Page 76 of In Love and War
A beat of silence.
“I would have told you that I’m sorry,” he said, his voice dropping. “About a lot of things. That day… that I fired you, I shouldn’t have been so harsh. You were a teenager, and I should have handled it better. My mom was in a big accident the night before, and she was in the hospital. And I’m not trying to excuse it, but it was just terrible timing. I wasn’t in a very good headspace. I talked to your dad a few days after and explained to him that I’d overreacted.”
“Was she okay?” I asked. I wasn’t so bitter about it anymore. There were a lot of things I wasn’t bitter about anymore.
“She was okay.” He nodded, taking a deep breath. “I just didn’t know if she would be that day. She still hadn’t woken up.
“I’m also sorry about David,” he continued. “I shouldn’t have insinuated what I did. It was more than evident that you’d earned it by the time you and I worked on the account together. You did well. Really well. A lot better than anyone else I could have selected, to be honest. But I was jealous, and it clouded my judgment.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet. He took another step forward. I took one back.
“And I’m sorry for every other time I was an asshole. For the things I did and said that pushed you away, that made you hate me.” Step. “I’m sorry for all of those things, Amelia, but I’m not sorry I kissed you. I’m not sorry I started this.” Step. “I know I should be. I know you want me to be. But I’m not. I’d wanted to do it for months. I did my best to ignore it, to ignoreyou.Even after you were assigned to the account, I thought I could do it. I didn’t have a choice. I wouldn’t risk my career for anybody.” Step. “And then I saw you with David, and I… lost it. I spiraled. Whatever grip or control I thought I had over the whole thing vanished as soon as I thought there was something going on between the two of you.” Step. “At first I thought… maybe just once. Maybe we both just need to get it out of our system and it’ll be done. It would just be sex and it would just be once. But all it did was make things worse. It made me want more—alotmore.” Step. “So here I was, losing my fucking mind over my boss’s daughter. The beautiful, intelligent, witty, funny, secretive, and infuriatingly difficult and stubborn Amelia Bloom. I couldn’t get her laugh or her lips out of my head to save my life, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to make it all work without losing my job. Because at this point, not having her wasn’t an option anymore.” Step. My back hit a wall.
“But apparently I didn’t need to worry about it all that much, because she was rejecting me. Telling me that she didn’t think it was such a good idea for us to see each other outside of work. Something about things already being messy because of her cousin. Hercousin.I was losing my sleep and sanity over this girl, and she thought I that I wanted tofuckher anddatea member of her family. Can you believe that? That’s how big of a prick she thinks I am. I never stood a chance.” He took one last step toward me, closing the physical gap between us. “I didn’t have lunch with your cousin today, Amelia. You would have known that if you hadn’t run away. And she won’t be asking again. I told her I was seeing someone.”
I didn’t say anything. Icouldn’tsay anything. My voice was gone. My throat was dry. My mouth wouldn’t move. My mind was blank. All I could do was stare.
“That’s what I would have said if I had come up here. Those are the things I would have told you. But at the end of the day, you’re right. None of it should have ever happened. I can’t lose this job… this way. Not after everything your dad’s done for me. And I’ve read over the policy ten times. It’s ironclad, strict, black and white. There’s no getting around it. We can’t… there’s no way as long as both of us work for your dad.
“What I said at dinner… about you going back to Yuval wasn’t because I wanted you gone, Amelia. I just knew this couldn’t happen without one of us leaving and I…” He trailed off, and his hand reached for his hair, ruffling it. “Fuck.”
He closed his lids for a second, his face flushed, as if he were still trying to come up with a solution. My breath caught at the intensity his eyes held when he looked at me again, a million different emotions storming them over.
“My dad,” he started again, his voice now holding the same intensity that clouded his face. “He had gotten us into a shit ton of bad debt back in Brazil, with people you don’t want to owe money to. And he did it all under my mom’s name before leaving us. We eventually found out that he’d come back to Toronto… He was from here originally, and I was born here. We came to find him—we didn’t have a choice. He owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, the coward. And those guys wanted to collect. They were relentless.”
The phone calls.
“We came close to tracking him down a few times, but he was a slippery motherfucker. Eventually, she gave up. It was becoming too time-consuming and expensive to keep looking. She was too scared for my safety to go back to Brazil, so we stayed here. They could still reach us here, but I wouldn’t have thugs following me to and from school every day, at least. She got a job working for your dad as part of his cleaning staff, along with other part-time jobs so she could slowly chip away at the debt, but it barely covered the interest. He was… so nice, to both of us. He offered me a job after graduation with a much higher salary than I deserved at the time. I spent the next four years, and almost every single penny I earned, paying off the rest of the debt and finally getting those guys off of our backs.”
He paused, taking a conflicted breath before saying, “I owe my mom and your dad everything.EverythingI have is because of them, Amelia. And I’ve worked so hard… I’ve gotten so far. None of the competitor companies in Toronto even come close to comparing. I can’t… just…”
I nodded. I understood. Who wouldn’t?
“Did you ever end up finding him? Your dad, I mean.”
“He found us. Last year. After I got promoted to director.” The corners of his mouth pinched. “He’d somehow heard about my cushy new career and suddenly wanted a relationship.”
Something new tugged at my chest. Anger. Or sadness. Maybe both. My eyes and nose were prickling again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “What did you do?”
“He didn’t get any money from me, but he did leave with a bruised eye. My mom stopped me before I could break anything of his though. I’m not… entirely proud of it.”
A small smile tugged at my lips—I couldn’t help it. He caught it.
“Is that a smile, Miss Bloom? For me?” He was smiling too, now.
And then a tear fell. I felt it run down my left cheek before my sleeve got to it.
“That’s… I’m so proud of you,” I choked out, wiping at my eyes. The tears kept coming. “I am… I had no idea, Zac. I’m so sorry.”
“Amelia, don’t… please don’t cry.” His hands found mine, and he brought them down from my face. He leaned in and touched his forehead with mine. “Please.”
But it wasn’t in my control; the tears were falling faster now. I tried to hold back, but a sob escaped my mouth. His arms were around me in an instant.
It took everything in me to not completely break down.
“You’re still wet.” I sniffed. “You still won’t change?”
