“Well, then thank God you did have him.” He squeezes Josh’s shoulder. “You’re a very lucky woman. And he’s a very lucky man to have been close enough to help you. Some of us didn’t have that pleasure.”
I brush my tears from my cheeks.
“I wasn’t lying though, when I was gabbling about it. Not totally. It is all just crap online now, and there’s barely a mention of me anywhere. I’m back, I’m me again, and I’ll never take a single day of calm for granted. No way. It’s bliss.”
“You never know what you’ve got til it’s gone, do you?” Heath says, and my heart hurts.
My shell breaks.
“We’ve missed you so bad,” I choke. “It’s horrendous. I’ve been feeling it like a cut in the guts, and as for Josh…”
Josh looks up at the ceiling, trying to keep his composure, and I want to stay strong for him, but there is going to be no playing it cool. We were kidding ourselves, right from the start.
Heath turns his attention to my boyfriend. His pitted eyebrows return.
“You ignored my proposals. Why?”
Josh sighs. “For your sake, not ours.”
“That wasmycall to make, don’t you think? Surely I’m the one in charge of what mysakewould have been and whether it was worth it, no?Iwas the one asking, and you were the one clicking decline.”
Heath walks over to the minibar, next to the massive dressing table. He shakes his head as he takes out a bottle of Prosecco.
Shit. He’s hurt.
More than that, he’s fucking pissed off.
“I was trying to protect you,” Josh says. “Believe me, hitting decline was the last thing I wanted to do.”
“You two can say it was like a cut in the guts all you want, but you were the ones shutting me out. It was like a stab in the heart every time you hit the decline button.”
Josh takes my hand as we walk over. Heath grabs three glasses and pops the cork with overzealous hands.
“Ells had nothing to do with it,” Josh says. “She didn’t even know about the first few times I declined.”
“I’m not surprised she didn’t,” Heath replies. “I didn’t expect her to be in any position to handle the interaction, but as for you, Josh…” He hands us each a glass of fizz. “Give me enoughrespect to make my own decisions, please. You can’t always be the protector. You’re not the security guard of other people’s emotions. I have enough security guards around me already, thank you.”
Josh puts his glass on the dressing table without taking a sip.
“I did it for you, not me. Someone needed to keep a semblance of a level head while things were a shit storm. Ells needed me to keep her as far away from the drama as possible, and the last thing you would have needed was to step into it. Don’t make me feel like an asshole for loving you, Heath, because it took every scrap of my resolve to turn those proposals away. Every single fucking scrap.”
Silence.
Another bout of deadly silence that feels like the jury is out.
Until Heath raises his glass to his lips with a sigh.
“Thank fuck you finally decided to accept.”
“Yes, I did accept. As soon as I could. When the coast was clear enough to risk it.”
Heath tips his head to the side. “So, you qualified as an operational meteorologist once you left Cannes, did you? How fucking impressive.”
Josh’s eyes flash with rage.
“What do you want me to say? Sorry for giving such a toss about your career, Heath. Good job Iwasa weather forecaster, since it seems you’d have walked straight into the fires of Hell without so much as putting your sunglasses on, like an idiot.”
Jesus, the emotions in the room are so intense it’s like bobbing on waves. Sobbing in open arms one minute, confronted by cold hurt the next. But it makes the conversation between Josh and I at the breakfast bar earlier more pertinent, because Josh was right.
