Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“I’m not going to demand an apology because it would be insincere at best,” Warrick barks. “Please leave. Not for good, but until you can be civil and think before you speak. Your words and actions can have lasting harm, Reginald. You need to learn that. You can’t go through life hurting other people. I apologize for your pain, and my door is open for you. Just not today. Not right now.”
Warrick slowly shuts the door on Reginald.
Then, he locks it. Loudly.
He’s perfectly still. Too still.
I want to say something. I need to apologize. My hand at my side itches to touch him, not like a lover, but as a friend would. I get halfway there, closer and closer to his shoulder, but then he turns, his face a black storm of despair and guilt.
“This was a mistake. I should never have offered you this job. I knew what it would look like.” He can’t maintain eye contact, and he studies the floor instead of my face. “I hoped Reginald and Candice could be mature, that somehow this would change them, but I’m the idiot for believing in anything other than what has historically been true. I’ll pay you for the year, and you can go home. You’ll find your place, Amalphia, but it’s just not here.”
“Warrick, I—” I don’t get to finish is what I don’t get to do. He shoulders past me, determined and stronger than I’ve seen him look in days.
Completely, irrevocably, decisive.
As he walks away.
Chapter eleven
Warrick
The last five days haven’t been fun, but this day tops it right off. I’m like an overflowing gas tank but fueled by fuckery.
The pounding in my head was better when I inadvisably let Amalphia give me a foot massage. I was too tired to start up with my regular string of protests, and the migraine left my brain in no condition to circulate around a bunch of arguments.
I force myself to go to my room and shut the door. But I don’t get into bed. Instead, I walk to the window that overlooks the backyard. There are three windows side by side, but this one has the best view. The happy daylight sun feels more like the stuff of nightmares right now, but I stand there and take my punishment. My eyes well up with water, stinging at the full-scale revolt my brain throws as it enters full-on tantrum mode.
It’s been all of five minutes since I told Amalphia to leave, but she headed straight outside. I didn’t even get up here in time to see her. I wait, enduring minutes of migraine torture bedevilment at the window, and there she is. Or at least the pool house door cracks open, and a floral suitcase gets plunked beside it.
I run a hand over my face, wiping away the eye leakage.
I don’t want Amalphia to leave, but getting involved with her in any way would be a mistake. It’s a good time to part. My gentlemanly intentions and thoughts have turned into something else lately. There’s zero room to have my dick dictate my next steps. That foot bath should have just been okay, but even in my state of agony, it was more than that. It bordered on straight-up erotic. My cock certainly thought so. I’m just glad Amalphia never glanced at my lap while it was happening. Having her eyes run aground on Boner Island would have killed me.
Apparently, I needed a reminder of why this can never happen.
I needed it. I deserved it.
Not Amalphia.
She certainly wasn’t asking for what Reginald dished out. She just stood there and took it. How long would she have let him run his mouth, abusing her and treating her with disrespect?
A box follows the suitcase outside the pool house. Then another. Then a strange setup with what looks like artwork tucked inside a quilt. I told her she could decorate the place, and now she has to pack all of it up. Guilt stabs me in the gut, but it’s not the only emotion that burns my insides. I want to protect Amalphia, even if it means keeping her safe from making a mistake with me.
She was never anything but friendly because she’s a good person. She couldn’t be anything else if she tried. Lines might have been crossed, but only because she’s a wonderful person who didn’t realize there were lines at all. My health and well-being and even happiness were more important to her than stodgy professionalism.
I’ve been happier in these past few weeks than I’ve been in half a lifetime before them.
That’s solely because of her. She deserves someone her age who can give her everything she needs and wants. What can I offer her? Financially, everything, but Amalphia is one of those few people in the world that money isn’t going to work for. She doesn’t want lavish, expensive, over-the-top bullshit. She wants all the things I can’t give her because I have no idea how.