Page 45 of The Powerful Boss She Craves

‘I am not talking about Brianna. I am talking about the fact that you went to see Dobson on your own,’ Micah said, biting out the words.

‘I’m not a child, Micah! And, for your information, Janie sat in the car while I met with him and my phone was connected to hers the whole time. I made a mistake with Pillay, but I am not stupid!’

‘I never said that you were!’

‘No, but you think I’m weak, and that’s part of your attraction to me.’ She saw something flash in his eyes, an acknowledgement that her words had hit the target. Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt knowing that his attraction was wrapped up in him perceiving her to be weaker than him, with his need to protect and fix. Ella knew that she had a choice to make, and she had to do it right now.

She could either let Micah guard her mentally and physically, allow him the opportunity to feed his need to keep protecting her. She’d have to keep swallowing down her frustration, but she’d be with him. But in time he’d get bored of doing that and, in a week, month or year, he’d break up with her.

Her other option was for her to claim her power, insist that he treat her as an emotional and mental equal, that he see her as a strong and competent woman. If she did that, she knew he’d break up with her straight away. She could either be a half-version of herself with Micah or a full version of herself without him.

It was a hell of a choice.

But, in the end, she needed to live in truth, her truth. She needed to look after herself first because nobody else would. Ella straightened and pushed her hands into her hair.

‘I can’t remain broken so that you can feel better, Micah. I can’t make myself less because you need a problem to fix, someone to protect. I can only be me, and I want to be fully me—strong, confident, powerful. I want to be in a healthy relationship, a place where I can be strong for you, where you can be the same for me. I want to feel free to make mistakes, to do my own thing, for you to be proud of me when I succeed, to be my soft place to fall when I mess up. I want to do the same thing for you but, judging by the fact that you will talk to your brother but not to me, I know that’s never going to happen. I don’t want you to try and fix me, Micah, because I amnotbroken!’

Ella bent down, picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She needed to leave, to walk out of his building and his life before she fell apart. ‘I really think Cathcart House is perfect for Thadie; I suggest you give it serious attention. And just pay me the quarter-million pounds, the original amount we decided on. I don’t want any more.’

Micah looked both shocked and confused. ‘Ella, what the hell? Where are you going?’

She looked around. ‘Right now, I am going home to my empty flat. And then I’m booking a flight to London. Then I’m going to start a new life...again. I thought I wanted to start one with you, but you want me to be someone I’m not prepared to be any more, Micah.’

She reached the door, placed her hand on the frame and turned round to look at him. Six-foot-three of pure frustration, anger and confusion. ‘Oh, and I’m also going to contact that reporter, Kendall, and tell her that I was accosted by Neville Pillay. I refuse to hide any more, and I want to control the narrative ofmystory. And, maybe if I come forward, it’ll give other women the courage to step out of the darkness and tell their stories.’

She loved him and she was walking away from him. But she had to; this was the right thing to do. For her. ‘Bye, Micah.’

Refusing to cry, Ella pushed her shoulders back and left. In the empty lift, she rested her forehead against the mirrored panel and closed her eyes, feeling her heart starting to rip and then crumble.

CHAPTER TWELVE

MICAHSTILLCOULDN’Tget Ella’s stricken face out of his mind.

Leaning back in his chair, he threw down his expensive ballpoint pen—a gift from Thadie two Christmases ago—and scowled at the contract he’d been making notes on. Or not making notes on, since he was still on page two, which comprised nothing more than definitions.

There was no point in trying to work. His brain—and his heart—simply wouldn’t cooperate. All they wanted to do was replay yesterday’s catastrophic events.

Micah freely admitted that Kate’s visit earlier in the day had rocked him. He couldn’t stop thinking about their discussion, and the knowledge that he’d encouraged her to end Brianna’s suffering ate at him. Had he said the right thing? Did he even have any right to an opinion? They were talking about ending someone’slife! Had he been too glib, too quick to rush to judgement? Should he have given it some more thought?

But he knew, with every part of him, that Brianna would have hated living in a hospital bed.

On arriving at work after a sleepless night—he’d missed having Ella in his house and his bed—he’d told his PA he’d fire her if she put a call through or let anyone into his office, and he’d tried to focus on work. But he’d made little progress as his thoughts kept bouncing between his conversations with Kate and Ella.

He remembered Ella’s initial reaction to hearing about Bri. Her take on the situation had been considered and wise and had left him feeling that he could have a full life, allow himself to be happy, fall in love...

Fall in love? He’d done that already. Somewhere, some time in the past two and a half weeks, he’d fallen in love with Ella and wanted her in his life on a permanent basis. He wanted her living with him in Hadleigh House, waking up with him, being beside him when he reached for her in the night. He wanted to have children with her, cousins for Thadie’s twins.

Because he’d really opened up to her, more than he ever had to anyone—even Jago—she was now his closest confidante. She knew his quirks and his flaws, his secrets and his ambitions, who he was at the core of his soul. But he’d spectacularly sabotaged his life yesterday.

Ella had accused him of wanting to fix the world because he couldn’t fix Bri—true enough—but he only wanted to fixhissection of it. He’d spent twenty years trying to make up for what had happened to Bri and, because he couldn’t fix her, he did everything he could to help out his siblings, working hard so as not to disappoint them. Or Jabu.

But Jago and Thadie were smart, healthy and wealthy individuals and they didn’t need his input or his help. They were fully able to make their own decisions and live with the consequences.

As Ella had said, he was the family fixer, but he was done with that.

But what she’d got very wrong was this idea that he thought she was broken.

God, how could she think that? Ella was the most together, the strongest, woman he’d ever met. She’d stated that she wanted to be powerful and confident but she didn’t realise that she already was. She’d been emotionally knocked around—more than once—but she’d got up, dusted herself down and kept fighting. When her life had flipped upside down, she’d wrestled with the world until she’d been able to make a plan, start again. She’d never stopped fighting and she’d done it alone.

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