Sophie (The Boss 8)

The Fifth Avenue penthouse was a leftover from Neil’s first marriage. He’d moved into it and decorated it with Elizabeth, lived there with her and sometimes Emma, gotten divorced, then started dating me. Some of my happiest times had been in the apartment. Some really, really bad times had been there, too.

I couldn’t tell which one this would be.

“Where are the girls?” Neil asked as we slipped off our jackets and hung them in the closet.

“Holli was taking them to a matinee of Beetlejuice: The Musical.”

I didn’t mention that it would be my best friend’s twenty-third time seeing it.

And I didn’t mention that fact precisely because of the horrified face Neil made at the thought of a single viewing.

“Amal texted me when we were in the car. They’re still with Holli but they’ll be back, soon. We should take the opportunity to discuss this now,” El-Mudad said. “While we have some time.”

“I need coffee,” Neil announced. “Excuse me, please.”

El-Mudad and I watched him leave.

“So much for talking about it,” I said under my breath.

“He’s handling all of this far better than I expected.” El-Mudad rubbed my shoulders as he steered me toward the living room.

“Yeah. In an extremely rational, not-manic way, too. Flirting with the family law attorney, for example.” I rolled my eyes.

“Better flirting than shouting and ordering everyone around in a desperate bid for control.”

Leave it to him to find a bright side. “That’s true. Maybe I’m a bad person for thinking this, but I kind of like seeing him in a crisis and being able to handle it.” I went to one of the armchairs that faced the ocean view. El-Mudad sat in the one beside me.

“I don’t think that makes you a bad person,” he said gently. “I think it means you’re glad he’s made so much progress.”

“Yeah, but in my head, I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m so happy the old Neil is back.’”

El-Mudad sighed. “You’ll always find a way to make yourself the villain, won’t you?”

My mouth fell open. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You have a lot of guilt. You joke about your Catholic guilt—”

“That’s not a joke,” I interjected.

“But you do burden yourself with guilt for things most people wouldn’t think twice about—fleeting thoughts or clumsy emotions that are difficult to put into words. You don’t give yourself any room to fail. Even in your mind.” His mouth bent into a tight-lipped smile of resignation mingled with pity for me. I might have felt condescended to if I didn’t know that his sympathy was rooted in love.

“This is just going to be so difficult for him.” I couldn’t imagine what was going on in his mind. I would have to, as it was my only option. “Do you think he’s freaked out in a bad way?”

“Olivia is the most important thing in his life,” El-Mudad said with a shrug. It wasn’t an answer, but I knew that neither of us would find one, no matter how much we talked around it.

“Let’s go with him,” I suggested, and El-Mudad nodded. That was another benefit of being in a polyamorous relationship; we could workshop how to handle each other’s moods.

I worried that we’d find Neil gazing out the window introspectively or something else grim, but he really was making coffee.

“Oh.” I stopped abruptly and El-Mudad almost mowed me down.

“Did I startle you?” Neil asked, his brow creasing in a confused frown. “I told you where I would be.”

“I know,” I admitted sheepishly. “I’m just a little jumpy today.”

“Did you come in here to avoid talking about what happened at the lawyer’s office?” El-Mudad asked bluntly.

Neil looked positively shocked by such an accusation. “Where would you get an idea like that?”

“From being your boyfriend,” El-Mudad said with a shrug.

Neil pushed a few buttons on the coffee maker and grumbled, “Fair enough.”

I glanced over at the breakfast nook, where photos of Emma used to decorate the wall. Neil hadn’t erased her from our lives, but many of the casual reminders from when she’d been alive were packed away out of grief and desperate love.

At what point would the wound of her death stop opening?

“You two needn’t worry about me so much,” Neil began, weary. “I’m not going to fall apart over this or go into some fantastic case of denial. This is simply paperwork. Do you forget what my job used to be?”

“What your job is,” I corrected him. “You say you’re retired, but you still spend an awful lot of time working on Elwood and Stern.”

“And the foundation,” El-Mudad put in.

Neil sighed in frustration. “Yes. I’m very good at high level management and organization. Analyzing cost and risk and legal moves to protect assets and gain the best possible outcomes for my company. So why on earth would you think I couldn’t do that for my own family?”