But it turns out, they might not even need me.
And wouldn’t that be the fucking worst thing to happen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leo
“Hey. Do you have a minute?” I knock on the doorjamb of Rae’s office. She’s buried behind a tower of paperwork.
An audible sigh slips between her lips. “Not really. Now that Ryan has finally cleared up the software issues on his end, we’re going to be moving into the final testing stages next week.”
“Glad to hear he’s no longer acting like a dick. I would’ve hated to step in.”
Reagan pierces me with a harsh look. “You don’t need to step in for every little thing. I can handle this myself.”
Things have cooled off between Reagan and me since I left her high and dry at the beach. Not that I blame her. But it’s been hard trying to get back on steady land with her. Any time I try to help her, she pushes back. All I want to do is take care of her.
“Well, you need to eat at some point. Will you meet me for dinner later?” There’s a pleading in my voice that I’m not used to being there.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Reagan sweeps her gaze over the papers on her desk. “It might be late.”
“No worries. I can even bring dinner back here to you.”
“I shouldn’t be past seven.” She gives me a small smile. I’ll take it.
“I’ll be ready to pick you up then. Anything sound good to you?”
“Whatever you want, Leo.”
I give her a smile before leaving her office, not wanting to bother her anymore. I know she’s been under a lot of pressure with the project and trying to keep her blood pressure controlled, and I just want to help her any way I can.
“Stella. Where are we with the interviews?” I push open my office door, letting Stella follow me in.
“The first is at one, and the second at four. They seem like quality candidates, and if you’d like, I can sit in on them with you.”
I nod my head, loosening my tie. “Yes. I would like your opinion on them. You have a better pulse on this company than anyone else. If they’re shit, I want you to tell me.”
“May I ask you a question?” Stella sits in the chair opposite my desk, and I drop down into my own.
I quirk my lips up at her. “You’ve never held back before.”
“Are you actually trying to find someone to take over your role, or are you just going through the motions? Because out of all the résumés I’ve sent you, these are the first two you’re interviewing. And I’ve passed on some good ones.”
Stella’s question knocks the breath out of my chest. “Of course I’m not just going through the motions.” My voice is clipped, and from the wince in her face, she heard it. “I just can’t find any old bloke off the street to take over a billion-dollar communications company.”
“And I don’t expect you to. But Leo, you are irreplaceable. And because of that, you will find fault in any person who comes through that door. You simply have to find someone who, pardon my language, doesn’t have their head up their ass.”
A laugh bubbles out of me at Stella’s bluntness. I don’t think I would have made it as far as I have without her.
“This company has been your entire life for the last fifteen years. Now you have something else to live for. I think it’s time you let yourself off the hook and do something for you.”
Stella is one of the few people who could get away with talking to me like this. But it still doesn’t ease the growing anxiety creeping into my veins. Nothing has ever made me feel like this before. No person. So the fact that I’m feeling like this because of Reagan is unnerving. “It’s not selfish?”
She shakes her head. “It’s time you put your happiness first. And trust me, I’ve never seen you as happy as you are with Reagan. So instead of being the boss, be the man she needs you to be.”
“You ready to go?”
Reagan’s head pops into the office, her coat buckled over her bump. “Ready.” Even though I’m the furthest thing from ready. Work piled up in the hours that I was unreachable. Even now, sliding my phone in my pocket, the buzzing from my email notification is incessant.
