Dear Grumpy Boss: A Brother’s Best Friend Office Romance (The Harder They Fall)

TO: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Weston,

If you have time, I would like to talk. Meet me on the roof at six tonight? If that doesn’t work, please let me know when will.

-Elise

I had almost missed it. I’d been in the process of packing up for the day and something had told me to check my inbox one last time.

There it was.

Elise was going to give me an opportunity to speak to her after stonewalling me for over a week. Not that I didn’t understand why she’d done it. She had every right to lock herself away from me. That didn’t mean I hadn’t been utterly bereft without her.

I made it to our building’s rooftop fifteen minutes early. She arrived on time, and I rose from the chair I’d taken at the same table we’d sat around on her birthday. Her gaze landed somewhere around my shoulder. Mine roved everywhere, greedy for her.

She’d changed into a Chicago T-shirt, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was a subtle threat. She’d moved across the country once before, she could do it again. Chances were, she’d picked the first T-shirt available and I was overthinking things, but this was what I’d become.

A madman for her.

“I brought you a beer.” I gestured to the sweating bottle on the table. “If you want it.”

“Sure. Thanks.” She slipped into her chair at the end of the table. I reclaimed my chair to her right. Our knees touched when I scooted in. She moved hers away.

Her thumbnail dug into the label on her bottle. I held mine between both my hands, spinning it in slow, tight circles.

My pulse skittered in erratic waves from the panic and fear coursing through me.

“How are you?” I asked.

She huffed softly. “It’s been a long week.”

“Long few weeks.”

“Yes.” She glanced up from her beer, still not making eye contact. “Andes is…going to be okay?”

There were dark smudges beneath her eyes. Twins to the ones beneath mine. She looked beautiful, stunning even, but sad. So damn sad. I’d done that to her. I’d sucked the sunshine out of her, leaving her cold and dim.

“Yes. A lot is still happening behind the scenes, but the EPA investigation is being dropped, which is a massive relief.” There was a lot more to it than that, but I wasn’t about to waste this time with Elise by talking about Andes.

“That’s really good.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and exhaled. “I got an email from Patrick today.”

I went still. “Did you? What did he have to say?”

“I don’t know. I decided not to read it.”

“Yeah?”

I had no clue what I was supposed to say here. My first instinct was to call IT and have them block Patrick from our servers. My second was to break into her inbox and read what that khaki-wearing motherfucker dared to send to my girl.

I ended up deciding to be quiet and let her speak.

“I was thinking about what Miles said on my birthday when you asked him why he’d bullied me. He said sometimes there isn’t a good reason for the bad shit people do and wind up regretting. And as I was considering reading Patrick’s email, I realized there was no explanation he could offer that would make more sense to me than the one Miles gave. I don’t need an explanation from him. It won’t make a difference to how I feel about what he did.”

The label on her bottle had been nearly picked off. Mine was almost empty, bitterness coating my tongue.

Before Elise, I’d never thought of myself as a jealous man. I now understood it was because I’d never been with a woman I belonged to the way I did to her. I was hers, which meant she was also mine. My mind would not accept anything less. So, hearing about Patrick, and even my brother, was nails on a chalkboard.

These thoughts were irrational, and they were mine to deal with. I was in no position to command her to scrub every man she’d ever met from her memory. Though, in a perfect world, that was what I’d do.

None of the thoughts streaking around my skull would convince Elise I was a man she could take another chance on, even though I was. The one thing I was one-hundred-percent certain of was: I would always choose Elise.

And it was her time to speak and mine to listen.

She had more to say.

I angled forward, stealing a few inches of the space she’d put between us.

She sucked in a ragged breath.

“But I need an explanation from you, Weston. I want you to tell me how you were able to push me aside. How did you feel when you ordered Renata to bar me from your office two minutes after I’d been inside it? What were you thinking when you flew to California without telling me you were going? Did you know you were leaving me when you crept into my bed in the middle of the night and fucked me? I want you to explain that to me because I don’t understand how you were able to do any of it.”

The angry flush in her cheeks was visible in the low evening light. It jabbed at my chest so hard I folded forward, bracing my palms on the table.

She was giving me the floor to explain, but I didn’t know where to start. How could I possibly give reasons for all the ways I’d hurt her? There was no denying I had done those things, and there was no prettying them up.

“I never meant to leave you, Elise. Not when I came to you that night, not ever.”

A divot carved between her brows. “But you did.”

I wanted to fight her on that, but she was right. Intentional or not, I had left her.

“I did. I pulled back from you. It wasn’t something I decided to do, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did it. Before you, I’ve never prioritized anyone above Andes, nor have I wanted to.”

A shudder racked through her body. “Believe me, I know.”

“I know you do, baby. It kills me that you know.” I rubbed the spot between my brows, gathering my thoughts. “That day you brought me lunch, the second I saw you, all I wanted to do was fall into you. I’d been holding steady by keeping my distance, but it’s impossible for me to think about anything else when you’re in front of me.”

“Yet you sent me away.”

“I was holding on by the skin of my teeth, Elise. My company was crumbling around me, and when you walked into my office, I didn’t give a shit about anything but you. That couldn’t be an option for me at that time. I had to give a shit. That was why I asked Renata for no visitors. Not because I didn’t want to see you. It was because seeing you was all I wanted.”

She slammed her bottle down on the table. “Then you should have said that. You should have told me what you were feeling. If you’d said, ‘Elise, I love you so much that you drive me to distraction when you’re around, so I have to stay away from you while I handle this crisis,’ I would have been patient. If you’d said anything, I would have supported you. That’s what you do in a relationship. But not you. That’s not what you did. You dropped out of my world without a single warning. You flew to California with her—”

“She’s nothing to me. I don’t know how to make you understand that.” I raked my fingers through my hair, tamping down the frustration in my veins.

“How did you feel when you found out I’d left town? Did you wonder if I’d gone to Patrick even though I’ve told you over and over my feelings for him are long gone?”

My hand dropped heavily to my side. Her eyes were finally on mine, shining but steady. The challenge was crystal clear. She had me.

“I felt like I was being ripped apart. No one would tell me where you were. I still don’t know.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she had gone to him, but I bit the urge back. She hadn’t gone to him. I knew that. But when it came to Elise, logic and reason flew out the window.

“Then you might have an inkling of how I felt when I’d knocked on your door only for Miles to inform me you’d left the state without a word to me. He pitied me, Weston. Your brother felt sorry for me because of how poorly you treated me.”

Another jab. I deserved every one. Before I’d walked out onto this roof, I had known I’d royally blown it, but seeing my beautiful girl like this, miserable in her righteous anger, showed me this was far worse than I’d let myself acknowledge.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late.”

“I love you, Elise. I fucked up. I know that. I tried to fit you in around Andes, but I should have been fitting Andes in around you.”

Her head jerked back with what I could tell was surprise at my blunt honesty.

“That’s exactly what you did. Your company is the love of your life. I could never compete with that, and I shouldn’t have to.”

“That’s unequivocally untrue. You’re the love of my life.”

She turned away, the shake of her head telling me she didn’t believe me. I’d done nothing to make her believe me, so that made sense.

“When I was eleven, my dad got bored with his life of fucking around, so he bought out a Denver-based camping supply company. It wasn’t a huge business, not on the scale of Andes, but they employed a few hundred people. Within a year”—I snapped my fingers—“my father grew bored of being in charge and having responsibilities. He broke the company apart and essentially sold it for scraps. All those people lost their jobs and a decent business disappeared almost overnight. I watched it all as a kid and promised myself I’d make up for it. I’d build something here and never be anything like my father.”

Her mouth had flattened into a hard line. When she finally looked at me again, her dark eyes were made of stone.

“I don’t want to hear about Andes anymore.”

“Elise—”

“Should I tell you about all the times my mother let me down? Should I bring up my dead father? My fear of abandonment? Your story about your dad explains your obsession with your company, but mine explains why I will never be able to allow myself to be chosen second.”

“You’ll never be chosen second again.” I reached for her hands, but she yanked them back, cradling them to her chest, protecting herself.

From me.

“I love you, Elise. I love you more than Andes. I have missed you like an amputated limb. None of this makes sense without you.”

“We’ve had this conversation before, Weston. You made me promises after the gala that you broke so easily. Why would I believe anything has changed?”

I felt it. The ephemeral hold I had on her was slipping away. All the hope I’d been pinning on this one conversation was hanging in mocking tatters. But I’d been stupid to think a conversation would fix weeks of neglect and unfulfilled promises.

“Because I lost you.” Staggering to my feet, I backed away from the table, no idea where I was going. If I sat still for another second, I’d explode. “I lost you, and I can’t breathe. I’ve never cared at the end. Not once. But I know I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. There’s no one else for me.”

Her only reaction was to stare at me, slowly blinking, picking at the last scraps of label on her full beer bottle. With her chin tipped, the hanging twinkling lights glinted off her face. The sorrow pulling at the corners of her mouth and the redness outlining her eyes shattered me. Fury aimed at myself, at my actions, ignited at the base of my spine. My bottle exploded on the ground before I even realized I’d thrown it.

Elise jumped, whimpering with fear. Then she was on her feet, tripping backward to get away from me.

“Tell me you’ve stopped loving me,” I pleaded, following her footstep for footstep.

She shook her head. “Don’t.”

“I know you love me. You wouldn’t have asked me to meet you if you didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t love you.

“It does matter. That’s all that matters.”

I had closed the distance between us in a second, winding my arms around her in a breath. Cradling her head in my palm, I buried my nose in her hair and breathed for the first time in weeks. She mewled but didn’t push me away. She was limp in my arms, letting me hold her, but making no move to hold me back.

I was losing again, and I had no idea how to stop it from happening.

“I love you.” I kissed her silky hair. “I love you the most.”

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“I know you don’t want me to talk about Andes anymore”—she stiffened when I said it. God, how I’d messed up—“but there are steps I’ve taken this week to ensure nothing like this will ever happen again. Concrete, measurable changes. If you don’t want to hear them now, I’ll email you what I’ve done and you can read it when you’re ready.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.”

“Then I’ll be waiting forever.” My lips lingered at her temple. “I love you, baby. You are my destination. It’s why I came to you in the middle of the night and why I’ll keep coming back, even if you push me away.”

Finally, her arms moved. She grasped my shirt, her nails clawing my back as she clung to me. I held her tighter, her soft body sinking into me.

“I don’t know if I can believe you, Weston.”

I nodded against her hair. “I know. But I’m going to keep coming until you do.”

“You should let me go.”

“I can’t.”

She allowed me to hold her as she trembled. There was a chance this would be the last time I got to do this. We both knew it, but neither of us spoke it.

“If I could go back to that night, I would have told you everything,” I murmured. “I would have let you in.”

“I wish you had.”

The sun was almost beyond the horizon when she stepped out of my arms and got on the elevator alone. I stayed on the roof to watch the stains of orange and pink fade to black.

Then I went back to the penthouse and into my office. I had an email to write and the love of my life to convince I was worth one more chance.