Page 37 of Royal Bosshole

“No, no, he's gone.” And then suddenly, the tears finally came, and I leaned my elbows forward on the counter and put my face in my hands, sobbing loudly.

I felt like such an idiot.

“Hey, hey,” Stevie said, coming to put her arm around me. “What happened? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“No, nothing like that. Stevie, that was the most incredible sex I've ever had,” I said through my tears. “But then, after the second round, he asked me about my birthmark. And then he just left.”

“What do you mean?”

I sat up and pointed to the door and said loudly, “He just left! Just ran away. He got all pale and then left, saying he had to go. Stevie, tell me honestly. Am I disgusting?”

“No, are you kidding?” I could see the truth in her eyes. “You're beautiful. Perfect. There is no way he left because of that. There has to be an explanation.”

I sniffled and stood up. “Well, I can't think about it right now. I don't want to talk about it, and I'm just going to take my wine into my bedroom, and wallow.”

“I understand. Take the ice cream too.”

I grabbed all my necessary items for wallowing and went to the bedroom, kicking the door shut. I tried to ignore the fact that it still smelled like him. I plopped down on the bed. As I took my first bite of ice cream, I was resolved to give up men.

In the morning, I called in sick. There was no way in hell I was going to face James today. I wondered how he was going to even face me. I had no idea if I would still have a job by the time I went in. I considered staying at home and wallowing for the rest of the day, but I knew that wouldn't do me any good. So, I got dressed and headed to the coffee shop. When I saw Jen, I just lifted up a hand and sat down. She knew what I needed.

Soon, a blueberry scone and a pumpkin-spice latte were sitting in front of me, and she sat down across.

“Whoa, what happened to you, boss?” she asked once she got a closer look at my face.

“God, you so don't want to know.” I had kind of a major hangover, and my heart felt like shit.

“Let me guess. A man did this to you?” she asked. “A super-hot European accent man?”

“Maybe.” I didn’t look at her while I ate. “But I don't want to talk about it. I'm here to do some work.”

“You got it, boss,” Jen said. “Let me know if there's anything you need.”

“Thanks.”

I ate my scone and drank my latte quietly. Then, I dug in my purse for my song notebook. Even if I felt like shit, and even if I wanted to pummel James for embarrassing me like that, I knew that this was where the inspiration came from: the heartache and the bad times.

So, I was going to use it to my fucking advantage.

CHAPTER15

JAMES

I waitedon tenterhooks in my office that morning, wondering when Lily was going to show up, wondering if I even knew what to say if or when she did. I fucked up big time, and I had no idea how I was going to come back from this. And it wasn't that I didn't want to see Lily again. In fact, I had to see her. She clearly didn't know the truth about her family, and I had to tell her. She had to know. But I was afraid of what she'd say, of how she'd look at me. I just fucking left her like a coward. I'd never run away from anything before in my entire life.

“Hey, boss,” Henry said, coming into my office with a notebook. “Just a heads up, Ms. Jones has called out sick today.”

My heart sank. “Thanks, Henry.”

“You got it.”

He closed the glass door with a thunk, and I sighed. Of course, she called out sick. She didn’t want to see my fucking face. After about half an hour of feeling guilty, I knew I wasn't going to get any work done. So, I pulled out a sheet of paper and one of my fountain pens, and I started to write a letter to my father.

I knew I could easily call him, but I wasn't ready to talk out loud about these things yet. Not to him. Not when the life of our country hung in the balance. Writing it all out was cathartic. I told him how I'd found her, how she was even more than I expected, and how it was possible I could care for her. But I also wrote about how I'd messed things up and how there were secrets between us. By the time I had finished, it was around lunchtime, and I got a call from Peter.

“Hey man, so I know I'm supposed to be like a super macho soldier, but I totally get why girls want to talk about a date afterward. So, can I take you out for lunch so you can tell me how it went yesterday?”

I hesitated for a moment. I kind of wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But I knew that wouldn't really do anything.

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