Page 82 of Big & Bossy
Surely, getting over him a second time would be easier. It had to be.
The front door of the office opened, distracting me from my task of the day. I glanced over the monitor, spotting Harry’s mop of blonde hair through rows of blinds. “Hey,” I called out.
He stopped in the middle of my doorway, his shoulder leaning on the frame. The hollows under his eyes were the worst I’d ever seen them, his frame thinner, his hair messy, the little cast still on his nose. Everything, for the most part, had healed — his ribs were almost normal, his bruises faded. But he still looked like a wreck. “Hey, Mands.”
I stood from my desk. “Jesus, Harry,” I mumbled, crossing the room in a second. I pushed his hair back, trying to make him look even slightly more presentable. “You have a meeting in an hour. I know you’re not doing well, but you could’ve tried to make yourself a little more presentable.”
His stained, oversized hoodie and joggers were enough to make me irate, but I tried to have patience with him. He didn’t want to talk about what was ailing him, and as much as I understood that, if he was going to show up to work he could at least wear a button-up shirt and slacks. “I did my best,” he mumbled.
“You didn’t. I think I might have something of Jack’s in my car that you can wear,” I sighed, giving up entirely on his hair. “And I probably have some concealer in my purse.”
“I don’t want anything of Jack’s,” he grumbled, catching my hand before I could put it back down by my side. He turned it over in his palm, taking in the empty ring finger. A smile too wide crossed his lips. “Finally took it off?”
I rolled my eyes at him as I snatched my hand back, my hand rubbing my wrist to calm me before things got heated. “I shipped it back to him last week. You’d have known that if you’d bothered to show up to work. Did you honestly think I was going to keep it on?—”
“I’ve been busy. I told you that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s starting to become a problem, Harry,” I said. “You’ve missed meetings. You’ve bailed on customers. Do you know how bad that looks on us? Do you know how many emails I’ve gotten, how many of our clients have said you’ve shown up late or didn’t show up at all?—”
“I don’t really care how it looks,” he scoffed, dark, tired eyes meeting mine. “We’re doing fine. I just need this situation to blow over and then I’ll be back up and running.”
“And what exactly is this situation?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “So is it over, then? You and Jack?” Of course he brought it back to that. Why had he been so hung up on that lately?
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I mumbled as I took a step back from him.
“I’m asking as a friend, Mandy. You shipped it back, so it can’t have been an easy break,” he said softly, his lips pursing as I met his gaze again. “I’m sorry for the way I was reacting before, to the stuff with you two. I was just worried about you, and honestly, I think that’s rightly so.”
Well, that’s unexpected. “You’re right. Genuinely. But I really don’t want to talk about it,” I insisted, pushing down that part of me that did want to talk about it, the part that wanted to turn it into the big deal it genuinely felt like. But I wasn’t going to let myself. “We have some stuff to go over before your meeting with Jack tomorrow if you’re still going.”
“Can’t,” he said, his word too quick, too certain. “I’ve got a doctor's appointment.”
I sighed in frustration as I glanced at the document I’d been typing up. “You couldn’t have told me that sooner?”
“I’ve been busy. And we didn’t talk about the thing with Jack.”
“Why do you keep bringing it back to that?” I whined, leaning back against my wall of filing cabinets. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, because you don’t want to be proven wrong,” he chuckled, a smug little smirk crossing his face. “I told you this would happen, and you chose to ignore it. He’s a shitty guy, Mandy. Did you really think he’d changed?”
His mood shifts were beginning to give me whiplash. Was he sympathetic, or was he smug? “I don’t need to have my stupidity shoved in my face.”
“No, but I don’t want you crawling back to him like some sad-eyed puppy dog desperate for attention again.” He snorted at his own words, only irritating me further. I hated this side of Harry. I barely ever saw it, but it had come out in full force since the start of all of this. “Like, what kind of a man is he if some silly little email threat was all it took for his facade to crumble? A real man wouldn’t just drop someone he supposedly loves. He’s weak. You need someone stronger than him, someone who will take care of you.”
Email threat?
Email threat.
“I didn’t tell you about the email threat,” I said, locking eyes with him from across the room.
He blinked at me as his words replayed in my mind. “I didn’t say anything about an email threat.”
“Yes, you did,” I breathed.
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t gaslight me.” My head spun as thoughts hit me from every which way — he’d been unhappy about this from the start. He’d tried to get me to stay away from Jack. He’d been there the night that Tiana had mentioned Jackson’s problem with the military project, the threats his coworker’s partners were under, the kidnapping. He’d been gone so much lately, likely not sleeping, not eating. Jack had said — Oh my god, Jack had said he’d egged him on. Jack had said he’d baited him.
