The Will(131)

He was right.

Absolutely right.

“I was afraid,” I told him.

“I understand that now. I could have no idea then.”

He was right about that too.

I looked to the dirt at my feet.

“Josephine,” Henry called and my eyes went back to him.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” I stated.

“How can we know that if we haven’t tried?” he asked.

“Because I’m falling in love with a man I’ve only known two weeks but even falling, I already know I can’t imagine what a day would be like without him. No,” I shook my head as Henry’s face started getting hard again. “I can imagine it. I just don’t want to.”

“I’m not certain he’s right for you,” he told me.

“And I’m not certain you would be, saying something like that when you don’t know him in the slightest.”

“I know we had our words yesterday, Josephine, they were unpleasant, he was there throughout, and he didn’t intervene for you once,” he pointed out.

“You’re right. He didn’t. But then again, you were my employer, had been for years, I’m a forty-five year old woman and it really wasn’t his place to intervene. However, when I was overcome by emotion after that scene that was when Jake intervened, holding me in his arms, stroking my hair and talking to me to soothe me.”

“So this guy is perfect,” Henry stated disbelievingly and perhaps a little sarcastically.

“Not at all,” I told him. “He’s ludicrously protective and preposterously overbearing. He’s also got this thing where he selects my seat for me, usually next to him, and does this by planting me in it. He can be very dictatorial and it isn’t infrequent when he is. He laughs when I’m being serious and bellows from wherever he is in the house at wherever the person he’s talking to is. He also uses curse words frequently, even in front of his children, and allows them to do the same, especially his eldest son, this latter I intend to have words with him about very soon. I’m certain he has other bad habits that I’ll discover, given the chance. The thing that makes me happy is that I have that chance.”

“So it’s you giving up on us,” Henry noted.

“No, it’s me saying that we had our time, that time passed. We both made that mistake. And now it’s me moving on. I didn’t drive here to fire me, Henry. You did.”

“Knowing how I feel about you, can you work alongside me? And if you care about me, can you honestly wish to do that while making me watch you fall in love with another man?”

“No, I intended to resign,” I told him honestly. “However, I had hoped to do it and salvage a relationship with someone I love very deeply who means a great deal to me. I just hadn’t come up with how to do that yet.”

He said nothing but held my gaze.

I did the same.

Henry was the first one to break the silence.

“Fuck, I should have come to Lydia’s funeral with you,” he clipped tersely.

He should have.

He really should have.

But he didn’t.

And if he did, I would not have Jake.

Or Amber.

Or Ethan.

Or Conner.

So I said nothing.

“I f*cked us up,” he whispered and the way he did made my anger fade but my pain increase.

“We both did,” I said quietly.

“You had no choice with your past the way it was. I did.”

I couldn’t argue that.

“I f*cked us up,” he repeated and I moved to him and put my hand on his chest.

“Stop it, Henry.”

“Twenty-three years, I’d look forward to you walking into my hotel room every morning with a coffee, sweetheart. Daniel’s nowhere near as attractive as you and completely the wrong gender. He sends it up through room service.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head to rest it on my hand on his chest.

Oh, how I loved walking into Henry’s hotel room with a coffee every morning. The smile he’d give me. We’d sit down and chat, about the work to be done that day, where we were going, what was next, or nothing at all.

And he’d always make me laugh.

Now, looking back, knowing what I knew, I realized he worked for it, worked to give that to me.

Every morning.

His hand lifted and wrapped around the back of my neck and that felt nice and warm in the crisp autumn air. Strong. Sweet. Lovely.

With his lips at my hair, he said, “You find your way to salvage our relationship, you tell me. Then we’ll do it.”

I moved closer and wished the fence wasn’t between us as I turned my head so I could press my cheek to his chest.

His hand gave my neck a squeeze and his lips were still at my hair when he said, “This is killing me, honey, so I must go.”

I nodded, my cheek sliding against his shirt and I started to move back because I didn’t want to hurt Henry. Not ever.

And I had.

Unintentionally but I’d still done it.

So I had to stop doing that.

But I stopped when Henry’s hand at my neck put pressure on.

I tipped my head back to see Henry’s descending.

And then he kissed me. Not a chaste brush on the lips. His mouth opened over mine and for some reason, mine opened under his and his tongue slid inside.