Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

He glanced around at the staring crowd and blinked a couple of times. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Uh, why don’t you guys chat in your office?” Jazz—of all people—suggested. Even though his eyes were alive with curiosity, and he clearly would love to watch the rest of the scene play out. “Linda, Josh, and I can pick up the slack. Right, guys?”

Linda and Josh nodded obediently, but Vicki could tell that they were both struggling not to grin.

“Hey, what about my plant?” The middle-aged man—who had commanded her to commit the glittrocity on the innocent poinsettia—shouldered his way forward belligerently. But Ty, nervous and out of his element though he seemed, leveled his signature glare on the guy, who immediately backed off.

“I’ll finish that for you, sir,” Linda offered politely. She stepped forward and removed the pot of glitter from Vicki’s numb fingers. She gave Vicki an encouraging push toward Ty, and it was enough to unstick Vicki’s feet from the floor.

“Right. Okay. Thanks, guys. I’m so sorry about this,” she apologized to the man and her customers in general. “Ty?”

She brushed past him and led the way to her office. People silently parted and let them through. And as soon as they were in the office, with the door firmly shut behind them, the buzz of excited conversation swelled again.

She stood with her palm on the door, for a moment, bracing herself for what was to come, and turned to face Ty.

She sucked in a shaky breath as she drank in his familiar, much-loved features. They looked thinner, sharper.

He had lost weight.

“Ty,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”

He lifted his shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know. I thought you deserved a big gesture. Like in that movie.”

“What movie?”

“The one we watched the night I cooked for you. When you had your period.”

Oh! Seriously?

“Ty, that movie was objectively terrible,” she pointed out, sinking into her chair. Wanting the questionable barrier of her desk between them.

“I thought so too, but you seemed to like it. You cried when he did that cringey thing at the end, in front of her colleagues. I thought maybe you liked that sort of thing. The big boombox over the head kind of gesture.”

“I had my period. I would have cried even if…” She stopped talking and sucked in a deep, impatient breath. “That’s not the point. Why did you feel the need to make this grand gesture?”

His shoulders slumped, and he dropped the flowers and the gift onto the one paper-free corner of her desk and sank into the chair across from her.

“I want us to make another go of it.”

Her eyebrows leapt to her hairline. Oh, he did, did he?

“Us? Come on, Ty. There is no us,” she scoffed.

He shook his head adamantly. “There’s always been an us, Vicki. But I was too dumb to appreciate, or even recognize, that fact.”

“And that means what?” She kept her tone firm and dispassionate. She wasn’t ready to trust him with her emotions again. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be ready for that.

“I miss you.”

She forced back the tide of hope and joy that resulted from those three little words.

“So, you miss me. And what? I’m supposed to upend my life for you again? Because Tyler wants what Tyler wants, right? Big whoop.”

He sighed, the sound seeming to come from the deepest recesses of his soul. He had his elbows resting on his spread knees, and his hands steepled between them. His head was bowed as he stared at his fingers.

But he lifted his head abruptly and immobilized her with those eyes. Dark, filled with roiling emotion, they held her captive, and she couldn’t look away.

“This isn’t just some fleeting whim, honey. Hugh told me that if I ever wanted you back, I’d need to sort myself out first. He was right. I couldn’t come to you broken. It wouldn’t be fair. I was too much of a coward to be the man you needed before. I was going through the motions of living. And I was okay with that. I had no reason to want more. I was content to exist in the past, among the dead. They couldn’t hurt me by leaving because they were already gone…but I dishonored their memories by refusing to live.

“But you—” His eyes shimmered, and he glanced away for a moment—as if afraid to let her see what he was feeling. And Vicki’s heart sank at the familiar evasion, until he stunned her by looking up and unashamedly opening himself to her. Every fear, hope, and desire laid bare in that glittering stare. “You shattered every single defense that I had. I didn’t even know it until the walls were down. And even then, it took a while for me to recognize how profoundly you had affected me. You’re my light, Vicki. I was stuck in the cold darkness for so long, I didn’t even recognize warmth and light anymore. You infiltrated the fortress I’d built around my heart and made yourself right at home…”