Snow Job by Tara Wyatt (best large ereader .txt) 📗

for wear. He’d clearly been stuck in some kind of downward spiral that had only worsened over the years. At first, she’d felt bad for him, but he’d quickly burned through all of her goodwill.

It wasn’t that he’d ever deliberately treated her poorly. No, he’d been so self-involved and wrapped up in his own world that he’d been completely clueless as to how his behavior affected the people he worked with. He’d been totally oblivious to how difficult he’d made things for her, because he was a selfish, privileged ass. And in her books, that was almost worse. She wasn’t even a person with a life, with feelings and goals and challenges to him. She’d just been someone to clean up his messes.

She hadn’t set out to get him fired the morning she’d gone to Stammler with the stack of files. All she’d wanted was help managing the impossible workload he’d left in her lap. She’d been treading water for months, trying to do both her job and his.

But she hadn’t been sorry to see him go. She had taken a sort of gleeful pleasure in seeing him marched out, sandwiched between two security guards. He’d caused her so much grief for three years that although she should’ve felt bad for him, she didn’t. Besides. It wasn’t like he’d be broke or homeless. He was a trust fund kid who’d land on his feet.

Or so she’d thought…She paused, her signature red lipstick raised halfway to her face, his words from earlier slamming back into her.

You fucked up my life pretty bad, Kayla. I lost my apartment. I lost my job. Look at me. I’m a thirty-four year old snowboarding instructor. Yeah, I screwed up. But I was on the edge and you pushed me right the fuck over, sweetheart.

Had she…had she caused this?

A tight knot formed in her chest, and she knew that feeling. Guilt.

“No,” she said to herself in the mirror. “This isn’t on me. It’s on him. Sebastian’s problems are not my concern.” She blew out a breath. This was just another example of an entitled, privileged asshole blaming everyone but himself for his problems. Trying to guilt her into making her feel bad when she had nothing to feel bad about. God knew he got off on tormenting her. “Just get through the retreat. That’s all you need to do. Just get through it and you’ll never have to deal with Sebastian Prescott again.”

She started playing a podcast on her phone, hoping that having something to listen to would drive him from her mind. Once she’d finished getting ready, she stepped back to scrutinize her appearance. She was going for ski bunny chic—put together but casual, pretty but cozy. The welcome cocktail wasn’t anything super fancy, just some hors d’oeuvres and hot apple cider served while people mingled and Mr. Stammler gave a short welcome speech. She glanced over and checked the time on her phone and frowned. If she left now, she’d be at least fifteen minutes too early. She liked to time things so she was exactly five minutes early. Not early enough that she looked desperate, and definitely not late. As far as she was concerned, five minutes early was on time, on time was late, and being actually late was simply unacceptable.

So, she strolled back into the bedroom, turned on the gas fireplace nestled into the corner, and stood in front of the sliding glass doors that led to a small balcony. The view was absolutely breathtaking. Snowcapped mountains poked up into the darkening sky, almost touching the streaks of orange and violet painted along the horizon. The ski hill lights had come on, illuminating the resort with a soft, warm glow. Silhouetted pines clustered together, coated in snow. It really was peaceful up here. Beautiful and serene.

Was that why Sebastian had come here?

Crap. She was thinking about him again.

She huffed out a breath and grabbed her phone from where she’d tossed it on the bed, sinking down onto the plush white duvet. She opened her ongoing group chat with her friends, which they all took turns renaming. It had just been renamed “The Chamber of Secrets” and given Dori’s penchant for all things Harry Potter, Kayla’s money was on her.

Kayla: You guys won’t believe who’s here at the retreat.

Dori: Voldemort?

Brandon: How would a fictional character be at Kayla’s retreat?

Dori: She said we wouldn’t believe it. I mean, it could happen. And then maybe the stern brunch daddy that is Lucius Malfoy would be there too, and then I could get on a bus to Vermont and, you know, see what happens.

Brandon: Step away from the Harry Potter erotica, okay?

Dori: I’m reading this really good one right now, though. It’s called Accio Dickus. You’d probably like it.

Willa: Who’s there?

Lauren: Um, I think I know.

Kayla: Wait, what?

Lauren: Well, tell us who it is first.

Kayla: Sebastian. As in Prescott. As in my ex-boss.

Lauren: Yeah. I didn’t want to say anything when you told me the name of the resort, because hey, you might not even run into him, so why stress you out and have you stewing over something that might not even happen. Sorry. Maybe I should’ve given you a heads up.

Brandon: The guy you got fired is there? Why???

Kayla: He works here as a snowboarding instructor. And I didn’t get him fired!

Willa: I didn’t know he was into snowboarding. Huh.

Kayla: Apparently, and he’s actually really good. You should’ve seen these flips and things he was doing. Pretty impressive.

Lauren: Yeah, he was pretty active on the competitive circuit in his late teens and early twenties. He was even an alternate on the 2006 Olympic team. He was supposed to make the team for 2010, but he injured his knee and had to have major surgery, and he never really went back to it after that, according to Theo.

Theo: Yep. Everything my gorgeous fiancée just said (wrote?) is true. Sorry we didn’t give you a heads up. Like Lauren said, we were thinking that you