Page 62 of Forever Not Yours

“Bash.”

“Juliet.”

Work mode on, I sank into her visitor’s chair and motioned for her to lower the privacy screens that would shield us from prying eyes. The last thing weneeded was an audience and setting off another round ofBash having a private chat with Julietgossip.

It’s all it was. Period.

“I need to take some time off.” I spoke slowly and calmly. “I’m not well, and I understand far too clearly where you’re coming from. We both need space.”

“Agreed,” she said curtly, not even moving in her chair. She was nervous. So was I.

“Juliet.” I sat up straighter, cleared my throat. “Juliet, I have no excuses. No more lies to tell. I know I treated you appallingly. I lied and cheated and avoided you and hid from the facts that were staring me right in the face, for months. Years even. I love you. I do. And I loved that you tried so hard for me and gave me so much. You pushed me and gave me confidence and worked so hard to make everything right, not just for me but for us. I am grateful. So bloody grateful. But it went wrong somewhere down the line, and that part is all on me. You didn’t do anything wrong, please don’t ever think that. I wasn’t…brave enough to stand up for myself. No, that’s wrong, I wasn’t honest with myself. I just went along with everything because that was what I wanted.”

“But not what you needed.” She was calm. Thank fuck for that.

“No,” I admitted. It felt good to finally be honest. I wondered what it would be like to live like this all the time, to have this kind of freedom. Not have to hide things from the people you loved. Because I did love her.

“We had some wonderful times. I’ve never laughed as much as I have with you.”

“I know.” She gave me a small smile. “I still have tickets for that stand-up guy. I really want to go. I was going to offer them to Victoria, but…you know. I bought them for us. I really wanted to go with you.”

“Maybe I’ll still go with you. If you want me to.”

“Maybe. Might still punch you in the face.”

I smiled. We were actually doing this. Talking properly.

“I need time off.” I got back on track. “But this is the thing, Juliet. I don’t want to work anywhere else. I work here. I’m good here. I work well with you, and if you’re honest, you’ll agree that you work well with me too. We are a highly compatible and very effective team.”

She cleared her throat. “I had a meeting with that Faye. Smart woman.” Avoiding responding to my veiled question.

“Very.”

“She thinks the sun shines out of your arse.”

“Most people do.”

“Bastien…” See? I could still make her laugh.

“I think, whilst I’m away, Faye can handle my workload. She knows her way around my files now, can read my spreadsheets, and anyway, I’ll be checking in with her once a day. Saves you having to redistribute tasks. I’d hate that.”

“She can read your spreadsheets? Bash, nobody can read your spreadsheets, not even me.”

“I taught her well.”

“You shagging her?”

I laughed out loud. She did too. I’d missed this. How she made light of the heaviness. Spoke to me like I was her equal. Praised me when I did good. Punished me for my stupidity.

She’d been on the right track there. Just wrong. And my smile died.

“You’re on Kieron’s team now. Itwill be up to him.”

“You need to sort him out.” I was serious.

“Faye had some…interesting tales to tell. Not only that but she had some simple solutions ready to implement. And all of that makes me feel absolutely shit, Bash, because why should I be the last to know that this is an unsafe environment for some of our colleagues to work in? Shouldn’t I be the one to realise that my staff are being complete misogynistic twats and propositioning my interns by the microwave? People did that at uni. I somehow, in my absolute blinkered stupidity, thought we’d outgrown all that.”

“Says the woman who picked me up in front of that very microwave.”

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