Page 48 of The Boss's Forbidden Assistant

What was the alternative to going? Staying with Salvador? Her heart was pummelling her now, racing hard and fast. Shecouldn’tjust stay here with him. She had no idea how he’d feel about that. He’d never once expressed any interest in having her stay longer. He hadn’t suggested it, hadn’t asked—they’d both acknowledged her impending leaving date time and time again.

And did Harper really want to stay? What would happen then? Wouldn’t it just be kicking the can down the road to remain on the island for another few nights, a week, two weeks, however long they agreed they needed before they’d be ready for her to leave? The problem with that was that Harper didn’t think she’d ever be ready to leave him. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, smothering a sharp cry drawn from the very pit of her stomach.

If she asked to stay, it would be because she wanted to stay for ever. And if he said no she would never recover.

But what if he says yes?

She groaned, tears of frustration and uncertainty blinking on her lashes. She loved him, and the thought of rejection was terrifying, but wouldn’t she always regret not having that conversation? If she were to return to Chicago and go on with her life—as half a person, really, because she’d left so much of herself here with Salvador—she’d always wonder what might have been, if only she’d been brave enough to speak up about how she felt.

And what if he does say yes?

And so she’d stay, and her heart would belong to him, more fully than her mother’s heart had ever belonged to anyone, more than Harper had ever given herself to Peter. Wasn’t there a terrifying risk in that? A risk of pain and hurt of a level capable of ripping her to shreds... And yet, there was no alternative.

Harper was a risk-taker by nature, an adrenaline junkie who knew that the sheer moments of fear one experienced when jumping out of a plane or off the side of a bridge were nothing to the feeling of having done it—and survived.

She would survive this. Whatever happened, she’d be okay, but she had to take the leap, to know she’d at least reached for what she wanted with both hands, even if it didn’t work out.

‘There you are,’ she murmured half an hour later, when she walked onto the terrace to find Salvador sitting with a cup of black coffee and a tablet in front of him with the newspaper on it.

He turned slowly, as if reading something he couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from, but there was something in the gesture that didn’t quite ring true for Harper. He was avoiding her. Or steeling himself to see her?

The sun was higher now, the sky blue with just a few streaks of morning colour remaining. She moved to the seat opposite but didn’t sit down, instead pressing her hands to the back of it and eyeing him a little warily, her stomach in knots as she geared herself up for the most important conversation of her life.

‘You left early.’

He made a noise of agreement, eyes piercing hers. If she was wary, he was even more so, but it was an insight into his emotions that only lasted a moment. He controlled his features far more easily than Harper, shielding his feelings from her, his face a mask of impassive politeness.

Her heart dropped to her toes. It was a feeling she was familiar with—the fear before the jump. The doubt, the very natural questioning of one’s wisdom.

‘I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake you.’

‘I wouldn’t have minded being woken,’ she murmured, a half-smile flickering across her lips. She suspected this wasn’t going to go well when we he frowned in response.

He was sitting where he had been last night, when he’d told her about his wife, his daughter and his father, so much loss, rejection and pain. But, whereas last night he’d opened up to her and she’d seen so deep inside his soul, now he was like a boulder, immovable and strong—and impenetrable too, she feared.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ He gestured to the pot. There was no second cup but either of them could have retrieved one easily. While Harper would have loved something to do with her hands, she couldn’t have eaten or drunk anything. Her nerves were rioting, her insides completely tangled.

‘I’m fine,’ she demurred, wondering when she’d ever felt less fine. It was unusual to be out here. Generally, they both went into the office first thing. But this morning, their last full day together on the island, even the air seemed changed.

She closed her eyes, just as she did when psyching herself into a jump. ‘Can we talk?’

She could barely look at him.

‘Aren’t we talking?’

This was going to go down like a lead balloon. But when she remembered the last two weeks—the way he’d pushed her away even as he’d drawn her closer, when he’d tried so hard to fight what was happening between them—she saw this as yet another last-ditch attempt by him to exert some kind of control over what was happening between them.

‘About us.’ She forced herself to meet and hold his gaze even when she felt as though she could pass out from the anxiety of having this conversation. No, not of having the conversation, but of what could go wrong.

‘Us?’

Her heart skidded to a stop. It was only by reminding herself that he had form for this—for running away from their relationship when things got real—that she was able to push on and be brave.

‘Yes, us. You and me, and what’s been happening between us.’

He stared at her without reacting. She gripped the chair back more tightly, so tightly that her fingers burned and her knuckles showed white.

‘This was always meant to be temporary,’ she said, mentally approaching the edge of the plane, looking out at the vastness of open air, then down to the ground, her stomach looping as she imagined the feeling of pushing both feet from the security of the flight deck.

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