The Wrong Boss: Chapter 20

This was fine. Everything was A-OK. Just me and a colleague, flying to a work event. Total normal and professional.

Once the plane was in the air, Carrie got her laptop back out and started tapping away on the keyboard. When she focused, she got three little wrinkles between her brows. Her lips pursed, and her eyes went from clear gray to stormy. She liked to tap her bottom lip with her index finger when she thought, and she got great satisfaction from putting big, dramatic checkmarks into the boxes she’d drawn on her to-do list.

She was unbearably cute. And hot. And⁠—

I tore my gaze away from her and went back to the emails on my phone. When my eyes were drawn to those pursed lips and that wrinkled brow for the hundredth time, I said, “When did you move to the city?”

She looked up from her screen. “I didn’t,” she said. “I live in Newark with my cousin. You remember Hailey? The bride?”

“Never met her, but I remember liking her choice of bridesmaid’s dress.”

Red bloomed high on Carrie’s cheeks, and I cursed myself. I shouldn’t have said that, but all Carrie replied was, “I’ve lived with Hailey for nearly seven years. She and her husband Seth were hugely helpful when…” She cleared her throat. “They really helped me out when I needed it.”

“After your breakup?”

Her eyes met mine, and it might’ve been my imagination, but I thought she hesitated before saying, “Yeah. After the breakup. I was, um, well… Things just got kind of complicated.”

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t.

Carrie traced the edge of her laptop with her fingers, a nervous movement that seemed at odds with the fiery, confident woman she always seemed to be. “You seem to have landed on your feet after being so troubled about your career move back then.”

I nodded, but I didn’t want to get into it. I didn’t want to explain that the one conversation we had impacted me so deeply and pushed me to reach out to my father. Talking about him made me feel like I should talk about Alba, and I didn’t want to do that. In the past month, our conversations had turned stilted and cold. She’d spent more and more time with her mother. There’d been no more mention of dalliances, and no more sexual advances. We’d slept in the same bed only a handful of times.

It felt awful. Like I was failing a task that I didn’t even understand.

Maybe Rome was right to question me about the wedding. Surely the months leading up to the start of a marriage weren’t supposed to feel like this?

In an attempt to push Alba out of my mind, I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Did you look for me back then? After?”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I clamped my lips shut. Carrie opened her mouth and closed it again. I watched her swallow, hesitate, and brace herself, as if trying to marshal the right words to answer my question.

I held up my hand before she could say whatever she’d decided was the right thing. Maybe she was about to let me down gently, or remind me that I was her boss, or tell me that I was making her uncomfortable. I wouldn’t blame her. Instead, I shook my head and said, “Forget I said that.” I raked my mind for something to say, feeling like a bumbling fool. She made an idiot out of me. Finally, I remembered the memory box that had been stolen from her car. “You still like going to movies and shows?”

Carrie relaxed, and a soft smile curled her lips. “Yeah,” she said. “When I get the chance.”

We slipped into easy conversation about movies, and when I mentioned that I’d been to a Broadway show a few months before, her eyes lit up with interest. My first instinct was to ask her if she’d go to one with me, and stopping the words from coming out of my mouth was like holding back a team of spooked horses with flimsy little reins. I managed—barely.

“There’s something special about going to a show,” she was saying when I finally got control of myself and tuned back into the conversation. “Getting dressed up, making a point of it, seeing real people on a real stage… I should do it more.”

“You should,” I said.

“Maybe one day I’ll be able to see an actual Broadway show,” she said, giving me a genuine, beautiful smile. “Might have the worst seats in the house, but it’d be something, wouldn’t it?”

A pit of yearning opened up inside me. I wanted to give that to her—and not the worst seats. I wanted her front and center, in a beautiful gown, right there beside me. I wanted her to look at me with shining eyes and a delighted smile afterward, her arm hooked into mine and her head leaning on my shoulder as she sighed with contentment.

I didn’t even like the theater. One of Alba’s contacts had given her tickets, and we’d gone to see the show out of a sense of obligation.

But with Carrie…

The plane hit turbulence, jarring me out of my thoughts. Carrie’s hands shot out to clamp over her armrests, her shoulders hiking up near her ears. She sucked in a hard breath and let out a nervous laugh. “Guess you feel the bumps a little more in one of these jets, huh.”

Everything inside me wanted to move to the seat beside her, thread my fingers through hers, and knead the stress from her shoulders.

But she wasn’t mine, and she never would be. I forced a smile. “A pilot once told me to picture turbulence like a plane stuck in a big bowl of Jell-O. If you jiggle the bowl, the plane will move, but it’s not going to sink to the bottom.”

She blinked and nodded. “Right. Okay. That helps.”

The plane jerked, and something rattled and crashed up in the galley area. Carrie tensed. I couldn’t go over to her. Couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t make her feel better in any way—except by talking.

“We’ll get to smoother air soon,” I said. “I’ll ask the crew how long the turbulence is supposed to last.”

“It’s fine,” Carrie said, closing her eyes. Her knuckles were white where they still gripped the armrests. “I’m fine. I know we’ll be okay. I’m just… I guess I’m a nervous flier.”

“And yet you’re the one with all the skills to sort out my travel itineraries.”

Her eyes remained closed, but her lips curled into a small, quick smile. “Yeah,” was all she replied.

I watched the way the light reflected on her face, how she forced herself to breathe deeply and relax her shoulders. I watched her master herself, and I admired it.

This was the same woman who’d fought me when I tried to help her. In the face of her fear, she was able to breathe. No hysterics. No tears. Just an iron will.

“How did you manage to get this charter jet, anyway?” I asked.

That flash of a smile again, and an eyelid cracked to glance at me. “I can’t give away all my secrets.”

“I wish you would.”

Her eyes held mine for a moment, and I wondered if she knew that I meant a lot more than just the travel booking. “I’m sure you do,” she replied, inhaling sharply as the plane dropped suddenly. She let out a nervous laugh and began chanting under her breath, “Jell-O. Jell-O. Jell-O.”

I found myself gripping my own armrests—not because of the turbulence, but because I knew if I let myself, I’d be over there with my arms around her.

I couldn’t let that happen. After she’d wriggled out of my arms following our fender bender, I knew I couldn’t let myself touch her as much as I wanted to. That was a slippery slope to betraying all my morals, to becoming the type of man I swore I’d never be.

The plane finally smoothed out. Carrie opened her eyes and blew out a breath. I met those big grey doe eyes, watched a soft smile curl her lips, and I knew that as long as she worked for me, I would want her.

The pedestal I thought I’d put her on had never existed. She was exactly the woman I’d met seven years ago. I hadn’t made up a fantasy; the fantasy was real, and she was sitting directly across from me.

The hell of it was that I could never have her again.