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“I’m serious.Delegate. You’re going to drive yourself mad trying to stay on top of everything like this.” His phone buzzes in its holder again with another email notification, kindly helping to illustrate my point. “It won’t kill you to trust the people you’ve hired to do their jobs without you breathing down their necks, you know?”
“It won’t kill me, but—”
“But what?”
He takes one hand off the wheel and reaches for his tie — only he’s not wearing one today, and his hand drops limply into his lap. My mind flashes back to that day I found him on the floor of the office, a pained look etched onto his face as he pulled on the already loose tie around his neck. He looks like he’s in pain right now, and before I can talk myself out of it, I reach over and squeeze his dropped hand.
He looks down at our hands — mine resting gently over his, my fingers tracing gentle circles on his skin. He blinks a few times and then swallows thickly. I keep my hand there for a full minute until he starts to look more like himself again and less like he’s on the brink of something catastrophic.
When I pull away, he clears his throat. “Thanks. I just needed—” The car rolls to a slow crawl as we hit some traffic and he turns to look at me properly. “I needed a minute.”
“I get it. And you don’t have to answer my question. I’m just being pushy.”
“I know it won’t kill me,” he says, completely ignoring the out I’ve just given him. “But sometimes failing feels like an even worse alternative. So I stay on top of them to make sure I can’t fail.”
“That seems exhausting.”
“It is.”
And that horrible, sad little smile is back. I want to wipe it off his face. It doesn’t suit him. Not one bit.
“Trust the team you’ve put together,” I tell him. “Just for a week. Tell them not to copy you into anything that doesn’t genuinely need your immediate attention. No more emails about milk deliveries or social media schedules or…” Another email notification pops up. “Or…approving the final press release for the launch of the London location. Okay,thatone can stay, but everything else needs to go. You can’t keep working like this, Finn.”
His first name slips out without me thinking and I suppose I should be happy about it because as soon as it falls from my lips, his wide, bright smile is back and he looks likehimagain.
“Finn, huh?”
“Don’t make it a big deal.”
He looks like he’s on the verge of absolutely making it a big deal, but I suppose I must’ve earned some goodwill with him because he settles for just giving me a small shrug.
The next time we grind to a slow halt behind some unmoving traffic, Hawthorne reaches over and plucks his phone from the stand.
“What’re you doing?” I ask as he taps the screen a few times.
“I think you’d call itdelegating.” He puts the phone back onto its stand, and for the rest of the journey, not a single email comes through.
13
FINN
“CanI get you anything else, dear?”
Amber shakes her head and moves to reach for her purse. I inch forward and drop my card onto the counter, ignoring the half-hearted look of protest she flashes me.
The woman behind the counter giggles as she scoops up my card. “What a gentleman you’ve got there, dear. And quite the handsome one too. You make sure you hold onto him.”
Amber rolls her eyes. “I’m trying to get rid of him, actually.”
The woman — the name badge on her shirt reads Eileen — laughs fondly. “That’s what they all say, love. Next thing you know, twenty years have passed and your first born is expecting your first grandchild.” She hands me back my card and gives me a little wink. “You make sure to take care of her now.”
I let my grin take over my face. “Will do, ma’am.”
Amber looks like she wants the floor to open up and swallow her whole. She mumbles a polite goodbye to Eileen and then hurries out with me hot on her heels.
We’re refuelling at a gas station about halfway between London and the studio from where we’ve just picked up the chandelier. It’s safely strapped in the back of the car, surrounded in so much protective wrap I’m pretty sure we could bounce it all the way back to the city and it wouldn’t get so much as a scratch. But Amber isn’t taking any chances, and after what happened yesterday, I can’t say I blame her.
When I get back into the car, Amber is already strapped into her seat. There’s a slightly darker tinge to her cheeks and she purposefully doesn’t look at me as I slide in, her gaze focused firmly ahead.
