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“No, no, no!” Amber groans as we reach the ground floor. It’s covered in tiny, shattered pieces of glass, and the skeleton of what I assume was once my very expensive chandelier lies in a crumpled heap in the middle of the floor. “What happened?”
Ric, Amber’s main contractor, is standing to the side with a look of pure dread etched onto his face. Next to him are three men and one of them has a long cut running down his arm with a thin trail of blood slowly oozing out of it.
“Shit,” Amber says again as soon as she catches sight of the injury. “Where’s the first aid kit? Do you need to go to the hospital? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” the man mumbles. Someone comes running back into the room with a little green box with the first aid sign on it. “It’s not a deep cut.”
“I’m so sorry, Amber,” Ric says, shaking his head. “I didn’t check that they loaded it up properly and—”
“It’s fine,” Amber says, even as her jaw twitches. She closes her eyes for a few seconds, inhales deeply, and then opens them again. “Just…just sort him out, get him bandaged, and fill out an accident report form. Then make sure the glass is all cleaned up so nobody else hurts themselves.”
Before anyone can say anything, she whirls around and dashes up the stairs. I hover awkwardly for a few seconds, not sure what else to say, and then follow Amber. When I get to the office, she’s pacing the room. She’s on the phone, and she’s using her free hand to wind her fingers around the few strands of hair that frame her face.
“…You’re sure there’s no way?” She sounds desperate in a way I’ve never heard from her before. Like her voice is only one more piece of bad news away from cracking. “We can pay double your fee. Triple if you can guarantee it.” A pause. Her brows are so tightly knit together, I’m afraid it’s going to leave a permanent mark in the middle of her face. “All right. No, no, I understand. Thank you anyway.” She hangs up the phone and sinks against the nearest wall with her eyes closed. “Fucking hell.”
“What’s going on?”
She cracks open one eye. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’ll get it sorted. Don’t worry.”
There’s a bite to her tone that almost makes me flinch. She sounds like the Amber from the first day we met. The one who had no time for me whatsoever. Not the Amber of today, who I seem to have struck up a tentatively pleasant working relationship with.
“That doesn’t sound like nothing to me.” I stride across the room until I’m standing right in front of her. She’s closed her eyes again and she’s still twisting that lock of hair around her finger. She’s pulling on it so tightly, I worry she might yank it from the roots. “Amber.”
She keeps her eyes closed. “Hawthorne.”
I reach up and cradle my hand against her cheek. She stops twisting her hair and her eyes fly open. We stare at each other for a long moment that I never want to end. Then she lifts her hand up and holds it against the one I’m cradling her cheek with. She leans into my touch and breathes out a deep, deep sigh. After a few seconds, she pulls my hand away from her cheek and gives me a small nod. “Thanks.”
I take a step back, letting my arm swing down to my side. Is she missing the warmth of my hand on her cheek as much as I’m missing the feel of her skin under my palm?
“Sorry about that,” she murmurs. “I just needed a minute to breathe.”
I’d give her every last one of my minutes on Earth if it meant I’d never have to see or hear her like that again.
“You going to tell me what’s wrong now?”
“It’s truly not a problem,” she says quietly. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“I could help.”
She looks up at me and quirks a brow almost in challenge. “The studio I bought the chandelier from has one more in stock, but the courier we usually use doesn’t have any availability to go and collect it in time for Friday. That means I’ll have to push the electricians back and hope they’ll be able to come another time. It’s not the end of the world, but—”
“It makes our very tight schedule even tighter,” I finish for her.
“Exactly.”
“What if you picked it up yourself?”
“The studio is about two hours from London, and I don’t have a car.”
“Rent one and do the drive yourself.”
Her laugh is almost hysterical, but at least she’s laughing again. “My license is currently expired and, anyway, it’s also not in the budget. Cynthia would never approve it, especially since we’re going to pay out of pocket for the replacement until I can file an insurance claim for the shattered chandelier.”
“I’ll pay for it and a driver too.”
The expression on her face is somewhere between suspicious and confused. “It’s not inyourbudget either, Hawthorne.”
She’s right. It’s not. But I’m not planning to pay for this with the company credit card. “You don’t know what my budget is.”
