She didn’t want to lose him. Not now, maybe not ever.
For a split second, he looked surprised to see her, then masked the expression beneath one more neutral.
Watching him rein in his emotions threatened to crumble Crickitt to her knees.
It’s over.
“Sorry, I can come back.” Her voice wobbled, her throat filled with words she couldn’t say. She turned to leave.
“Crickitt, wait.”
“Oh! Excuse me.” Keena stopped short of the doorway, flicking a look from Crickitt to Shane. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Crickitt said.
At the same time Shane said, “Yes.”
She flashed him a warning look before sliding past Keena and marching toward her office. They weren’t doing this. Not here. Gathering speed, she angled down the hallway. He caught her easily.
“Crickitt,” he called behind her. “We need to talk.”
She didn’t slow down; as if she could outrun the truth she’d seen in his eyes.
“Please?”
She reached her office and clutched the door frame. Running would only delay the inevitable. He was going to break up with her. She nodded without turning.
He disappeared inside his office.
She stood, staring down at her desk, attempting to gather her strength. Every appendage from the tips of her fingers to the tops of her toes had gone numb.
Carrying a pen and a legal pad she didn’t need—she obviously hadn’t been summoned for business reasons—Crickitt walked the short distance from her office to Shane’s and settled into the chair across from his desk.
She heard the snick of the door as he pulled it shut. He rounded his desk and sat. Crickitt wrote the day’s date at the top of the paper and refused to look at him.
Here it comes. Like the cresting wave of a tsunami and just as unstoppable.
Crickitt’s throat constricted as she attempted to swallow around the unwanted lump of emotion. The breath meant to steady her stuttered from her lips, and the dam blocking her tear ducts burst, salt water splashing onto the notepad on her lap.
Shane moved to stand but she held up a hand. “Ignore me.” She swiped her eyes, drying her fingertips on her pant leg. “This is—I’m not doing this on purpose.” She added the afterthought, “I wish I weren’t doing it at all.” She cleared her throat, and despite feeling crepe paper thin forced herself to meet Shane’s gaze. “Just say it.”
But the sympathy etched on his features said it all. She would give anything to fast-forward through the next five minutes, get it over with as soon as possible. She’d cry later, when she was alone and when Shane wasn’t watching her like a fragile valuable teetering on a high shelf.
“Do you think you can continue to work here?” he asked.
She almost laughed. But it wasn’t funny, it was annoyingly pragmatic. He was dumping her yet clarifying she was a swell assistant. Well, wasn’t that lovely?
Current situation aside, she liked her job. And she was good at it; she and Shane were good partners at work. She swallowed down a wave of hot tears as she realized the truth. That she’d been hoping to be partners outside of work, too.
Still, with both of them willing, maybe they could get back to the way things were before—before—
She couldn’t even think it.
“Yes,” she answered with a certainty she didn’t feel.
“Good. I don’t want to lose you.”
What she would give to hear those words in a different context. Questions swirled around her, blowing up debris better left at rest. What went wrong? What wasn’t he telling her? Wasn’t she worth an explanation? How could he be so composed when she was seconds away from dropping to her knees and begging him back?
A sharp rap sounded at the door. Even muffled through the panel, Crickitt recognized the cocktail of overexcited female mixed with earthy male baritone.
Oh, no.
The door swung inward. “Mr. August,” Keena said. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Crickitt stood, mouth dropping open as she watched her mother and father file in behind Keena. They’d barged in on her before, but never had their surprise visits been this unwelcome, or their timing this poor.
“Sweetheart!” The woman behind Keena burst in and clasped on to Crickitt, squeezing the air from her lungs. The man followed, pumping his arms and giving her a rosy-cheek grin.
“Mom. Dad,” Crickitt managed, aware of Shane standing directly behind her. “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 28