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“Good point. You are very wise, Mr. Wilson.”
“Not as wise as you, Miss Ivy League.”
“Har, har,” she deadpanned as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“Did I say something—”
“It’s just …” She hated talking about her college years. It made her sound ungrateful when she told people she hadn’t wanted to go to her Ivy League college. That she’d wanted to stay local—for a few reasons. One of which was probably why her father insisted she leave town. He wanted her to follow in his footsteps, and his footsteps were in business, not in a garden. “I got a wonderful education, so I can’t complain.” She swatted the air as though her feelings didn’t matter. As far as her father had been concerned, they didn’t.
“Why do I feel you’re hiding something?”
Because you’ve always known me better than I knew myself. Which means you have to know how much it hurt when you ghosted me.
“You know my mom died when I was two. So, I don’t have any memories of my dad before we lost her. In fact, I have very few memories of my father at all. And the only time he really paid me any attention was when I brought home a perfect report card, a near-perfect aptitude test, or an acceptance letter to his Ivy League alma mater. Other than that, he threw himself into his work and was never around.”
Ben shifted in her desk chair, and Mia wondered if maybe that last part hit a little too close to home. He was a workaholic himself. And he’d lost his mother too.
She wiped her greasy fingers on the rough napkin and was just about to reach across the desk to grab his hand. Touching her boss was probably against company policy.
“Going to the garden club and planting flowers in your backyard with your mom was as close to quality time with a parent as I ever had.” Which made her death even more devastating. Mia had essentially lost two mothers.
“She’d be proud of you, you know.” His words were noticeably thick, as was the subtle shine in his eyes. But like she’d seen him do so many times at work, though mostly to swallow frustration, he cleared his throat and stiffened his spine. And that was that.
“There’s really not much to be proud of.”
“Then you don’t see what I see, Amelia.” He rattled the compliment off so matter-of-factly, she nearly missed it. He folded his used napkin in half, placing it alongside his now empty paper plate, obviously unaware of how his comment made her heart beat faster. “I’m the one who she wouldn’t be very proud of.”
Mia leaned in closer, her brows scrunched in the center. “What are you talking about?”
Ben chuckled, but it wasn’t one of those happy kinds. This was a sound that contradicted the action, like what he was about to say wasn’t funny at all. “You know what I was like after I graduated high school. All the partying, slouching on my responsibilities. I’m the reason …” His eyes trailed to the window, but she knew it was to avoid eye contact. There wasn’t anything to see out in the night's darkness.
He folded his hands and placed them on the desk, leaning toward her like a boss about to speak to his employee. Which was the case here. His strong eye contact felt a little more personal, though. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes. Of course.”
His brows pinched together. “Why are you here?”
She fiddled with her hands, thankful the desk hid her fingers having a wrestling match with each other.
“Um, uh… I was working on the presentation.”
Ben shook his head with a quiet laugh as Mia looked around the small office, wondering what she was missing.
“I know that. I’m asking why you’re at the firm.”
“Oh.” That was better. Unexpected, though. “Where else would I be?”
“Someplace that doesn’t make you miserable.”
She reared back. “I—I’m not miserable here.”
“Yeah, you are. It’s obvious.” Was it? Hopefully, it wasn’t too clear to her other coworkers. Though she should have been worried about her boss knowing this.
“Well, what about you?” she asked, deflecting. Trying to get the spotlight off her.
Ben shook his head. “What about me?”
“I recently heard that happiness is a choice. And you don’t seem to enjoy it here, either, judging by the way you schlep around the way you do.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. She’d essentially called her boss a grump right to his face. A face that now looked much too tight for its own good.
