Page 154 of Dear Grumpy Boss

Elise was going to give me an opportunity to speak to her after stonewalling me for over a week. Not that I didn’t understand why she’d done it. She had every right to lock herself away from me. That didn’t mean I hadn’t been utterly bereft without her.

I made it to our building’s rooftop fifteen minutes early. She arrived on time, and I rose from the chair I’d taken at the same table we’d sat around on her birthday. Her gaze landed somewhere around my shoulder. Mine roved everywhere, greedy for her.

She’d changed into a Chicago T-shirt, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was a subtle threat. She’d moved across the country once before, she could do it again. Chances were, she’d picked the first T-shirt available and I was overthinking things, but this was what I’d become.

A madman for her.

“I brought you a beer.” I gestured to the sweating bottle on the table. “If you want it.”

“Sure. Thanks.” She slipped into her chair at the end of the table. I reclaimed my chair to her right. Our knees touched when I scooted in. She moved hers away.

Her thumbnail dug into the label on her bottle. I held mine between both my hands, spinning it in slow, tight circles.

My pulse skittered in erratic waves from the panic and fear coursing through me.

“How are you?” I asked.

She huffed softly. “It’s been a long week.”

“Long few weeks.”

“Yes.” She glanced up from her beer, still not making eye contact. “Andes is…going to be okay?”

There were dark smudges beneath her eyes. Twins to the ones beneath mine. She looked beautiful, stunning even, but sad. So damn sad. I’d done that to her. I’d sucked the sunshine out of her, leaving her cold and dim.

“Yes. A lot is still happening behind the scenes, but the EPA investigation is being dropped, which is a massive relief.” There was a lot more to it than that, but I wasn’t about to waste this time with Elise by talking about Andes.

“That’s really good.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and exhaled. “I got an email from Patrick today.”

I went still. “Did you? What did he have to say?”

“I don’t know. I decided not to read it.”

“Yeah?”

I had no clue what I was supposed to say here. My first instinct was to call IT and have them block Patrick from our servers. My second was to break into her inbox and read what that khaki-wearing motherfucker dared to send tomygirl.

I ended up deciding to be quiet and let her speak.

“I was thinking about what Miles said on my birthday when you asked him why he’d bullied me. He said sometimes there isn’t a good reason for the bad shit people do and wind up regretting. And as I was considering reading Patrick’s email, I realized there was no explanation he could offer that would make more sense to me than the one Miles gave. I don’tneedan explanation from him. It won’t make a difference to how I feel about what he did.”

The label on her bottle had been nearly picked off. Mine was almost empty, bitterness coating my tongue.

Before Elise, I’d never thought of myself as a jealous man. I now understood it was because I’d never been with a woman I belonged to the way I did to her. I was hers, which meant she was also mine. My mind would not accept anything less. So, hearing about Patrick, and even my brother, was nails on a chalkboard.

These thoughts were irrational, and they were mine to deal with. I was in no position to command her to scrub every man she’d ever met from her memory. Though, in a perfect world, that was what I’d do.

None of the thoughts streaking around my skull would convince Elise I was a man she could take another chance on, even though I was. The one thing I was one-hundred-percent certain of was: I would always choose Elise.

And it was her time to speak and mine to listen.

She had more to say.

I angled forward, stealing a few inches of the space she’d put between us.

She sucked in a ragged breath.

“But I need an explanation from you, Weston. I want you to tell me how you were able to push me aside. How did you feel when you ordered Renata to bar me from your office two minutes after I’d been inside it? What were you thinking when you flew to California without telling me you were going? Did you know you were leaving me when you crept into my bed in the middle of the night and fucked me? I want you to explain that to me because I don’t understand how you were able to do any of it.”

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