“Faith, no one has ever accused me of being particularly perceptive when it comes to people’s emotions. But I do know you. I know that you’re never late with project work. If all of this has become too much for you...”
“It isn’t,” she insisted. “I love what we do. I’m so proud of what we’ve built, Isaiah. I’m not ever going to do anything to compromise that. I think I might have overextended myself a little bit with...extra stuff.”
“What kind of extra stuff?”
“Just...community work.”
Getting screwed senseless for the first time in my life...
“You don’t need to do that. Joshua can handle all of that. It’s part of his job. You should filter it all through him. He’ll help you figure out what you should say yes to, what you can just send a signed letter to...”
“I know. I know you’ll both help me. But at some point... Isaiah, this ismylife.” She took a breath. “We are partners. And I appreciate all that you do. If I had to calculate the finances like you, I would go insane. My brain would literally leak out of my ears.”
“It would not literally leak out of your ears.”
She squinted. “You don’t know that.”
“I’m pretty confident that I do.”
She shook her head. “Just don’t worry about me. You have a life now. A really good one. I’m so happy for you and Poppy. I’m so excited for your baby, and for...everything. You’ve spent too many years working like a crazy person.”
“Like a robot,” Isaiah said, lifting his brow. “At least, that’s what I’ve been told more than once.”
“You’re not a robot. You came here to check on me. That makes it obvious that you aren’t. But, you also can’t carry everything for me. Not anymore. It’s just not... I don’t need you to. It’s okay.”
“You know we worry. We worry because you’re right. If it weren’t for us...then you wouldn’t be in this position.”
She made a scoffing sound. “Thanks. But if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be in this position, either.”
“I know,” he returned. “I mean, I would still be working in finance somewhere else. Joshua would be doing PR. And you would no doubt be working at a big firm somewhere. But it’s what we could do together that has brought our business to this level. And I think Joshua and I worry sometimes that it happened really quickly for you and we enabled that. So, we don’t want to leave it all resting on your shoulders now.”
She swallowed hard. “I appreciate that. I do. But I can handle it.”
Isaiah nodded slowly and then turned and walked out of her office.
She could handle all of this.
Her job, which encouraged her to open up some files for her various projects and collect those estimates Isaiah was asking for, and this new turn of events with Levi.
She was determined to finish the project. The idea of leaving it undone didn’t work for her. Not at all. Even if he was being terrible.
And you think you can be in the same room with him and not feel like you’re dying?
She didn’t know. She had just lost her virginity twelve hours ago, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do next.
Sitting at her desk and basking in that achievement was about all she could do. It was lunchtime when she got into her car and began to drive.
She had spent the rest of the morning trying to catch up, and as soon as she got on the road her thoughts began to wander. Back to what Levi had said to her last night. All the various warnings he had given. About how rough he was. How broken. And in truth, he had not been gentle. But none of it had harmed her. It might have hurt her momentarily, but that pain wasn’t something she minded.
Maybe...
Maybe he had been right.
Maybe the whole thing was something she’d been ill-prepared for. Something she shouldn’t have pushed for. Because, while physically she had been completely all right with everything that had happened, emotionally she wasn’t okay with being pushed away.
And maybe that was the real caution in this story.
He had gone on and on about all that he believed she could handle and she had imagined he meant what she could handle from a sexual-sophistication standpoint. Moves and skills and the knowledge of how things went between men and women.
