“I could get you one,” he offers.
“And I could not wear it.”
He chuckles. Taking a deep breath, he slowly looks at me. “I just, I want you to know the real reason things between us will never be anything.”
My throat burns as I force a swallow past the boulder-sized lump. “I think we already discussed that.”
“I only gave you a part of it. The easy part to admit.”
“Graham, there was nothing easy about that conversation for you.”
“True. But I don’t want you walking away from this thinking this is your fault or you did something wrong or there’s something wrong with you that would prevent us from being together.”
I frown, my heart breaking. “Do we have to do this?”
“It’s important to me,” he whispers. “If you decided you had feelings for me, then decided you didn’t, I think . . . I think that would be very difficult for me to deal with.”
I know this has something to do with Vanessa, the bitch I’d like to kick in the face for screwing up this man. Even so, I don’t know how to respond. My heart sings, yet breaks, at his admission and all I can do is watch him wrestle with his emotions.
“I dislike very much when things aren’t planned for,” he says softly. “I like numbers. Schedules. Dates. Then you walked in my office and sort of took everything I want and threw it all in the air with your water bottle and papers.”
“I’m not asking you—”
“No,” he says, reaching for my hand. “I know you’re not. You’re not asking anything of me. But I’m struggling here because . . .”
Standing, I walk behind him and take his shoulders in my hands. I work them back and forth, the quietness of the studio comforting us both.
“Promise me you’ll start doing something for you,” I say finally. “Maybe you don’t yoga, but you could get a massage. From a man,” I add with a gulp. “I could get you a standing appointment every month. I know you would go if it was on your calendar.”
Chuckling, he tilts his head and looks at me through his thick, dark lashes.
“And you need to keep some protein bars in your desk. You go too long in between meals,” I add. “I can have Hillary’s House start bringing you breakfast—”
“Mallory,” he breathes, but doesn’t continue.
“Just . . . take care of yourself, Graham.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. I’m glad for it because if he did, I might cry.
Graham
“PROMISE ME YOU’LL START DOING something for you.”
It’s that line, that one little sentence, that’s fucked with me all night. It’s why I burned my salmon, why I knocked over a new bottle of Blanton’s, my favorite bourbon. It’s why I left the shower running for a good ten minutes before I realized I never got in.
I think about the small things she does for me. The way she goes out of her way to take care of things, the way she worries about me. As much as I love being with her physically, the way she feels against me, this part of her is what hits me in a way I haven’t felt before. It’s what I can’t shake, what I fear will leave a hole when she leaves.
When she leaves.
“Shit,” I groan, pressing my hands against the glass door to the patio. I’m all tied up, a complete fucking wreck, and I really don’t even have the energy to try to straighten it out.
Shoving off the glass and turning towards my briefcase on the kitchen table, I pull out a few files I need to work on. I glance at them and realize—I don’t care. Not like I should. Something is off and it’s not Landry Security or Lincoln’s contracts. It’s something else.
I slam the files on the table and they hit it with a smack. Something rolls out of my briefcase and drops to the floor. A wide grin tickles my lips.
Laughing, I scoop it up and hold it in the air. A roller bottle with a label for “Stress Relief” catches the light.
“Mallory,” I whisper. “Damn you.”