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Not that I wasn’t tempted. I was sure I wasn’t that interested in her, but it was still early days. I’d only met her three days earlier, and I couldn’t make a fool of myself. I didn’t trust myself to truly know her after that length of time.
Thankfully, Juno called for Kit and pulled her away from the table to do something the pair had planned, and I decided to put some more distance between us. I couldn’t keep letting myself get more pulled in. I also needed some air.
It was strange to be so involved in a wedding and then to come away and be done, but my part was entirely finished, and I opted to step away for a moment and get a clearer head before coming back. I’d found myself drinking a fair bit of wine to get through the meal and calm my nerves.
Being anxious about anything wasn’t like me, and I wasn’t coping well with it at all, but I knew I was outwardly appearing fine. I wanted to keep it up.
I made the mistake of checking my work messages as I sat in the living room of the house, away from the majority of the party. Immediately, I groaned. Something was always going wrong when I wasn’t there to fix it. For a moment, I considered the problem and knew I would have to tackle it before the end of the day.
Not wanting to be disturbed, I shut the door to the room and hooked onto the internet for a call to the office.
“Henry, I need you to handle some crap for me,” I said as soon as he answered.
I heard him sigh and then reply. “What do you need?”
“The Grintock project has the clients fretting again. Can you get Lucy to go over the final plan with them again and make sure they don’t screw it up or interfere?”
“She’s not going to like that. She’ll think it’s your job.”
I let out a small growl. “It can’t all be my job.”
“Oh, but you’re the boss. It can all fall on your desk at some point or another. I’ll make sure she does it, though.”
“Thank you.”
“I get the impression that’s not the only reason you called.” Henry waited for me to answer, and I smiled to myself.
“How’s everything else going?”
“You really can’t leave work alone for five seconds, can you?” He didn’t wait for my response before rattling off the current status of everything we were working on, giving me the company low-down from start to end.
I listened, taking it all in, able to picture the parts of each project I had worked on. Henry knew me, and it was like he had a report on them all open in front of him. I suspected he might even have.
“I think we can handle the next two days without you,” Henry added at the end. “But, Accounts want to know who is paying for a few things, and we’ve got some problems with a builder on the Jackson project. Doesn’t like that we want the same quote for three projects when he said it was scalable if we had more work.”
Although I didn’t write these down physically, I moved my hand as if I were jotting them down. It was a memory trick I had learned a long time ago. The act of writing something down seemed to make me remember it without needing to look at what I’d written, so now I wrote it in the air, and somehow it still worked.
“I’ll cover those and make them happen. Keep me informed about everything with Lucy.”
“Will do, and boss…please actually enjoy this party. None of us have seen you have fun in ages. Go flirt with a girl, or a guy, or anything else that interests you. Just…stop focusing on nothing but work. You need another reason to be alive.”
“I’m not sure I asked you for life advice, Henry.” I smiled despite my tone and hoped he’d pick up on it, not being a full reprimand. Kit had already come to mind, and I knew he’d be far happier if he had seen me at dinner.
“No, you don’t ask me for advice on anything, ever, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give it when I feel it’s very important. Oh, and Daniels texted. Something about your advice being rock-solid. Said it could wait until you were back, and he didn’t know if anyone could reach you for a few days. I didn’t let him know that we could get through to you if we really needed to.”
“Thanks, Henry.” I hung up, smiling at the message and my PA’s interference in my private life. They meant well. All of them did. If nothing else, being single for so long and not particularly interested in anyone since Rachel had given me the opportunity to focus on building an amazing team in my company. I had very good people to work with.
I checked through the small to-do list he’d given me, firing off messages and making the call to the builder. It took almost an entire hour to get through it all, but I eventually got everything settled for now. It wasn’t ideal, and the call had gotten pretty heated, but that was the nature of the beast.
As I got up to leave the room, I found myself feeling rougher than I’d expected. It had been a long day, and I was sorely in need of a drink.
Hoping the bar was open now and I could find something decent and not be bothered for a few minutes at least, I made my way back to the party. It was in full swing by the time I got back, music playing, Jack and Juno mingling with everyone else, and the tables cleared to the side.
I had missed the cutting of the cake, but no one appeared to have noticed, and there was plenty laid out in slices for guests to help themselves. One of the great parts of a party like this was that no one would go hungry. There was also a decent bar. Jack had hired some staff to run it and make sure it had all the drinks we could want.
Once again, I was impressed at the organization required to hold a party like this on a remote island, but I knew my team could pull off similar events if they needed to. Enough money made anything possible.
I grabbed a slice of cake and made my way to the bar, grateful when no one came toward me to talk. Although I was focused on getting a drink, I couldn’t help but look around for Kit. I spotted her with Juno, looking even more radiant as she smiled over a conversation they were having.
