Page 81 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BENJAMINWATCHEDTHE helicopter descend with ice in his veins.

He had felt this before, chilled to the bone before he’d passed out in the Pacific and woken utterly alone in a hospital bed—cold, afraid and so painfully alive.

He hadn’t thought she would stop.

It was too good to be true.

No matter how much money he had made, he knew not to expect too good to be true.

People didn’t come back once you’d lost them.

He hadn’t thought she would simply leave, either, nor had he any idea of how much it would hurt to watch her go.

It had been enough to rob him of words and breath, so that he could only respond with agonized grunts and desperate motion, fighting the sensation of drowning even as he ran after her.

She took off into the air while he continued to sink further down below, watching her rise resigned to the fact that he had finally joined his parents at the bottom of the sea.

He’d been so afraid of being broken by losing love again that he’d chased his away.

It turned out it didn’t matter what form the loss took, though, it hurt both ways.

Thankfully, this time, there could be an opportunity to do it all better. His decision to live again had given him a second chance.

The Miri that disembarked the helicopter was not the one who had first arrived.

That woman, clad in a thin cardigan and bearing a bright blue box of doughnuts, had been a stranger.

The woman he saw now, bundled appropriately for the weather with her arms crossed in front of her chest, was the woman he loved.

In just eight days, she had sneaked past decades of his defenses and gracefully navigated the minefield of his fears to become someone who took his heart when she left.

Somewhere in the mad dash after her, he’d realized that it was too late to protect himself from her.

He loved her, and because of that, she didn’t have to die to kill him.

All she had to do was walk away.

But as long as they were both still living, there was a chance for life.

He wouldn’t let fear keep him from the love that was possible with her, not when there were so many with whom he didn’t have a choice.

He owed it to the dead to not squander his opportunities with the living.

“Miri,” he breathed her name, and it rang clear through the cold, crisp air.

“What are you thinking, Benjamin? You don’t even have a sweater on!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to freeze to death. This is Colorado.”

And it was true.

He hadn’t had time to appropriately clothe himself when he’d heard she was already lifting off.

Hypothermia was nothing compared to losing her.

“I don’t want you to leave, Miri.”

Releasing her arms from their protective position at her chest, she lifted her hands in the air. “I know. You already said that. You want me to put my job at risk to be your mistress. Well, you know what, you don’t always get what you want, Benjamin. Even you.”

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