by Ally Blake
* * *
Lucinda stood looking down at her desk, at the tub of sharpened pencils, the pile of pretty notebooks.
The joy that it had given her—the sense of ownership, of purpose, of self-respect—felt like something that had happened in a movie she’d once watched.
It was ruined. She’d ruined it. Making love with Angus, telling him she’d wanted him for the longest time...
He looked so pained every time they made eye contact now, as if he was choking on something. It had to be regret.
Not that she knew what to say. Whether to apologise or make light. To tell him she was struggling too. To agree to pretend it had never happened. They’d made it past the Christmas party near-kiss and managed to work together just fine. If anything, the sexual tension had upped their game.
So long as they’d stayed either side of the immovable, inviolable line they’d kept between them, she’d been allowed to exist in a kind of perfect balance between working with Angus in a job that fulfilled her more than she ever would have thought possible and basking in the presence of the smart, sharp, talented, determined man she adored.
Only it hadn’t been balanced. It had been emotional purgatory.
And now the line was gone, obliterated, she was totally untethered, her feelings all over the place.
Maybe she should just look Angus in the eye and tell him she’d thought herself a little bit in love with him before and now she was drowning in it.
Every time she looked at him, she saw not her boss, or the man she’d had a secret crush on for years, but his bare chest as he’d hovered over her, the dark heat in his eyes as they’d made love. She felt again the tenderness in his touch, the way he’d relaxed in a way she’d never seen in him when he’d cradled her as she’d fallen asleep. As though protecting her was his happy place. As though something that had kept him chained all these years had finally broken free.
Then she’d woken up. Alone. In every possible way that could mean.
Reaching out and finding him gone, her heart had stuttered in her chest. She’d told herself it was okay. That he hadn’t said goodbye before leaving her room because it wasn’t goodbye. That they’d be together again at breakfast. And beyond.
Only to slowly begin to panic about what came next. Would they head into work on Monday holding hands, gazing into one another’s eyes over the boardroom table, co-signing Fitz’s form that people had to sign when they started seeing one another at work?
Then, with all that piling up in her head, when she’d found Sonny in the hall and been forced to answer why Angus couldn’t be her boy’s dad...
He’d been so good to Sonny, and for Sonny. If Angus was keen and ready and wanted it too, he’d be a wonderful father. Kind and fun with solid boundaries and strong arms.
But he’d made it so clear over the years that fatherhood was not for him. That he believed no man should come close to that job without a medical, a police check, a licence and a wide-open heart.
So she’d brought out every lame thing Cat had accused him of in order to distract Sonny from the idea. She’d gone into pure self-defence mode.
But then, so had he.
Leaning against the wall in the hall, the very picture of causal indifference, offering her an early mark. Pushing her away. The wall that kept him separate from the world all but rebuilding before her very eyes.
She’d had Angus but she couldn’t have him.
He was too flawed, thorny, demanding and damaged. She’d spent too long making sure other people were happy, as if doing so was the only way to make them stay.
But what if staying wasn’t always the right answer? What if sticking, depending on her roots, believing in for ever, was the problem rather than the solution?
Before she was fully aware of where she was going, Lucinda walked down the hall, feeling as though she was on her way to her own execution. Yet at the lift she didn’t even hesitate before pressing the button to head up to the HR floor.
* * *
Fitz’s office was a mirror of Angus’s only it was plush and brash and noisy and messy, where Angus’s was spare and neat and still.
Lucinda gave Velma a wave. Velma nodded, letting her know she could head right on in.
Fitz glanced up, serious face on, as Lucinda entered his office. It softened when he saw it was her.
Taking off a pair of red tip-tilted glasses he’d clearly borrowed from Velma, he leant back in his chair. “You coming in or are you just going to stand there all day?”
“Stand here?”
“Sit,” he insisted clicking his fingers. “Now.”
Her feet dragged as she took the last few leaden steps towards the chair by Fitz’s desk. When she sat, her breath left in a sad little whoosh.
“I was wondering when you might show up.”
She blinked at him.
“You, Lucinda Starling, are a mighty oak, putting up with that fool of a boss of yours for as long as you have. And coming back to work, being your usual amazing self after what happened over the weekend...”
She leant forward, her head dropping to her knees. “You know? How do you know?”
“Sweetheart. It’s my job to know. Besides, I was there. I was stumbling back to my room the morning after the party—boy can those women dance—right as Angus was checking out. Looking like a big, broken bear with a storm cloud over his head.”
Lucinda lifted her head. The thought of Angus, broken, made her heart hurt. The thought he might feel that way because of her? How had she let things get so out of hand?
Because you love him, you goose!
Well, she thought miserably, there was that.
Fitz checked his nails as he went on. “I bugged him till he told me why. No details, unfortunately. Just the bare bones. But I’d figured it out. There’s only one person in the whole world who can bring out that kind of emotion in our boy.”
He pointed a finger Lucinda’s way.
“I can’t,” she said, barely able to string more than two words together. “I can’t do it any more, Fitz.”
Fitz stopped fussing and looked at her. Then he hopped out from behind his grand desk, came over to her, lifted her out of the chair and pulled her into a hug.
“Of course you can. You’re in love with the guy. Anyone with two eyes and a brain like a steel trap could see it.”
Something in the back of her head, some last remaining thread of a survival instinct, told her to baulk, to scoff, to poo-poo Fitz’s suggestion. But, sounding and feeling like a kicked puppy, she murmured, “Does he know?”
“My cousin?” Fitz snorted. “Smartest guy I know, bar Charlie, who doesn’t count because he’s not human. But when it comes to the workings of the heart, Angus is as clueless as they come.”
“It’s not his fault.”
Fitz laughed softly. “Only a woman in love would look at Angus Wolfe and believe the reason he hasn’t settled down with a good woman—or a bad woman, for that matter—isn’t entirely his fault.”
With a groan, her face fell against Fitz’s chest, her neck no longer able to hold up her head. She felt as if she had the flu. The love flu. The unrequited love flu. The Angus Wolfe strain.
“How did you two finally crack?” Fitz asked, his voice lacking its usual bolshie tone.
She knew what he meant. And she knew the answer. “He looked at me.”
“Hmm,” said Fitz in mock seriousness. “He has a way of doing that. What the hell does that even mean?”
She laughed, despite herself. The Angus Wolfe love flu was making her light-headed. “You know—the look. The kind that makes you see exactly what’s going on in the other person’s head and it’s enough to make your kneecaps melt clean away.”
“Ah, that look.”
Lucinda lifted her head.
“He’d given me the look once before, yo
u know? At that crazy work Christmas party a couple of years back. All that bubbly and dancing and mistletoe, someone was always going to do the walk of shame that night.”
“Right,” Fitz agreed, shifting from foot to foot, making Lucinda wonder for a moment who he’d walked from that night.
“The look that night—it was hot. And lingering. And brimming with the promise of sweaty limbs and torn clothing and regret.” Lucinda laughed, though it felt more like a whimper, and stepped out of Fitz’s hug. “And why am I telling you any of this?”
“Because you need to let it out or you’ll implode. And you know there’s not a single thing you can say that will change how deeply I adore you.”
She nodded. He was right. She looked down at her hands. “Nothing happened between us at that party. Nothing anyone else would think was inappropriate. HR, for instance.”
Fitz breathed out. Hard. “But last weekend? Sweaty limbs, torn clothing...”
“And regret.”
“Luc. Honey.”
“It’s okay. I’m a grown-up. I knew what I was doing. And I knew no good would come of it. At the very least I’ll be able to live off it for a long, long time. Perhaps even until I’m old and grey, and Cat and I are still living together in my sweet little cottage, watching Netflix and bickering.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Fitz reached out and put a hand on her shoulder as if he could tell she might well collapse to the floor otherwise. “So, I’m assuming you didn’t come up here because you knew I have no filter and would happily listen to any details you might impart as to your dirty weekend with my stupid cousin?”
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this out loud, but I need you to tell me what to do so that I can officially resign.”
Fitz didn’t even stiffen, as if he’d seen this coming a long time before she had.
She’d be fine financially. Her little cottage was all hers, Sonny was in a great public school and she’d get another job with a single phone call. She knew the kind of money she’d get offered from other firms.
But she’d miss this. She’d miss him. The thought of turning up to work for anyone but Angus made her feel physically ill.
She’d seen the man nearly every day for the past six-and-a-half years and had loved him for almost as long.
“He loves you too,” said Fitz, as if he’d read her mind. He went to his desk to sort out the required paperwork. “In his own way.”
“I know,” Lucinda said. “But if he taught me anything these past few years it’s that I’m worth more than that. Angus’s way of loving just isn’t enough.”
And there it was. The truth she’d steadfastly avoided admitting to herself. For it meant no longer having a crush on her boss to keep her safe from truly opening herself up to the possibility of the kind of love her parents had. The kind of love she’d feared she’d never find if she ever really went looking.
She knew Angus would be side-swiped. For all that he’d shut her out over the past few days, he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t want to lose her.
“Don’t tell him,” she said. “Remède will be here in an hour. And there’s nothing more important to him than that.”
“Nothing?” Fitz said, looking at her over the red sparkly glasses.
Then, muttering to himself about how he should have been a shrink or a psychic, Fitz printed out the necessary forms.
* * *
Lucinda stood outside her little cottage looking over the duck-egg-blue front door, the cream eaves, the gardenia bushes that had bloomed for the first time ever last spring.
Trying to reconcile herself with the fact that she was home. At two in the afternoon. Not because she’d had to pick up Sonny sick from school but because she no longer worked for Angus Wolfe.
She’d somehow made it back to her office after she’d finished hashing out her exit with Fitz. Then waited in the ladies’ bathroom until the last possible moment before slipping into the back of the room for the Remède pitch.
Angus had sat at the top of the room beside Louis Fournier, foot resting casually on the other knee, finger playing lightly over the seam of his mouth. A picture of cool ease, when she knew how important it was to him that this meeting went well.
Angus hadn’t looked her way, but he’d known she was there. She’d seen it in the way he shifted on his seat, the way his other hand clenched, as it had been doing all week.
She’d spent the meeting feeling as if she was on the other side of a mirror as his band of dashing, clever, talented marketing and graphics geniuses had played their symphony of social media spots and print ads and the complete overhaul of the website relaunch of the Remède brand.
It had been all she could do not to blub when Angus had explained the theory of kintsukuroi, not even pausing before crediting it to her. How Remède was a celebration of women—of mothers, daughters, sisters, friends—at every stage of life.
She hadn’t been even the slightest bit surprised when Louis had pulled Angus into a bear hug, muttering praise and thanks into his ear while he shed a tear.
The Big Picture Group team had been on a total high after all the last-minute work they’d put in, yet the moment the meeting was done Lucinda had slipped out through the door—only to hear Angus’s footsteps meet hers as he’d jogged to catch up.
“Hey,” he’d said, his voice a little rough. “Hey, slow down. What’s the big rush?”
“Stuff to do.”
“So that was wild in there.”
“It was amazing. You were amazing.” Her voice had caught as she’d said, “I’m so proud of you, Angus. Not many would have gone to the lengths you went to in order to get that so right.”
Lucinda had picked up her pace. Or she’d tried to, until Angus’s hand had clamped around her arm.
She’d stopped and turned to find herself toe to toe with her boss. Her brilliant, impossible boss. Close enough to catch the scent of his soap, the fresh cotton of his shirt, to see the thread unspooling from a button hole. She made a mental note to remind him not to buy that brand again, before remembering that wouldn’t be her job any more.
“Lucinda,” Angus had murmured, his voice scraping her insides in a way that had her curling her toes into her shoes so as not to shiver.
Pulling together every ounce of self-protection she’d had at her disposal, she’d dragged in a short, sharp breath and looked up into his eyes. Warm, hazel and far too astute for comfort.
“What’s going on?” he’d asked.
She remembered looking down the hall to see who might be watching. Who might note them standing closer than two work mates ought to stand. But everyone was busy chatting, laughing and moving in and out of one another’s offices, the hive all a flutter after the successful meeting.
Then she’d moved to Angus’s office, pushed open the door and crooked a finger his way.
A smile had hooked at the corner of his mouth. A smile so cocky, familiar, so beloved, she’d felt it as an ache deep down inside. Then he’d sauntered after her.
Expecting...something better than what he was about to receive.
But Lucinda had known, if she hadn’t done it then and there she might not have done it at all.
So she’d pulled a single sheet of white paper out of her notebook and held it out to Angus—
The front door of the cottage swung open and Lucinda near leapt out of her skin.
Catriona poked her head around the door, a piece of toast poking out of her mouth. Then she glanced at her watch. “I thought I heard a funny noise out here. What are you doing home so early?”
Lucinda found her feet and walked up onto the porch. Swinging past her sister, she said, “I quit.”
“You what?” Cat cried, then stopped to choke on a crumb she’d inhaled.
Lucinda had time to unwrap her scarf and hang it on the hall stand before Cat came h
ustling inside, her socks shuffling on the wooden floor. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I thought you’d be happy.”
“Why the hell would you think that?”
“Because it means I won’t be working with Angus any more.”
Cat flapped her hands, her eyes near bugging out of her head. “Why would that make me happy?”
Lucinda turned to face her sister. “You don’t like him. You’ve never liked him.”
“First, that’s not true!” Cat cried out. “And second, when did you suddenly care about that?”
“So, you like Angus?”
“He’s a freaking gem! No other boss would pay you as much as he does. Or give you the time off you need.”
Lucinda stood wearing one high heel as she’d already kicked off the other shoeoff. And she breathed deep. “Can you just...not. Today. Or ever again. I’m not in the mood for games.”
“Luc, I’m not playing. I promise. I’m too shocked. Seriously. I feel as if there’s been a tear in the space-time continuum. You can’t quit Angus.”
“I didn’t quit Angus. I quit my job.”
“Same thing.”
Lucinda glanced at her sister to find her standing in the middle of the hall looking...lost. “Come on, Cat.”
“I mean it. I’m worried right now. I’m the quitter. I’ve quit a million jobs, a million men, but you? You’re the ‘for ever’ girl. It’s probably why I’ve never been able to hate Angus, even though he’s so annoyingly good-looking and confident and brilliant. Because from day one he knew you were the for ever girl too. Just like he’s a for ever guy.”
Lucinda closed her eyes against the memory of that final moment. He’d refused to take the piece of paper, so she’d opened it up and read it out loud.
“Stop,” he’d said, his voice rough when she was about half way through.
She’d looked up, expecting refusal, an argument, maybe even some kind of revelation. But she’d never seen him look so empty, so cold.
