Page 14 of Until I Find You

I grip my hands into fists. “You’re quitting.”

“You could say that,” she says, her eyes rising to meet mine.

I bite my tongue.

“I just hope Seth will take me back.”

“You’re quitting because I want you to go to Hawaii on your own?”

Camilla’s head dips back, and she scoffs. “Just a symptom of the problem.”

“Whichis?”

She quits packing. When she looks at me, there are lines in her forehead, her eyes are tremoring, lips pursed in a thin line. “All we’ve been doing since I arrived here istoleratingeach other, Jack. Neither of us needs this.”

If only I could tell her I have to keep her at arm’s length. If she was any closer, I’d forget which way is up and which is down. I’m doing this for our own good.

“There are plenty of people in New York, hell, in the world who would want to work with you, Jack.”

I can tell she’s holding back on what she really wants to say to maintain some amount of professionalism. “But I’m not one, all right? You want someone to be pushed around, and that’s not me.”

“I’m not pushing…” I run my tongue along my lower lip and bite back on the rest of the sentence. “You know what? Fine, you don’t think we’re a match? That’s fine. But you can’t quit. You’re fired.”

Camilla slaps her hands down on the kitchen island, her mouth ajar. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Yes, I am. I was giving you a chance to prove your mettle, it didn’t work, and your time is up.” I cross my arms over my chest.

I have no idea what I am doing, and how things will go with Seth or if he will even help me find someone else, but the fact that she is leaving… leaving me? It fucking hurts. It shouldn’t, but it does. And I am being an asshole, but I can’t deal with being rejected by her. I can’t. So, I’m setting this on my own terms. Because maybe then it won’t hurt as much.

Right?

Camilla narrows her eyes at me. “Fine. You fired me. Does that feel better?”

No.

“I trust you can see yourself out.”

Camilla’s nose crinkles. It would be cute if we weren’t on each other’s throats.

She throws her bag over her shoulder and begins to head toward the door, but before she can make it, she flips back around. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Jack, since I know you’re not used to this whole ‘having employees’ thing–”

I drop into one of the leather armchairs and drop my face into a hand, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Please, don’t.”

“I know you’re used to working with numbers and facts and figures, but people aren’t like that. All right? People don’t just bend to your will, they don’t do what you expect. And if you want your business to succeed, you’re going to need to at leastactlike the people who work for you are valued, even if you don’t actually value them.”

She doesn’t know me at all. And that’s my own fault.

When she first walked in, I wasn’t sure how close I should let her get, so I decided none at all would be fine. Now it’s biting me in the ass.

Too late to turn back now. “Are you done, Camilla?”

“Oh, mygod, Jack.”

I lift my gaze to her, furrowing my brow. “What the hell are you–”

“You don’t get to just dismiss me like that.”

“Actually, that’s–”

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