Page 74 of The Boss Problem

Henry turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he said to me. “I completely forgot about that.”

His gaze went to Sean’s arm around my waist. I tried to ignore the delicious feeling of Sean’s touch and failed.

“Here,” Sean said, bending to pick up the broken pieces off the ground. “Let me help.”

Surprised, I joined Sean, bending down to pick up something just as he did, and our foreheads bumped lightly into each other.

We laughed, rubbing our heads, as Henry watched on, looking slightly mollified.

“Chloe, I feel terrible,” Henry blurted out. “This was your night out, and I ruined it.”

I shook my head, but Henry continued to speak. He turned to Sean, who had a questioning look on his face.

“Chloe’s not someone with time for a personal life. She works too hard. Whenever she’s home late, it’s always because she had to work. Her abysmal work hours are the reason she can’t complete the PMP certification course, like she wants to.” He looked disgusted. “Her new boss is a taskmaster.”

I coughed loudly, and Sean turned to me, a look of amusement taking over.

Uh-oh.

“Really?” he asked Henry, narrowly avoiding stepping on one of the broken pieces of a plate. He picked up another broken piece.

Henry rolled over to me on his wheelchair, extending his hand so I would follow him. This time, I gave in, keeping him company in the hallway while I watched Sean in frustration.

Why was my boss cleaning up my floor?

“You must hear Chloe cursing her boss quite often then,” Sean added, his eyes full of humor.

The goose. He was deliberately ferreting out juicy details to taunt me with later, no doubt.

“Not really,” Henry said as Sean picked up the last few broken pieces of glass from the ground. “Even on that night when I was running a fever, she gave me some meds and ran around the city, looking for some ridiculous Superman figurines for him without a single curse word.”

“Spider-Man,” Sean corrected immediately, but he gave me a look of surprise.

Henry looked at Sean. “She told you about that, huh?” he said. “Her boss is quite a crazy man. He doesn’t believe in letting his employees have a personal life.”

“I’m sorry—that you weren’t well that night.” Sean’s shoulders tensed as he walked out of the kitchen. He shot me a quick look that implied he understood me a lot better.

Henry waved a hand in the air genially. “Thank you, but it was a one-off thing. My doctor had changed my meds to a generic one, and I happened to get one of the side effects immediately. Chloe got me on the branded medicine, and her rat of a boss never sent her out on foolish errands at night again.”

Another bemused glance from Sean to me. “She told me about the ridiculous boss, but not about your fever that night,” he said, a gentler note to his voice. “It almost sounds like you need to confront your lousy boss, Chloe. Put him in his place.”

I gave him a small grin. “You mean knock him down a peg or two? I’ll give it a shot.”

“Chloe never brings up my health issues if she can avoid it,” Henry said, gesturing for Sean to sit down, and I watched as I followed them to the living room. “And usually, my health issues don’t trouble me much. It’s only isolated days like … well, today.” He looked contrite and turned to Sean. “I’m sorry about tonight. I … I just got back from a night out with friends, and it had not gone well.”

Before Sean could respond, Henry turned to me. “I’m sorry, sis.”

I attempted a shrug, but I felt tears prick at my eyes. For a minute back there, Henry’s anger had scared me. I hadn’t realized how he had been keeping his emotions pent up, and only nights like this were when he let loose.

“It’s okay,” I said, walking over to him and bending down to give him a hug.

He hugged me back, arms around my shoulders, and as I closed my eyes, he said, “You’re trembling.”

Sean helped me to the couch while Henry rolled back to the kitchen, where he put the kettle on.

In a minute, Henry made me a cup of chamomile tea while Sean went back to the parked car to grab the box of desserts.

“We’ve got some pastries here,” Sean said.

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