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He stared at her for a bit while his chest rose and fell. Her heart pounded so loud she thought surely he could hear it.
“Is it so amazing that I would come back, just to see you?”
“Well, yeah.” It was. “Flying is a huge hassle and a pain in the butt, plus it takes a lot of time, and I know you’re busy and—and...”
“Maybe I missed you.”
Her mouth was open, and she froze with it that way. The words that she was going to say dying in her throat as she blinked.
Alexander Hudson, her boss, had just almost said that he missed her. Almost. He said maybe he did.
“Did you?” she asked softly.
“Clara. I followed you to Strawberry Sands. I went house hunting with you.” He laughed a little and shook his head. “I stayed at your mom’s house. I followed you around the small-town festival like a puppy dog on a leash.” He closed his eyes and grunted again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but yeah. I was sitting in the Cities, and all I could think about was that you were probably here, you were probably working late, and I hated that you weren’t beside me where I could talk to you. Ask you what you thought. I missed that...security I have when you’re beside me. I know, of all the people in the world, that you have my best interests at heart.”
He looked over at her, and she knew she needed to get the stunned look off her face, but she couldn’t.
But he hadn’t said anything about holding any kind of affection for her. About liking her. It was all about him liking what she did for him.
He hadn’t said anything about her as a person. Not really. She was...getting excited over nothing.
“You were the one person in the world I have a relationship with who I trust.”
That couldn’t be true. He had his business partners. He had the people that he worked with. But she supposed they were all under contract. Technically so was she. He had just mentioned the NDA that she had signed before she even started to work.
“I don’t know what to say,” she finally said.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said, although he sounded disappointed. He’d wanted something from her, but she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t know how to give him what he wanted without risking a lot of pain on her end. He didn’t understand that her emotions were involved in their relationship. He just thought it was a business arrangement, one where he could trust her, one where he didn’t want to let her go. One where she was there for him. And he didn’t know that she felt more.
“Are you done?” He nodded at her carton.
“Yeah.” She wasn’t the slightest bit hungry anymore. He reached over to take the carton from her, and she lifted it up to hand it to him. His hand gripped from one side, her fingers squeezed the other, but he didn’t pull it away. Just held it between them while he looked in her eyes.
“I’m afraid I might be a little intense,” he finally said.
“You can be quite intimidating. I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that of you.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.” She definitely was not afraid of him.
“Do you hate me?”
“You just said you knew I would do anything for you. How can I hate you?”
“Because I’m a demanding boss, someone that everyone runs from as I walk through the room. Someone that people know I won’t accept less than their very best. It would have to be hard to work for such a person.” He laughed, although there wasn’t much humor in it. “It is hard to work for such a person. I work for myself every day, and if you think I’m hard on other people, you should see how hard I am on myself.”
“I’ve seen it. I know that you aren’t half as hard on anyone else as you are on yourself.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s the truth.”
“So you’re not scared of me, and you don’t hate me.” He paused, almost as though he wasn’t sure how to phrase the next question. “What do you feel?”
Oh boy. She couldn’t go there. She couldn’t tell him. He was asking her to be vulnerable, when he hadn’t been vulnerable himself. Except he had.
He had told her everything about his childhood. Stories he hadn’t shared with anyone ever.
