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Opposite the seating area is a wall of bookshelves filled with spines and, in front of that, a desk large enough to accommodate four guests on one side.
My heartbeat quickens at the sight of Henry slouched in his chair, a pen perched between his lips, his attention locked on something beyond the window.
Oblivious to me, though he granted me permission to enter.
“Henry?” I call out tentatively.
He snaps out of his daze, spinning his revolving chair toward me. “Abbi, what are you doing here?” He frowns. “Is something wrong?”
I hold up the brown bag. “I brought your favorite for lunch.”
His eyes drift over the simple black tunic dress and heels I threw on after thirty minutes of questioning how Henry Wolf’s future wife should dress for a visit to his office. “Thank you,” he offers quietly.
“You’re welcome.” I have an overwhelming urge to touch Henry, to feel his body against mine. To know that whatever inner turmoil he’s facing, it has nothing to do with our future. And if these past few months have taught me anything about Henry, it’s how to get answers out of him without asking.
“Nice digs.” I close the distance, setting the lunch bag aside.
“It’s my father’s taste. I’ll have to update it at some point when I have time.”
I round the desk and perch myself on it, next to him. Toeing off my heels, I rest my feet on his chair between his splayed thighs.
“My fiancée sitting on my desk isn’t the most professional start to my week.”
My heart swells at the label. He wouldn’t use that so freely if he was regretting it, would he? “And you’re all about professionalism.”
“Always.” He traces his bottom lip with his index finger as he studies the sheer black pantyhose I tugged on at the last minute. “I seem to recall a certain assistant despising nylons so much that she peeled them off and flung them across my cabin halfway through her shift.”
“Yes, but these arewaymore comfortable.” I hike up the hem of my dress, enough to show off the lace elastic band holding the thigh-highs up but also to give him a glimpse beneath, to the fact that I skipped panties for my visit here.
His sharp inhale fills the room, but he doesn’t make a move. “As pleasant as this surprise is, why are you here, Abbi?”
Miles is right. Something is seriously off with him today. “I needed to see you.”
He hums to himself. “Did Miles call you in a panic to tell you he’s worried about me?”
“Why would he do that?” I press my lips together to hide the truth. I don’t want him getting into trouble for reporting to me on Henry’s mental health.
Henry smirks. “Because I can’t seem to focus on anything today.”
Focusing is something Henry excels at, even under extreme stress. I scramble for an explanation. “Maybe you have a concussion?” The scrape on his forehead is minor and the doctor at Wolf Cove cleared him, but sometimes these things take a few days to reveal themselves.
“No, that’s not it.” He looks around aimlessly. “I nearly died a few days ago.”
“Yeah, I remember.” The worst, longest twenty-four hours of my life, waiting for an answer from the search teams. I smooth my foot along his thigh for comfort.
“And now I’m back here, dealing with this”—he casts a hand toward a stack of reports—“juggling a million decisions as if it never happened.”
“You didn’t have to come back so soon. You’re the boss. You can take time off.”
“I wish that were true. But everything is in turmoil. This shit my brother pulled is costing us millions to fix.”
I don’t know the first thing about what he’s up against. “But you don’t have to do it all on your own. That’s why you have this floor of executives to handle the work. Get Sunjit on it. He’ll yell at anyone you want him to.”
Henry snorts. “They’re all swamped with their own jobs. I need new people. I fired Scott’s entire team.”
“Allof them?”
“Everyone at the management level. If they missed what he was doing, I can’t rely on them. If they didn’t miss it, I can’t trust them. HR is scrambling to promote who they can and recruit for the rest, but I need someone competent to run the entire metals business.Idon’t know it. My father knew it, Scott knew it, but I never put effort into it. I was always focused on the hotels.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It felt more manageable before, when my father was around, as much of a pain in the ass as he was. Now it’s just me.” His eyes wander out the window again. “And is it even worth it anymore? Is this how I want to spend the next however many years of my life?”
