She swallowed and lifted trembling fingers to his hair, tears rolling down her face. “Why are you doing this?”
“You need to ask me that?” A growl of sound. “You haven’t figured out by now that I think you’re fucking amazing? You have a brain that won’t quit, a smile that lights up my soul, and a body I want to do dirty things to and with three ways to Sunday.”
A wet laugh broke through her tears. “You’ll probably have to wait till you’re eighty to do most of them at the rate I’m going.” Charlotte was terrified her words weren’t a joke but a prediction.
“We’ll be the most energetic couple in the old people’s home.”
She started to cry in earnest, the sobs wracking her frame as the entire morning came down on her like a brick wall.
“Baby, come here.” Gabriel’s voice was raw. “Let me hold you.”
Wanting nothing more, she bent forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He stroked her back, his hand a heavy, comforting weight. Somehow, she didn’t know how, she ended up on the floor too, on his lap, Gabriel’s back braced against the desk as he held her and her glasses pulled off and set aside. The tears kept coming, as if she’d never cried before, years of pain and grief and anger crashing through her in a violent storm surge that made her bones ache and her skin burn.
It felt as if it would never stop, but at some stage it did. Lying exhausted and limp against him until her mind could form words again, she patted the wetness on his shirt. “This is the second time I’ve cried all over you.”
“Since it makes you snuggle up to me, I’m fine with it.”
She felt her lips curve and it was a surprise, but she held on to the quiet warmth inside her. If she’d come out of the storm unbroken, she wasn’t about to turn her back on that gift. “I want to wash my face.” But if she stepped out into the corridor on her way to the facilities, the other staff members would realize immediately that she’d been crying.
“Reach over to the drawer on your right. I’m pretty sure I left a bottle of water in there.”
Charlotte managed to open the drawer after Gabriel leaned forward a fraction. The unopened bottle was sitting up front. Taking it out, she pushed the drawer shut and Gabriel braced his back against the desk again.
“My box of tissues is outside,” she said, embarrassed about her face now. She’d put on mascara today in her continued quest to master makeup, and it had to be running.
Gabriel picked her up and put her in his executive chair. “Wait here.” Exiting the office, he returned a few seconds later with the tissue box and her handbag and once more shut the door. “Weightlifting,” he said as he passed the items over. “That’s clearly your secret hobby.”
“Very funny.” Grabbing several tissues from the box, Charlotte dampened them using the water from the bottle. For now, she just wiped her cheeks clean blind. The tissues became smudged with the dark brown mascara she’d used to make her lashes stand out a little more. “My handbag isn’t that heavy.”
“Only half your body weight,” he said dryly. “There were three notes on your desk from people who want to see me.”
“Did they knock on the door?” she asked, relieved they wouldn’t have heard her sobs regardless. Gabriel’s office had excellent soundproofing—she never overheard any of his conversations when he had the door shut, no matter how heated.
Now he snorted. “They’re scared of me, Charlotte. You’re the T-Rex tamer.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sure they thought you were busy.”
“Yeah.” He pulled a sticky note out of his pocket. “Then why does this one say, ‘Hi Charlotte—wanted to see Bishop. Can you give me a call when it’s okay? I didn’t want to make him mad by interrupting.’”
Dropping that one on the desk, he took out another. “‘Charlotte, can you call me when the Beast is in a good mood?’” Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “That’s a new one.”
Charlotte scowled. “Those notes weren’t for you.”
“Don’t worry, Ms. Baird. I won’t fire the chickens. They happen to be good at their jobs.” He put the final note atop the others without reading it aloud.
Feeling a little more human, Charlotte found her compact and checked her face. Her eyes weren’t as badly swollen as she’d feared, and the damage wouldn’t be obvious behind her glasses if she put on some makeup to replace what she’d cried off. She was no expert even after the past months of cautious experimentation, but she could swipe on a lick of mascara and powder her face, dab on a touch of lip color.
It felt incredibly intimate to do it in front of Gabriel, especially when he sat down in the guest chair on the other side of the desk and placed his feet on the scarred wood of the desk, legs crossed at the ankles and hands laced behind his head as he leaned back. “I want to watch you do that while you’re naked.”
Her cheeks went hot.
“On one of those pretty little benches women have in front of their vanities. Do you have one?”
“No.” She’d always wanted a Victorian-style vanity, but the antiques were too expensive and the reproductions she’d found not quite right.
“Maybe I’ll buy you one for your birthday. You can thank me by doing that thing with your mascara while bare to the skin.”
He was flustering her, but Charlotte was used to fencing with him on this level. It made her happy that her meltdown hadn’t stopped him. Not only that, she found she, too, was back on stable ground, perhaps even more so than before the tears. As if a valve that had been twisted and twisted and twisted had suddenly given way and in so doing, washed everything clean.