Page 90

Ross

The rest of the afternoon disappears beneath a flood of calls, briefing notes and people who suddenly need decisions from me.

Trustees want confirmation on transition authority. Two board members need time before the market opens. Communications has revised language for another statement, Voss has three operational questions waiting, and Katherine sends over documents requiring signatures I didn’t have access to two weeks ago.

I move through it because there isn’t another option. One conversation ends and another begins. My phone barely leaves my hand, and every time I think I’ve cleared something, another issue replaces it. Nothing is catastrophic, but the volume is relentless, and I can feel how quickly the role is closing around every part of my day.

Late in the afternoon, I leave the estate office to retrieve a file that was moved to one of the archive rooms. The fastest route takes me past the library. I slow before I mean to. The doors are open, and the room is empty. For a moment, all I can see is Blaire.

Her standing at the long table with her hair falling forward while she reads. Her sitting on the edge of the desk arguing with me about some detail I had no business pretending to care about. Her looking over her shoulder when I walked in, already knowing why I was there even when neither of us said it.

I stop in the corridor. My phone is still in my hand. There are messages from her I haven’t properly answered. Nothing demanding. Nothing accusatory. Just quiet check-ins over the past week, asking about my mother, asking how Sebastian is doing, telling me she’s thinking about us.

I’ve replied in fragments when I could. I haven’t spoken to her. The realization sits badly. She leaves in a few days. I know that. I’ve known it since before my father died, but the fact has been pushed behind everything else until now.

I look into the library again and feel the weight of the last three months collide with the last two weeks. There isn’t room in my life for anything uncertain right now. That is the first thought that comes. The second is that Blaire deserves more than whatever scraps of time I’m going to have left.

I tell myself that ending this cleanly is better than dragging her through something neither of us can sustain. I tell myself that she has a life waiting for her in the States and that I’m about to disappear into a transition that will consume everything around me.

The logic forms quickly because logic is easier. I open our messages and stare at the last thing she sent me.

Blaire: Thinking of you. No need to answer.

My thumb hovers over the screen for a few seconds before I type.

Ross: Hi. Can I come by this evening?

I read it once. Then I send it.

***

Blaire opens the door before I can knock twice. The sight of her hits me harder than I’m prepared for.

For the past week, I’ve been able to keep her contained in messages, memories and the parts of my mind I haven’t had time to examine. Standing in front of her is different. Her face, her eyes, the familiar scent of her perfume, the softness in her expression when she sees me all come back at once, and for one dangerous second I forget every reason I gave myself for coming here.

Then she steps forward and wraps her arms around me.

I close mine around her instinctively.

Her body fits against mine exactly as I remember, and the familiar warmth of her presses straight through the distance I’ve been trying to create. I lower my face briefly against her hair and breathe her in, knowing with painful clarity that walking away from this is going to hurt far more than I let myself admit.

When she pulls back, her hands linger against my arms.

“How are you?” Blaire asks quietly.

“I’m all right,” I say.

Her expression tells me she doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t challenge it.

“Come in,” she says.

I step inside, and the apartment immediately confirms what I already know. Half-packed boxes sit near the wall, one suitcase is open beside the sofa, and the shelves that held her things only weeks ago are already thinning out. I take off my suit jacket and place it on the chair near the door.

“You’ve packed a lot,” I say.

“I’ve been trying to get ahead of it.”

“When’s your flight?” I ask.