Page 159 of Dear Grumpy Boss

“What?”

“El.” Elliot shook his head. “He watched Dad do it, and when Dad was gone, Weston took his place. That’s why he always gives you his pickle.”

“I—” I looked back and forth between them. Elliot had started eating as though he hadn’t dropped a gigantic bomb on me. Luca was still watching me, something soft and sympathetic playing on his features. “I didn’t know.”

Luca reached over and squeezed my forearm. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to know.”

Because he had always loved me.

Not in the same way he did now, but Weston’s love for me had been a presence in my life for as long as I could remember. Through my stone-cold bitch phase and his plethora through living in Chicago. Even now, I didn’t doubt he still loved me.

Brunch went on for an interminably long time. I’d been looking forward to being with Elliot and Luca, but now, all I wanted to do was leave so I could roll what I’d just learned around in my mind.

And read the email.

When I was finally headed home in the back of my Uber, I took out my phone, scanning over Weston’s plans for Andes. From my cursory, untrained glance, Weston wasn’t playing around.

At the bottom, he’d written me another quote from my book.

“Lying in a pool of blood—my own, for once—it’s her face I see. I’m not so lucky that she would actually be here. A hallucination is all a man like me can ask for. I reach for her. Her fingers are solid when I expected ephemeral.

“Are you real?”

She weaves our fingers together. “As real as you are.”

“I’m dying.”

“If you’re dying, so am I. I refuse to let you go.”

“You’re the only reason I would stay.”

“I should be dead already, but I’m nothing but a servant at her command. If she tells me to stay, I will. If she asks me to be a better man, I’ll turn myself inside out to do it. There’s nothing I would not tear the world and myself apart to give her. All she has to do is ask.”

Those weren’t Weston’s words, but I wanted to believe he meant them.

As soon as the Uber stopped in front of my building, I bolted, running for the elevator. I had to see him, even though I wasn’t quite sure what I would say.

At his door, I shoved my key in the lock without considering whether I should. Before we fell apart, I’d always let myself inside without knocking.

“Weston?” I called.

There were plates on the dining room table. I wrinkled my nose at the leftover food. It wasn’t very like Weston to leave his table a mess, but then, I hadn’t been myself lately either.

He wasn’t in the living room. I started toward the hallway where the bedrooms were and heard noises. The TV? It didn’t sound like it.

Two more steps down the hallway cleared up what I was hearing.

Animalistic moaning.

Guttural grunting.

“Harder. Please, more.”

“Yeah, baby. That’s right.”

Blood drained from my face. My hopes pooled at my feet.

Oh god. He’d moved on. After everything he’d said about waiting forever, he hadn’t even waited twenty-four hours.

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