Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

“It’s silly, but I didn’t have time to get you anything else. It’s a boutonnière. For your jacket.” She wiped her face again before taking in his jeans, t-shirt, and obvious lack of jacket, with a perfectly miserable smile. “Of course, I never considered that you wouldn’t be wearing a jacket in your own home.” She sighed and shook her head. “Happy birthday, Ty. I’m so sorry for the intrusion.”

He took the box from her and gazed unseeingly at the sweet arrangement of flowers within. He didn’t know what to do. What to say. He had lost his customary cool. Shocking even himself in the process, and he wasn’t sure how to fix it.

“Vicki—” He tried again. Maybe the words would come to him. Something that would miraculously negate all the ugly things he had said moments before. But nothing came and all he was left with was, “Thank you.”

Vicki nodded and turned back toward the elevator without another word.

Chance glared at him—great, Ty would have to deal with that now too—and followed her.

Ty watched them step into the elevator, hoping that she would look at him again, wanting to smile at her, to show her he hadn’t meant what he’d said. Hoping she would somehow see how sorry he was, and how desperately he wanted her to stay so that they could talk this through. But she didn’t look at him again, and when the elevator doors slid shut, Ty was left feeling utterly gutted.

“He shouldn’t have said those things,” Chance muttered awkwardly, once they were standing outside the frosted glass door to the penthouse. “I’m sorry, Vicki.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. I was out of line. I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have insisted you take me down there. I put you in an awkward position. I behaved like the spoilt brat that you all probably think I am. Ty was right to call me out on it.”

“None of us think that of you. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”

“I was a total bitch in the beginning,” she reminded him.

“Nah, even back then, I thought you were entertaining as hell. You weren’t, aren’t, like some of the others we’re tasked to watch. You weren’t being a diva. And you very quickly adjusted and went out of your way to make things easier for us. The point is, Ty was out of line. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I kind of did,” she said, with a small smile. “He’s more private than you are, Chance. And having me show up at his home was an intrusion of the worst kind. I should have called him. Or asked him about it on Monday. But I was so angry. Honestly, I was more pissed off with Miles. I shouldn’t have projected that onto you. Or Ty. Please don’t let this silliness ruin Ty’s birthday. Everything will be back to normal on Monday.”

Vicki very much doubted that. Nothing would ever be the same again. She had meant every word she’d said to both Ty and Chance. She should not have intruded. It was unforgivable. She had behaved like a child and deserved every home truth Ty had levelled at her. The problem was, she wished it were different.

She wished she was more than a job to him. Wished she was a part of that private life he cherished so much. But it didn’t matter how hard she wished for something; she couldn’t make the man like her. Or want to willingly spend time with her. And she had to face up to that reality.

“Go have fun,” she urged Chance. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nodded and after checking the penthouse—Hugh was spending the weekend at Stephen’s—he left her alone with her roiling thoughts.

“What the fuck, mate?” Chance laid into Ty the second the latter opened the door. “She didn’t bloody deserve that.”

Ty rubbed the back of his neck as he stepped aside to allow the man into his apartment.

“It just pissed me off when she came in here guns blazing like that. And what the fuck were you doing, divulging my private information to a client?”

“No, she was right, it’s fucking weird you never once mentioned that you live in the same damned building as her. How the hell was I supposed to know it was some big, classified secret?”

Ty glared at his friend and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Just because you blab your every last thought to your principals, doesn’t mean I do the same. She’s not my friend, she doesn’t need to know the details of my life.”

“You’ve shadowed her for fifteen months, fuckhead.” Chance poked him back. They were practically nose to nose now, trading furious glares. “You sit in her store up to six days a week and you’ve seen her around her friends and employees. How do you learn all the intimate aspects of her life, without revealing any of your own?”