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“Can we talk, hen?” I cringed. What if she didn’t want me to call her hen anymore?
“Are you okay?” Amanda asked, close to the door this time. “Robert messaged me to say you were discharged from hospital.”
“My tailbone will be fine. Nothing’s broken. And my knee is okay. Perhaps a light sprain.” But this wasn’t about my bruised arse. “Never mind me, are ye okay?”
Seconds moved like hours as I waited for her to respond. My heart raced. What if she wasn’t okay? What if she wanted to go back to London? She must be still angry with me about taking her report and how I treated Caroline.
The handle turned slowly, and the door open.
Amanda was still dressed the clothes from when we’d fucked in my office. I still had her torn panties in my trouser pocket.
“I’m so sorry -”
“I don’t even -”
We both stopped abruptly.
“You’re sorry about today?” she breathed, her voice catching.
“No! I mean, yes!” I inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry about taking your report without checking with ye first. I shouldn’t have done that. Nor should I have yelled at Caroline the way I did. For that, I am most definitely sorry.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief, gaze flicking to the carpet.
“Something wasn’t right about my report,” Amanda stared back at the dining table which was covered in paperwork and files. “I should have talked to you before going to the pub with Caroline. She’d said she lived with her mum. She budgeted for a coffee each day. Nothing about her screamed ‘I’ve stolen tens of thousands of pounds from my workplace’. The transactions we now know were errors weren’t consistent or had a pattern. Usually embezzlers have a pattern. Then Stephen showed up at the pub and someone said he broke up with Caroline four months ago, the exact time the inconsistencies appeared in the records.”
I wanted to dive in and tell her I didn’t regret having sex with her at all but stopped myself. She needed to talk about Caroline.
“Aye, her nails.” I nodded. “Those gel nail things.”
“Yes, her entries were erratic and her mental state was fragile.”
I nodded again, taking a deep breath. “I’ve talked with her today, apologised and gave her a raise.”
“That’s good. Really good.” Amanda stared at her feet. “I’ve been looking at requisitions and purchase orders all afternoon and there’s something I can’t quite put my finger on yet, but… I don’t have any answers for you. If you’re going to sack me from this contract, I’ll pack right now and -”
“No!” I stepped into the doorway but dared not cross the threshold. “Absolutely not.”
Amanda looked up. Her eyes were glassy. I pulled on my fringe, desperate to make this right.
“Hen, I don’t want ye to leave, at all.” My chest ached. Everything was on a knife’s edge. “I’m not sorry at all about what happened today between us today. What’s been building up to that moment.”
With adrenalin pumping in my veins, I kept going, laying on the line.
“I never wanted our first time together to have been like that, but I don’t regret it at all. Being with ye was…” I struggled to find the words to describe the euphoria I’d felt as I watched her fall apart in ecstasy on my desk. “It was just amazing. I’ve never felt anything so powerful with any other woman as I did with you.”
“Oh, Stuart, no one has ever said anything like that to me before.” She touched my arm. “I’ve never experienced anything like today either.”
Christ, I wanted to make her feel like that every day. Relief, longing and pride surged through me at the same time.
But did she want me?
“I don’t pretend to know what happens now, hen.” I swallowed hard. “All I know is I want ye but I don’t know what to do next. Can we talk more? In my room?”
We stood there staring at each other. It was mere seconds but felt like hours, waiting for her response.
Amanda nodded and I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. She took a seat on the sofa and I sat at the other end, careful to have space between us. We both stared at the fire. My phone automatically connected to the Bluetooth speakers and started playing music softly in the background.
“I called my family before you got here.”
