Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
LAUREL
M y stomach clenched and my heart raced when Leif appeared in my field of vision, slowly winding his way through the light morning traffic in the coffee shop. He was three minutes early, but I’d gotten here about fifteen minutes ago, too nervous to keep waiting around at home.
If he confirmed my worst nightmare today, I might honestly give up on love completely—and despite what Jack had said, I wasn’t entirely convinced that Leif wasn’t going to confirm my worst nightmare.
Whether or not he had fired that woman later on, and even if there had been an HR rep on the phone, it didn’t mean he hadn’t kissed her. Hadn’t been with her while he’d been with me. Didn’t have something going on with her while we’d been together.
That was why I’d come—for answers. I just didn’t know how I was going to be able to stand hearing them.
As he sat down, the first thing I noticed was that he looked a little gaunt. Like he’d lost some weight over the last few days. His cheeks were also ashen, the dark stubble on his jaw contrasting sharply with how pale he seemed today.
A jab of pain shot through me. This is because of me. He looks like this because of me.
“Are you okay?” I asked before I could help myself, but then I remembered that I was the innocent party here.
It’s not because of me. It’s because of him and that woman, whoever she was. I cleared my throat. “I just mean that it doesn’t look like you’ve been getting much sleep.”
There. That’s better. Any person would’ve noticed the bluish smudges under his eyes. You don’t need to be in love with him to see those.
Leif sighed softly, his head shaking as he locked those gorgeous blues firmly on mine. They were reddish and watery today, downcast and without their usual sparkle. Looking into them felt like someone was taking a screwdriver to my chest, pushing harder and harder in an attempt to pierce it.
“Am I okay?” he started softly, head shaking all over again. “No. Have I been sleeping well? Also no. I love you, Laurel, and I hate that you flew all the way to Denver to surprise me and then walked in on me trying to deal with my crazy ex once and for all.”
My head jerked back, a deep furrow forming on my brow. I felt it happen, but I had no control over it. “Your what ?”
“Do you remember I told you about the girl who had the picture of me sleeping on her phone? That night when we talked about our pasts, I mentioned her, but I don’t think I ever said her name. I can’t remember, but I know I told you about her. The girl who used to drag me out clubbing all the time and who wouldn’t take no for an answer?”
I frowned. “That was her ? She works for you?”
“ Worked ,” he said quickly. “She doesn’t anymore. We’ve since fired her, which is something that I would like to acknowledge from the outset we should’ve done a long time ago. I also know I should’ve told you that said crazy ex worked for us. I wasn’t hiding it, I swear. I just didn’t think it mattered because she didn’t matter to me in the context of a romantic relationship with you.”
My knees started bouncing under the table. “Why should you have done it a long time ago and, better yet, why didn’t you? I don’t want to have to pull information out of you, Leif. I’m here to listen, not to cross-examine.”
“Sure. Yeah. Of course. Her name is Rainy and she was only working for us because of Mom. Rainy’s mother and ours went to college together. Toward the end of last year, her mom put in a call to mine and told her she’d heard her sons had a successful accounting firm in Denver. She said that her daughter was in Colorado too, an accountant who was really struggling to find her feet in the city. Mom asked us to give her a chance.”
My heart was thumping in my chest. So far, I actually believed the guy. I remembered him telling me about this ex, and while he hadn’t mentioned that she worked for them, I supposed I could understand why he’d neglected to mention it if things were over between them and she was there as a favor to his mom. He hadn’t told me about many other people at the firm either. Only Marge, his assistant. Singling Rainy out might’ve even made me more suspicious, if I was being honest.
Leif drew in a long, big breath, his eyes remaining firmly fixed on mine, as if he wanted me to see the honesty in them and didn’t want me to think he was hiding something. “Since we needed another principal accountant back then, Jack and I agreed to hire her. She wasn’t the best we’d ever seen, but she wasn’t the worst either. At the office itself, she was always a little flirty and her skirts were too short, but whatever. You know, we didn’t think much of it. We were too busy.”
“Yet at some point, she became your ex,” I said slowly. “How did that happen?”
“Right. I was getting to that. Okay, so shortly after she started working there, she seemed to have zeroed in on me. I figured maybe she saw me as some kind of mentor or maybe just the person she felt comfortable with to show her the ropes at the firm, but her interactions with me were always a little more friendly than just boss and employee.”
“She was flirting with you,” I said. “Just call a spade, a spade, Leif. All of this happened before we got back together. It’s not like I’m going to hold it against you.”
“Sure. Yes, she was flirting with me, and while I didn’t encourage her, I did enjoy it, so I didn’t discourage it either. Here was this objectively beautiful woman who had metaphorically and eventually literally fallen into my lap. I ate it up, but I was still too busy to give much thought to it outside of that.”
“So what happened?”
“At our company Christmas party, she came right out and propositioned me. Asked if I wanted to take her home that night. Once again though, I was too busy, so I told her I’d take a raincheck for once I was done with the deal I’d been working on. A few days later, I took her up on it.”
My stomach clenched, my insides roiling. I squeezed my eyes shut, reminding myself that I’d asked to hear this. I’d wanted to. I still needed to. Exhaling a shaky breath, I locked my fingers together on my lap and forced my eyes open to look at him again.
“And then what?”
“And then a whole bunch of weird shit happened for the next six weeks before I called it quits. Seriously, it was the most tumultuous disaster of a relationship I’d ever been in and it didn’t take me long to realize that physically, she might be beautiful, but on the inside, she’s a mess. It put me off so much that, by the end, I hadn’t touched her for a couple weeks and I’d been actively avoiding her.”
“I’m assuming that’s where the part comes in where she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
He nodded, grimacing as he stared at me across the table with an increasingly wild desperation growing in his eyes. “I ended things and I was very clear with her about how I expected her to behave at the office. We’re both professionals and I told her that what had happened between us didn’t need to cause any drama for us at work. As long as we both kept things, well, professional.”
He cursed under his breath. “This is harder to talk to you about than I thought, but I promise you, Laurel, I never loved her. I never wanted a future with her. This whole year, I’ve been making my disinterest clear, but she just kept coming at me and coming at me.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
He nodded. “It had become a problem even before the reunion,” he admitted. “Still, she was there as a favor to Mom and I didn’t want to be the dickhead who fires his ex, so I kept saying no and being perfectly blunt about not wanting to get back together with her, but she refused to hear it. She just kept acting like either we were still together or we would be again soon. Like it was inevitable.”
I kept quiet but nodded for him to continue. He closed his eyes for a moment, his pain as clear as day as it flickered across his tightening features.
“We had a charity drive the morning before you came to Denver. When she still wouldn’t let up after numerous conversations about it just in those last few weeks, I knew that enough was enough. I set up the meeting with HR. Jack should’ve been there too, but when I asked him if he was available at two, he said no. I guess now I know why.”
I chewed on my lower lip as I weighed his words. Nothing struck me as false.
“I didn’t want her to ruin what we have,” he admitted in a quieter voice. “It wasn’t only that, though. It wasn’t only about me and you. That wouldn’t have been fair, but it’d also been going on for long enough. It was getting out of hand and I was at the end of my rope with her. I didn’t know what else to do.”
As I opened my mouth to respond, he rushed out the rest. “When I got back home from Austin after Thanksgiving, I found a gift on my desk. It was lingerie. At first, I thought it was from you and then I saw the note and I realized it wasn’t. I spoke to her about it after and told her that it was inappropriate, but she just ignored me, which was why I got HR involved this time.”
“What happened?” I asked softly. “At the meeting, I mean.”
“Well, like I said, she only worked there because of my mom and I promised her that we’d give Rainy a decent chance, but even during the meeting with HR on the line, she kept trying to get closer to me. The rep was just getting into it with her how inappropriate it was to be leaving lingerie as a gift for your boss when you showed up.”
“It didn’t look like an HR meeting,” I said quietly.
“I know,” he said earnestly. “Anyway, I ran out after you. Rainy must’ve left my office at some point while I was looking for you, but eventually, even after all that, she still seemed to think that it was all just some big joke and that I wanted her back, so I fired her. With Jack’s full support. Mom feels terrible about the whole thing.”
“It’s not her fault,” I murmured.
“No, it’s not. It’s mine. I was the one who gave into her advances before. I dated her, and when it didn’t work out, I was the one who told my mom that we’d keep her on, even if Rainy had already been making me uncomfortable. I just didn’t want to be that guy. Firing her would have felt like punishing her, and that didn’t seem fair.”
“So you really weren’t with her while we were together?”
“I really wasn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “The last time we were together was in February, long before you and I crossed paths again in May, but even then, I should’ve shut her down for good and I know it. I just didn’t want to be unfair. I might have erred too much on the side of caution.”
I nodded.
“I love you, Laurel,” he said, moisture glinting in his eyes. “I love you so, so much. These last few days have been torture, not being able to see you or talk to you, and knowing I might never get to do it again. I haven’t experienced pain or loss like that in years, and I would never hurt you, bug. I would never betray you or choose anyone else over you. I’m so sorry for what it looked like, but I assure you that wasn’t what it was.”
“She’s gone now?” I asked. “Not working for your firm or in your life anymore?”
“She’s gone,” he said fiercely, eyes narrowing as he let out a sharp exhale. “I can’t guarantee that she won’t show up again at some point, but it won’t be because I want her to. Part of her severance package with the firm will be counseling. The best I can do now is to hope that she takes it. She’s not a bad person. She just needs help.”
As I stared back at him, I mentally replayed the events of that day through my head for the umpteenth time, but I looked at it through a different lens this time. Everything Leif had said made sense to me.
Except for one thing.
“It looked like she was kissing you,” I murmured absently, unable to get around that fact. He swore that nothing had happened between them and yet I knew what I’d seen. “She definitely leaned in to kiss you.”
“Yeah, she did,” he admitted without skipping a beat. “I didn’t let her, of course. I’d rather staple my lips shut than kiss her again. But even while the HR rep was lambasting her for her inappropriate behavior, she winked at me and told me I could still redeem my coupon. Then she smiled and tried to kiss me.”
I blinked hard. “Your coupon ?”
He sighed. “The note that came with the lingerie said it was a Christmas coupon that I could redeem when I wanted to see her wearing it.”
My eyes narrowed, confusion clouding my thoughts. “She tried to kiss you with an HR rep on the line, clearly telling her that her behavior was inappropriate? I don’t know, Leif. That seems…”
“Unhinged?” he suggested, finishing for me. “I know, but that’s what I’ve been telling you. She’s cuckoo for cocoa puffs, Laurel. She doesn’t give a shit what anyone says, or at least, she didn’t. Maybe getting fired got through to her, but short of that, nothing worked.”
“Wow.” I let out a long, slow breath, but I knew deep down in my heart that he was telling the truth. If he’d denied that she’d tried to kiss him, I might not have felt this way, but he hadn’t given me any reason to doubt him during this conversation. “That sounds intense. I hope she takes the counseling, too. It sounds like she really does need it.”
His eyebrows quirked. “Do you really care?”
“Yes.” I didn’t even hesitate. “For starters, she’s hung up on you and I’d really prefer not to have a woman that hot constantly shooting her shot with my boyfriend, but moreover, she’s a woman in need of help. I’m never not going to care about that.”
“Your boyfriend?” A slow smile broke out across his lips. “Does that mean you’re forgiving me?”
I stared into those deep blues for one more moment, but my heart squeezed and flipped, letting me know that there really was no other way. I smiled. It was small and hesitant, but it was also genuine and true.
“I’m forgiving you, but it turns out that you didn’t do anything I need to forgive you for. I’m sorry for making assumptions, Leif. I could’ve saved us both a lot of grief and heartache if I’d just heard you out. I could have sworn you two kissed, though. No explanation would have been enough.”
“Is it weird that I would have been offended if you hadn’t made assumptions?” He reached across the table and took my hand in a firm grip. “I hate what we went through because of what you saw in my office that day, but I know that you’re carrying a lot of trauma from your last relationship. I would’ve seriously questioned if you even loved me if you’d taken that in stride after what you went through with Neil.”
I scoffed but managed a smile through my tears. I turned my palm underneath his to twine our fingers together. “That’s some pretty messed-up reasoning, but I’ll take it.”
“Good.”
I paused for a beat. “Thank you for not giving up on us, Leif. Thank you for fighting for us and for not letting up until I agreed to speak to you. I love you, too, and I’m truly sorry for every bad thought I’ve had about you and your character these last few days.”
He arched both eyebrows at me, but then he chuckled and shook his head. “You know what? I’m not even going to ask. I’ll just be glad that you’re not having those thoughts anymore. Can we kiss and make up now? I promise these lips are all yours.”
“I’d be offended if we didn’t,” I teased softly. “See? Your weird matches my weird.”
“I’ll be weird with you any damn day of the week.” Standing up with a loud scrape of his chair against the tiled floor, he pulled me up too, then tugged me to him, meeting me in the middle. His mouth crashed into mine.
I smiled against his lips, letting go of his hands to loop my arms around his neck. He kissed the breath from my lungs and the feeling from my knees, cradling me to him. He finally wrenched his lips away from mine to speak against them. “Will you be my date to the annual Christmas party tonight?”
“Yes,” I said happily, glowing with joy and relief at being back at his side.
These last few days had been torture. He hadn’t been wrong about that, but we’d persevered. I’d looked into his eyes while he’d told me the truth and I’d believed him. Strangely, despite the fact that I’d honestly believed there was no other reasonable explanation for what I’d seen, the truth made so much more sense than what I’d thought.
Leif McIntosh had been many things in his life, but it was coming to terms with him as a cheater that had thrown me for a loop. It made me question everything I had ever known about him because it just wouldn’t quite fit right.
And it turned out it had been because it didn’t fit. Leif was no cheat, and I freaking loved him so much more for fighting for our relationship—even against me—so that I would know without any doubt whatsoever that he really was still the one for me.