The Boyfriend (The Boss 7)

“No. Intelligently, I know that you love me. But my emotions are all over the place.” I sniffled. “I hate feeling like I don’t have control over anything. Not over my body, not over my emotions, not over your past... And I don’t like that I’m ruining Christmas Eve having a fight with you over something that wouldn’t have fazed me two years ago.”

El-Mudad came to sit on the other side of me. “It shouldn’t faze you now,” he began, then corrected himself. “I’m sorry. That was the wrong way to say it. You’re entitled to your feelings. But nothing about you has changed in two years apart from your illness and your age. You’re the same person, with the benefit of a bit of hard-earned wisdom through experience. Anything that’s changed about you only makes me love you more.”

“My feelings exactly,” Neil agreed. “Sophie, I’ve told you before that you have no romantic rival. I love you with my whole heart, as I love El-Mudad and he loves you. And, at the risk of speaking on your behalf, as you love the two of us.”

“It’s okay. You’re allowed to put those words—only those words—in my mouth,” I said, laughing softly through my tears. I gave both of them an apologetic grimace. “It’s not that I doubt the two of you. I doubt myself.”

“No, you doubt us,” El-Mudad corrected me. “In doubting that we could continue to love you despite such minor issues.”

“You’ve stood me through cancer and other disasters,” Neil pointed out. “You didn’t owe it to me to stay. But you did. And I’m not saying that now I’m beholden to you and I have to remain yoked to this marriage as a result. I’m with you because I want to be. I want you. Not Elizabeth, not Valerie, not anyone else you may be concerned about. And that’s because I’ve chosen you. All of you.”

One of Neil’s more obnoxious talents was his way with words. In just a few sentences, he could change my entire outlook. Which was annoying when my brain wanted to keep being angry and needlessly petty.

But he was right. It was a waste of my energy to resent him for his past, just because I felt insecure about myself.

“If I may,” El-Mudad began cautiously. “I think that you would have had these feelings whether Neil was in Venice with us or not.”

That was one-hundred percent, undeniably true. In our early days of dating, I’d been painfully aware of the ghost of Neil’s marriage. The penthouse had still been decorated to her tastes. Mail had still arrived addressed to her. Buying the house in Sagaponack with Neil had alleviated some of my weird hang-ups because we had a place to make a shared history together without the presence of former lovers. But every now and then, the knowledge that he hadn’t always been mine, that he’d once loved someone the way he loved me...

No, I told myself firmly. He hadn’t loved Elizabeth the way he loved me. He’d loved me, a woman he’d met once and had no hope of ever seeing again, the entire time they’d been together. He’d purchased the home in Venice for her, but he’d once confessed to me that he would have left her in an instant if they’d still been together when I’d come back into his life.

“You’re right,” I admitted, sniffing back the snot that threatened to run out. “I’m being beyond silly. You’ve never given me any reason to doubt that you love me. I’m building all that up in my head. And it’s especially silly that I’m doing it over a woman who has no bearing on our day-to-day lives.”

I may have added that part on specifically to exclude Valerie. After our turbulent history, I doubted I’d ever stop feeling on-guard when she was around Neil.

When I reached up to wipe away my tears, El-Mudad clucked his tongue and took my chin his hand. Pulling the silk handkerchief from his pocket, he carefully dabbed the wetness from beneath my eyes. “So your mascara doesn’t smear.”

I melted at his consideration.

He looked over my head to Neil. “I think you should go with your brothers.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah. You really should. And I’m sorry I got so upset over it.”

“There’s no need to apologize.” Neil put his arm around my waist and hugged me to his side. “I’m just sorry that you thought you couldn’t share this with me before it came to such a painful head. Especially since we’ve worked so hard to avoid that in the past.”

We’d spent several years in couple’s therapy together, working through my communication problem, among other things. It had always been difficult for me to express the full scope of my emotions to basically anyone. I had an unintentionally self-destructive habit of holding things in until they exploded.