Page 22 of Deal Breaker
I shrug, tight-lipped then take one more sip of my coffee. “I guess I’m about to find out.”
“Text us if you’re kidnapped,” Marco says as I pass them.
I walk down the hall towards Ford’s office, my heart already racing. The door is ajar, so I tentatively push it open and step inside, shutting it gently behind me.
Ford stands at the window, posture perfect, shoulders broad. The sunlight slants through the glass, catching on the sharp line of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows. He looks steady from the outside, but I know him well enough to see the current roiling just beneath.
He must know I’m there, but for a long moment, he doesn’t turn around. When he finally does, his eyes meet mine, and just like that, everything feels too quiet. Too close. Like the room has closed in on us.
“Hi,” he says, his voice softer than I expect.
“Hey,” I reply, the word catching slightly in my throat.
He gestures toward the chair across from his desk. “Have a seat.”
I nod, crossing the office slowly and lowering myself into the seat. My fingers find the hem of my shirt, smoothing thefabric with a kind of nervous energy I haven’t felt in years. Not with anyone else.
The silence that stretches between us is thick with memory. His pristine, polished office makes me think back to the makeshift workspaces and late-night, coffee-stained plans we used to piece together when Cove was still just an idea.
“I hope it’s okay,” he begins, before trailing off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
I meet his gaze. “The gift?”
His expression shifts, but not enough to read. He nods. “Did you open it?”
“I did,” I say softly. “I remember. The handwriting. The name.”
His jaw flexes, just barely. “You always hated nicknames.”
“I didn’t hate that one,” I answer. “You gave it to me when we met. It was June.”
His eyes soften for a split second like he’s somewhere other than here in his office with me. “You saw me staring at you, and you looked at me like you already knew I was gone for you.”
The words hang between us, painful in their precision. I look away, the memory so vivid, threading itself through my ribs like a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
He shifts, leaning back against his desk, arms crossed but not closed off. “I’m not trying to make things harder. I just…” He exhales, gaze dropping briefly to the floor before finding mine again. “I didn’t leave that gift to mess with your head. I just hung onto it. I thought maybe…maybe you’d want it back.”
“I…,” I whisper. “I do.”
He nods. “I meant what I wrote. The gift doesn’t fixanything. But it’s a peace offering. We’re going to be in the same place five days a week, and I’m not interested in wasting time pretending we don’t exist to each other.” He pauses, holding my gaze just a beat longer.“And I didn’t forget about us.”
Neither have I.
And that is the hardest part.
“I’m not expecting this to be easy,” I offer after a beat. “But I want to be here. For Cove. For you.”
His eyes search mine, something unspoken swimming in the gray. “Cove was supposed to be ours,” he says.
My breath catches and I blink back the tears that suddenly sting my eyes. “I know,” I whisper. “I really do hate that I wasn’t strong enough to stay.”
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Another beat. Another stretch of silence. “You’re here now,” he says, his voice low.
I smile faintly, thankful that he didn’t ask the question that must be running through his head: Why?
“I am.”
He smiles too, the barest twitch of his mouth. “Welcome back, June.”
