for the door Laila had disappeared through, but she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “You won’t hurt her again, will you? It’s taken her a while to recover.”
Tolliver was caught off guard by the concern clouding the young woman’s eyes and her revelation.A while to recover?Five years ago, Laila had pretty much pushed him through the door when he said things weren’t working out between them and he was leaving. He knew he was an asshole for dropping that on her abruptly—and it had been a complete lie—but she hadn’t seemed all that broken up. He’d been low-key hurt by her calm reaction, which was selfish because why would he want her to shed tears and beg him to stay?