Page 86 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

It was silly and selfish of me to be upset. My friends could take trips without telling me about it. They’d done nothing wrong.

Logically, I knew that. I knew I was being unreasonable.

But it still hurt. I was all alone in my echoing apartment, feeling like a transplant in a building where I didn’t belong, clinging onto a stable life by my fingernails while other people floated by without any apparent effort. I felt invisible and small and lonely, and then felt stupid for feeling those things in the first place. I cried until my face ached, and then fell asleep on the couch, exhausted.

THIRTY-FIVE

ROME

Nikki calledin sick the next day, which was a first. Clara informed me with a message that popped up at the bottom corner of my screen, and Nikki sent me a text a few minutes later. I sat at my desk and clenched my hands into fists, resisting the urge to jump in a car and head to her apartment to make sure she was okay. Instead, I ordered some chicken soup and a bunch of flowers to be delivered to her, and I turned to the contract with Monk to start ironing out the details.

Our weekend in Grenada had been fruitful, and I had to make sure we capitalized on it. I couldn’t let myself be tugged toward the woman who dominated my thoughts while neglecting my duties.

Even if I wanted to.

I had the niggling feeling that something had happened, a splinter under my skin that I wasn’t quite able to dig out. She’d felt ill; she was probably just sick. But she’d turned away from me. Ever since we’d known each other, she’d always turned toward. The change made me uncomfortable.

When my phone buzzed with a message from her thanking me for the delivery, some of the tension in my shoulders drained away. I liked caring for her. I liked being the one she could rely on, and I wanted her to turn to me for comfort and security. I wished I’d insisted on her sleeping at my place last night so I could nurse her back to health the way I wanted to.

As soon as the day was over, I’d be at her place to check on her.

I was interrupted from my rumination in the early afternoon when Cole knocked on my office door and poked his head in. “You busy?” he asked, which was strange. Typically he’d just waltz in without caring if he was disturbing me.

I rolled back from my desk and gestured for him to take a seat. Instead, Cole stood on the other side of my desk holding a manila folder. He cleared his throat but said nothing.

Arching my brows, I said, “Yes?”

Not one to beat around the bush, Cole lifted his gaze to mine and replied, “I’ve been headhunted. I’ve been offered a position as the director of a small company.”

I blinked.

“Not a competitor,” he rushed to add. “It’s a software company.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. “What do you know about software?”

“Not much,” Cole admitted, “but I know about sales. They’re in the finance industry, which is…”

“Your area of expertise.”

He let out a long sigh and pulled a sheet of paper from the folder in his hand. “My letter of resignation.”

A flurry of emotions ran through me, and it took all my self-control to keep them off my face. I wasn’t sure if I succeeded when Cole shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if he were preparing to run.

I wasn’t surprised; Cole was talented. He’d have recruiters pestering him on a daily basis. But although this wasn’t unexpected, the loss of my second still felt like a betrayal.

After everything we’d been through together, all the opportunities I’d given him, he was just going toleave?

I took the letter from him but was unable to read past the first line. It landed with a soft scrape on my desk, and I lined it up perfectly with the edge of my keyboard before saying, “Will you sit down, at least?”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to stay,” Cole said, taking a seat. “Rome, I just want to tell you, working here has been a great experience. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I don’t want to leave on a sour note.”

I nodded. “Neither do I.” The words were gritted out, but I meant them. Or I wanted to mean them. At that exact moment, there was a sort of howling in my head, a little boy’s voice crying out into his boarding school bed’s pillow while a thunderstorm raged outside, the evidence of his bedwetting soaked into his pajamas, shame and fear and loneliness his only companion. That little boy wanted to cut Cole to size and tell him to leave my office and never speak to me again. He wanted to get on the phone and sully the other man’s name so his precious opportunity at the fancy financial software company crumbled to dust.

But I wasn’t that kid anymore. Hell, I wasn’t even the man I’d been three months ago. I didn’t think of life as a game to win, or a stone from which I was meant to squeeze out every drop of blood. I enjoyed myself, on occasion. I looked forward to the future.

Could I really begrudge Cole for wanting a bright future of his own?

I met my friend’s gaze. He stared back at me, arching his brows, waiting for me to bite his head off. The lump in my throat stopped me from being able to say much, but I did manage a croaked, “Why now?”

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