Unlocking Her Boss's Heart

by Christy McKellen

Picking it up with a trembling hand, she read the words, her stomach twisting with pain and her sight blurring with tears as she took in the news that he’d gone to Ireland a couple of days early for his meeting there, to give them a bit of space.

  He wasn’t interested in giving them another chance.

  It was over.

  Slumping into the nearest chair, she willed herself not to cry again. There was no point; she wasn’t going to solve anything by sitting here feeling sorry for herself.

  She had to look after herself now.

  Her life had no foundations any more; it was listing at a dangerous angle and at some point in the near future it could crash to the ground if she didn’t do something drastic to shore it up.

  She’d so wanted to belong here with him, but this house wasn’t her home and Max wasn’t her husband.

  His heart belonged to someone else.

  She hated the fact she was jealous of a ghost, and not just because Jemima had been beautiful and talented, but because Max loved her with a fierceness she could barely comprehend.

  How could she ever compete with that?

  The stone-cold truth was: she couldn’t.

  And she couldn’t stay here a moment longer either.

  * * *

  After carefully folding her clothes into her suitcase, she phoned Sarah to ask whether she could sleep on her couch again, just until she’d moved into the flat that Amber’s cousin had promised to let to her.

  ‘Sure, you’d be welcome to stay with us again,’ Sarah said, after finally coaxing out the reason for her needing a place to escape to so soon after moving into Max’s house. ‘But you might want to try Anna. She’s going to be away in the States for a couple of weeks from tomorrow and I bet she’d love you to housesit for her.’

  One phone call to their friend Anna later and she had a new place to live for the next couple of weeks. So that was her accommodation sorted. Now it was just the small matter of finding a new job.

  She’d received an email last week from one of the firms that she’d sent a job application to, offering her an interview, but hadn’t had time to respond to it, being so busy keeping the business afloat while Max was in Manchester. After firing off an email accepting an interview for the Tuesday of that week, she turned her thoughts to her current job.

  Even though she was angry and upset with Max, there was no way she was just going to abandon the business without finding someone to take over the role she’d carved out for herself. Max might not want her around, but he was still going to need a PA. The meeting he had with a large corporation in Ireland later this week was an exciting prospect and if he managed to land their business he was going to need to hire more staff, pronto.

  So this week it looked as if she was going to be both interviewer and interviewee.

  The thought of it both exhausted and saddened her.

  But she’d made her bed when she’d shared hers with Max, and now she was going to have to lie in it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  MAX HAD THOUGHT he was okay with the decision to walk away from a relationship with Cara, but his subconscious seemed to have other ideas when he woke up in a cold sweat for the third day running after dreaming that Cara was locked in the house whilst it burnt to the ground and he couldn’t find any way to get her out.

  Even after he’d been up for a while and looked through his emails, he still couldn’t get rid of the haunting image of Cara’s face contorted with terror as the flames licked around her. Despite the rational part of his brain telling him it wasn’t real, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d failed her.

  Because, of course, he had, he finally accepted, as he sat down to eat his breakfast in the hotel restaurant before his meeting. She’d laid herself bare for him, both figuratively and literally, and he’d abused her trust by treating her as if she meant nothing to him.

  Which wasn’t the case at all.

  He sighed and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. The last thing he should be doing right now was worrying about how he’d treated Cara when he was about to walk into one of the biggest corporations in Ireland and convince them to give him their business. This was exactly what he’d feared would happen when he’d first agreed to let her work for him—that the business might suffer. Though, to be fair to Cara, this mess was of his own making.

  Feeling his phone vibrate, he lifted it out of his pocket and tapped on the icon to open his text messages. It was from Cara.

  With his pulse thumping hard in his throat, he read what she’d written. It simply said:

  Good luck today. I’ll be thinking of you.

  A heavy pressure built in his chest as he read the words through for a second time.

  She was thinking about him.

  Those few simple words undid something in him and a wave of pure anguish crashed through his body, stealing his breath and making his vision blur. Despite how he’d treated her, she was still looking out for him.

  She wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone.

  That was so like Cara. She was such a good person: selfless and kind, but also brave and honourable. Jemima would have loved her.

  Taking a deep breath, he mentally pulled himself together. Now was not the time to lose the plot. He had some serious business to attend to and he wasn’t about to let all the work that he and Cara had put into making this opportunity happen go to waste.

  * * *

  Fourteen hours later Max flopped onto his hotel bed, totally exhausted after spending the whole day selling himself to the prospective clients, then taking them out for a celebratory dinner to mark their partnership when they signed on the dotted line to buy his company’s services.

  He’d done it; he’d closed the deal—and a very profitable deal it was, too—which meant he could now comfortably grow the business and hire a team of people to work for him.

  His life was moving on.

  A strong urge to call Cara and let her know he’d been successful had him sitting up and reaching for his phone, but he stopped himself from tapping on her name at the last second. He couldn’t call her this late at night without it meaning something.

  Frustration rattled through him, swiftly followed by such an intense wave of despondency it took his breath away. He needed to talk to someone. Right now.

  Scrolling through his contacts, he found the name he wanted and pressed call, his hands twitching with impatience as he listened to the long drones of the dialling tone.

  ‘Max? Is everything okay?’ said a sleepy voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘Hi, Poppy, sorry—I forgot it’d be so late where you are,’ he lied.

  ‘No problem,’ his friend replied, her voice strained as if she was struggling to sit up in bed. ‘What’s up? Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes. Fine. Everything’s fine. I won a pivotal contract for the business today so I’m really happy,’ he said, acutely aware of how flat his voice sounded despite his best efforts to sound upbeat.

  Apparently it didn’t fool Poppy either. ‘You don’t sound really happy, Max. Are you sure there isn’t something else bothering you?’

  His friend was too astute for her own good. But then she’d seen him at his lowest after Jemima died and had taken many a late night call from him throughout that dark time. He hadn’t called her in a while though, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that she thought something was wrong now.

  ‘Er—’ He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, feeling exhaustion drag at him. ‘No, I’m—’ But he couldn’t say it. He wasn’t fine. In fact he was far from it.

  A blast of rage came out of nowhere and he gripped his phone hard, fighting for control.

  It was a losing battle.

  ‘You did it on purpose, didn’t you? Sent Cara to me so I’d fall in love with her,’ he said angrily,
blood pumping hard through his body, and he leapt up from the bed and started to pace the room.

  His heart gave an extra hard thump as the stunned silence at the other end of the line penetrated through his anger, bringing home to him exactly what he’d just said.

  ‘Are you in love with her?’ Poppy asked quietly, as if not wanting to break the spell.

  He slapped the wall hard, feeling a sick satisfaction at the sting of pain in the palm of his hand. ‘Jemima’s only been dead for a year and a half.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with it, and it wasn’t what I asked you.’

  He sighed and slumped back down onto the bed, battling to deal with the disorientating mass of emotions swirling though his head. ‘I don’t know, Poppy,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you don’t know, that probably means that you are but you’re too pig-headed to admit it to yourself.’

  He couldn’t help but laugh. His friend knew him so well.

  ‘Is she in love with you?’ Poppy asked.

  ‘She says she is.’

  He could almost feel his friend smiling on the other end of the phone.

  Damn her.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a very long day and my flight back to London leaves at six o’clock in the morning,’ he finished, not wanting to protract this uncomfortable conversation any longer. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow after I’ve had some sleep and got my head straight, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ There was a pause. ‘You deserve to be happy though, Max, you know that, don’t you? It’s what Jemima would have wanted.’

  He cut the call and threw the phone onto the bed, staring sightlessly at the blank wall in front of him.

  Did he deserve to be happy, after the way he’d acted? Was he worthy of a second chance?

  There was only one person who could answer that question.

  * * *

  The house was quiet when he arrived home at eight-thirty the next morning. Eerily so.

  Cara should have been up by now, having breakfast and getting ready for the day—if she was there.

  His stomach sank with dread as he considered the possibility that she wasn’t. That she’d taken him at his word and walked away. Not that he could blame her.

  Racing up the stairs, he came to an abrupt halt in front of her open bedroom door and peered inside. It was immaculate. And empty. As if she’d never been there.

  Uncomfortable heat swamped him as he made his way slowly back down to the kitchen. Perhaps she hadn’t gone. Perhaps she’d had a tidying spree in her room, then gone out early to grab some breakfast or something.

  But he knew that none of these guesses were right when he spotted her keys to the house and the company mobile he’d given her to use for all their communications sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.

  The silence of the house seemed to press in on him, crushing his chest, and he slumped onto the nearest chair and put his head in his hands.

  This was all wrong. All of it.

  He didn’t want to stay in this house any longer; it was like living in a tomb. Or a shrine. Whatever it was, it felt wrong for him to be here now. Memories of the life he’d had here with Jemima were holding him back, preventing him from moving on and finding happiness again. Deep down, he knew Jem wouldn’t have wanted that for him. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted her to mourn him for the rest of her life.

  She’d want him to be happy.

  Like he had been on Sunday night.

  He was in love with Cara.

  Groaning loudly into his hands, he shook his head, unable to believe what a total idiot he’d been.

  Memories of Cara flashed through his mind: her generous smile and kind gestures. Her standing up to him when it mattered to her most. Telling him she loved him.

  His heart swelled with emotion, sending his blood coursing through his body and making it sing in his ears.

  So this was living. How he’d missed it.

  A loud ring on the doorbell made him jump.

  Cara.

  It had to be Cara, arriving promptly at nine o’clock for work like she always did.

  Please, let it be her.

  Tension tightened his muscles as he paced towards the door and flung it open, ready to say what he needed to say to her now. To be honest with her. To let her know how much he loved her and wanted her in his life.

  ‘Max Firebrace?’

  Instead of Cara standing on his doorstep, there was a tall, red-haired woman in a suit giving him a broad smile.

  ‘Yes. Who are you?’ he said impatiently, not wanting to deal with anything but his need to speak to Cara right then.

  She held out a hand. ‘I’m Donna, your new PA.’

  The air seemed to freeze around him. ‘What?’

  The smile she gave him was one of tolerant fortitude. ‘Cara said you might be surprised to see me because you’ve been in Ireland all week.’

  ‘Cara sent you here?’

  ‘Yes, she interviewed me yesterday and said I should start today.’

  He stared at her, stunned. ‘Where is Cara?’

  Donna looked confused. ‘Er... I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting her to be here. She said something about starting a new job for a firm in the City next week. We spent all of yesterday afternoon getting me up to speed with the things I need to do to fulfil the role and went through the systems you use here, so I assumed she’d already served her notice.’

  So that was it then. He was too late to save the situation. She was gone.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ he muttered, frustration tugging hard at his insides.

  ‘So will we be working here the whole time? It’s a beautiful house,’ Donna said brightly, looking around the hall.

  ‘No. I’m going to rent an office soon,’ he said distractedly, his voice rough with panic.

  How was he going to find her? He didn’t have any contact details for her friends or her personal mobile number; she’d always used the company one to call or text him. He could try Poppy, but she’d probably be out filming in the middle of the desert right now and wouldn’t want to be disturbed with phone calls.

  A thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘Donna? Did Cara interview you here?’

  ‘No. I went to her flat.’ She frowned. ‘Although, come to think of it, I don’t think it was her place; she didn’t know which cupboard the sugar for my drink was kept in.’

  He paced towards her, startling her with a rather manic smile.

  ‘Okay, Donna. Your first job as my PA is to give me the address where you met Cara.’

  * * *

  At first Cara thought that the loud banging was part of her dream, but she started awake as the noise thundered through the flat again, seeming to shake the walls. Whoever was knocking really wanted to get her attention.

  Pulling her big towelling dressing gown on over her sleep shorts and vest top, she stumbled to the door, still half-asleep. Perhaps the postman had a delivery for one of the other flats and they weren’t in to receive it.

  But it wasn’t the postman.

  It was Max.

  Her vision tilted as she stumbled against the door in surprise and she hung on to the handle for dear life in an attempt to stop herself from falling towards him.

  ‘Max! How did you find me?’ she croaked, her voice completely useless in the face of his shocking presence.

  She’d told herself that giving them both some space to breathe was the best thing she could do. After leaving his house on Monday she’d tried to push him out of her mind in an attempt to get through the dark, lonely days without him, but always, in the back of her mind, was the hope that he’d think about what she’d said and maybe, at some point in the future, want to look her up again.


  But she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.

  ‘My new PA, Donna, gave me the address,’ he said, raising an eyebrow in chastisement, though the sparkle in his eyes told her he wasn’t seriously angry with her for going ahead and hiring someone to take her place without his approval.

  Telling herself not to get too excited in case he was only popping round to drop off something she’d accidentally left at the house, she motioned for him to come inside and led him through to the kitchen diner, turning to lean against the counter for support.

  ‘You did say you’d understand if I couldn’t work with you any more. After what happened,’ she said.

  He came to a stop a few feet away from her and propped himself against the table. ‘I did.’

  She took a breath and tipped up her chin. ‘I’m not made of stone, Max. As much as I’d like to sweep what happened on Sunday under the carpet, I can’t do that. I’m sorry.’

  Letting out a long sigh, he shifted against the table. ‘Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I was the one who knocked on your door when you had the strength to walk away.’

  She snorted gently. ‘That wasn’t strength; it was cowardice.’

  ‘You’re not a coward, Cara; you just have a strong sense of self-preservation. You should consider it a gift.’

  She stared down at the floor, aware of the heat of her humiliation rising to her face, not wanting him to see how weak and out of control she was right now.

  ‘So you start a new job next week?’ he asked quietly.

  Forcing herself to look at him again, she gave him the most assertive smile she could muster. ‘Yes, at a place in the City. It’s a good company and the people were very friendly when they showed me around.’

  ‘I bet you could handle just about anything after having to work for me.’ He smiled, but she couldn’t return it this time. The muscles in her face wouldn’t move. They seemed to be frozen in place.

  Gosh, this was awkward.

  ‘You’ve been good for my confidence.’ She flapped a hand at him and added, ‘Work-wise,’ when he raised his eyebrows in dispute. ‘You were great at letting me know when I’d done a good job.’