Engaging the Boss (Heirs of Damon) (17 page)

He
stared down at the note blindly for way too long.

It
didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

“Is
something wrong, Dr. Damon?” Peter asked, sounding awkward and nervous.

“She’s…she’s
left me.”

“Oh.”
Peter was obviously bewildered about how to respond. “I’m sorry, sir. We all
always thought . . .” He trailed off.

“Thought
what?” Jonathan prompted, more to make conversation that sounded somewhat
normal than because he really cared.

“We
all thought you and her were a pair.”

They
had been a pair, a couple. For the last week, for the last three years. He
couldn’t even begin to process what his world would become without her in it.

She
was…everything.

“Do
you think you could maybe get her back? She only left about thirty minutes
ago.”

Jonathan
looked at his watch without really seeing it, but he suddenly knew what he had
to do. “Yes. Have someone pull a car around.”

He
balled up the note and left it on the table, since he hated it and everything
it represented. But he stuck the ring in his pocket as he strode out of the
room.

He
went to the front gate. Then he drove like a madmen to the airport. He tried
calling her several more times on this way, but she wouldn’t pick up.

The
Reykjavik airport wasn’t large, but it wasn’t easy to find one person there,
when he had no idea where she would be.

He
made himself calm down enough to think. She would probably be going to her
parents. He scanned the outbound flights, and the only one to the States that
afternoon was a flight to New York. Surely, that was what she’d be taking.

They
wouldn’t let him past security without a ticket, and the only seats available
were first class, so he bought one.

He
got bogged down in security and by the time he made it to the gate, the
passengers had already boarded.

He
gave the woman his ticket and got on the plane, still not knowing if Sarah as
actually on it.

He
was the last passenger on board, and they wouldn’t let him go back and search
the seats in coach because they were preparing for takeoff.

So
Jonathan took his seat, ready to strangle someone with his frustration and
growing fear.

What
if Sarah had decided she simply couldn’t put up with a man as hopeless and
inarticulate as he was? What if she just didn’t want him anymore?

Why
else would she have left?

He’d
worked himself up into quite a state when the pilot finally turned off the
fasten-seatbelt light. The elderly woman beside him kept eyeing him nervously,
probably because he kept stewing and fidgeting and frowning.

He
got up immediately, ignored the attendant’s offer of help, and pushed aside the
curtain separating first class from the rest of the plane.

He
walked down the aisle into coach, scanning the passengers for Sarah’s vivid
hair and much-loved face.

He
finally saw her in a back corner. She was leaning against the window, her face
covered by her hair.

Jonathan
breathed a sigh of relief and started back toward her.

No
matter what, he was going to get her back. He loved her, and she was his.

The first obstacle was
the middle-aged woman sitting in the seat next to Sarah. She was watching as
Jonathan approached and was obviously startled when he crouched down so he was
on her eye level.

The
couple in the seats across the aisle and the young man in the seat in front of
the woman turned to watch him too. Feeling awkward but determined, Jonathan
nodded toward Sarah. “I need to talk to her.”

Sarah
had her eyes closed, but they flew open at the sound of his voice. She jerked
in surprise and straightened up. “What are you doing here?” Her voice broke on
the penultimate word.

“You
left.”

She
frowned and didn’t say anything, obviously too taken aback to form words.

“You
left without saying anything.” Jonathan would prefer to have this conversation
in private, but he was the one who’d messed this up and so he was going to fix
it—even if that meant spilling out his heart in front of a bunch of strangers.

“Wait,”
Sarah said, blinking. “You’re on the plane?”

“It
was the only way to catch up with you. They wouldn’t let me get to the gate without
a ticket, and then you’d already boarded.”

She
looked like she’d been crying, a fact that cut into his chest, and now a couple
of tears streamed out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “But
why
?”

“Isn’t
it obvious, honey,” the middle-aged woman said. She was obviously American and
spoke with a pronounced Southern accent. “He couldn’t let you leave without
telling you he loves you. No wonder you’ve been crying, poor thing.”

“Well,
let the man say it,” the wife of the couple across the aisle put in. “You’re
interrupting his big moment.”

Jonathan
was torn between frustration and self-consciousness, and the combination
paralyzed his tongue. He’d been planning out his whole declaration on the drive
over, but now he couldn’t remember any of it. He just stared at Sarah, balanced
preciously in a squat in the tight aisle of a plane.

“Well?”
Sarah prompted, wiping the tears away. Her expression had changed, and he
couldn’t help but understand the sudden blaze of joy and hope reflected in her
eyes. “Is that what you came to say?”

“Yeah,”
he managed to get out. “That’s it.”

He
and Sarah stared at each other, and he knew she heard him perfectly, understood
him perfectly, knew him perfectly.

“Damn,”
the college-aged man in front of them said, turning around. “That’s pretty
pathetic. You’ve got to do better than that.”

Jonathan
glared at the young man briefly and, when he turned back around, Sarah had
raised her hands to her face. Her shoulders were shaking. He couldn’t tell if
she was laughing or crying.

Afraid
the annoying student was right and his declaration of love was much lacking,
Jonathan burst out, “I love you, Sarah. I’m completely gone on you. I’ve been
crazy about you for ages, but I’m too much of an idiot to know it. I’ve never
loved another woman, and I’ll never love anyone else. It’s always you, Sarah.
I’m not good at talking. I never know what to say. You know that. But I’m so
sorry I didn’t tell you when you needed to know. I was trying to show you. I
can’t be your boss—not if we’re together—but I didn’t want you to lose your
job. So I had to get funding for the lab and make sure you kept your job. But
it was wrong. I was still trying to earn it, when we both know that’s not what
we’re about. I needed to tell you. But please don’t leave me. I’ll do better.
I’ll do anything you need from me, anything to make you happy. I need you more
than I thought I would need anyone. You’re the one who taught me how to love.
Please don’t cry.”

She
lowered her hands, nearly sobbing with reaction. He thought—he hoped—it was
good.

“Much
better,” the wife of the couple across the aisle said encouragingly.

“Shh,”
her husband said. “Don’t butt in.”

Sarah
was still wiping away tears, and Jonathan wanted desperately to reach out for
her, to show her how he felt—since he was always so much better at showing than
saying. But there was a seat and a woman in between Sarah and him, and he could
hardly crawl over the woman to get to her.

“I
thought you didn’t want me,” Sarah choked out at last.

“Of
course I want you. I’m so sorry I made you believe anything else.”

Sarah
finally controlled her sobbing, and she just gazed at Jonathan speechlessly.

“Well,”
the woman between them said, nudging Sarah gently. “Aren’t you going to tell
him you love him too?”

Sarah’s
face was almost glowing with emotion that was impossible not to recognize. She
didn’t have to say anything. Jonathan already knew.

“I’m
sorry, sir,” a female voice came from above him. “You need to return to the
first-class cabin.”

Jonathan
turned to look up at the flight attendant. “What?”

“It’s
policy, sir. Passengers aren’t allowed into the other cabins. Would you mind
returning to your seat?”

“But—“
He turned back to Sarah, who was still frozen and speechless.

“I’m
sorry, sir. You really do need to go back.” He could tell from the woman’s
posture that she was preparing herself for a crisis.

“But
he was just about to propose, I think,” the wife of the couple chimed in,
before her husband shushed her again.

He
straightened up to a standing position, looking back at Sarah. She looked
beautiful and emotion and bewildered. And cramped in the small seat. “Could I
swap seats with her and give her mine in first-class?”

“I
don’t need your seat, Jonathan,” Sarah said, evidently finding her voice. “We
can talk when we get to New York.”

“Well,
I’m not going to sit up there in first-class for hours while you’re stuck back
here.”

“I’m
happy to swap seats,” the middle-aged woman said, looking thrilled at being
part of the situation—or maybe just at the prospect of getting a first-class
seat for the rest of the flight. “That way you can sit next to her.”

“That
would be great,” he said, relieved by the solution. He turned to the flight
attendant. “Is that all right?”

“Yes,
if you both agree. But we really need to get the switch done now. We need to
start the food service soon.”

So,
instead of a blissful, romantic conclusion to his declaration of love, Jonathan
had to wait while the middle-aged woman gathered all her belongings and got up.
Then he had to follow her through the narrow aisle until they reached the
first-class cabin. He was almost out of cabin when he heard Sarah call from
back in her seat, “I love you too.”

He
whirled around, his heart dropping into his gut.

She
was standing up, precariously balanced between her seat and the one in front of
her. She was beaming at him like the full moon in a dark sky. “I love you too,”
she said again, so loudly everyone in the cabin could hear her.

When
a burst of applause broke out among the other passengers, she looked rather taken
aback and self-conscious. She was still smiling though. “I just wanted you to
know.”

He
smiled back at her, hating this flight, this plane, all these people
surrounding them, the hours until they got to New York—everything keeping them
apart.

He
finally got the woman back to his seat, grabbed his stuff, and was able to
return to the seat next to Sarah. He collapsed into it, feeling exhausted and
unsure what to say and ludicrously happy.

He
raised the armrest between them and reached out to pull her against his side,
holding her with one arm. She burrowed into him, taking his free hand in hers.

Jonathan
was uncomfortably aware of several pairs of eyes on them, surrounding
passengers watching them with pleased satisfaction.

“Sorry
this all was so public,” he murmured. “I always seem to make a mess of things.”

“No,
you don’t.”

“Uh,
yeah, I do.”

“Okay.
Maybe this was a little bit of a mess. But I don’t mind.”

He
couldn’t stand even the slightest distance between them so he raised her face
so he could kiss her softly.

When
she finally pulled away, she was flushed and couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “I
thought…” She cleared her throat. “I thought you didn’t care enough about me. I
mean, I was thinking you did, but then you never said anything, so I assumed you
didn’t…I couldn’t figure out why, if you loved me, you wouldn’t say so, so I
figured you…you just didn’t.”

He
perfectly understood her babbled explanation. “I know. I’m an idiot and a
coward. You know how I am about saying things. I thought I would show you
first—get everything fixed up with the lab and then show you how I…how much
I…how I feel. I
show
a lot better than I say, and I wanted it to be…I
wanted it to be good.”

He
could only hope she understood his babbling the way he understood hers. From her
expression, she evidently did. “You do
show
really well. But I’m
sometimes a little insecure. You need to
say
sometimes too. And not just
when you feel like you have it all together.”

“I
know. I know. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” He realized the stakes of not
speaking when he should have, how close he’d come to losing her. In a rush of
feeling, he burst out, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

She
laughed and leaned over to kiss him just on the side of his mouth. “I love you
too. We’ll work on it.”

***

They got a hotel in New
York after they landed, and they were both so exhausted from the long flight
and the overflow of emotion that they just took showers and fell into bed.

But
Sarah woke up a few hours later, disoriented and groggy and happy even before
she realized why. She rolled over and flopped against Jonathan.

He
grunted and reached out for her, obviously still mostly asleep. “Love you,” he
mumbled, when she nestled against his side.

“You
don’t have to tell me every minute of the day,” she mumbled, although the words
made her shiver with pleasure, joy, and excitement.

“Oh.
M’okay.” His arm tightened around her briefly before he relaxed again.

Feeling
a little more awake, she added, “But feel free to say it as much as you want.”

“Love
you.”

She
smiled as she stretched out against his big, warm body. “I love you too.”

***

Sarah popped a
peppermint ball in her mouth, hoping it would give her enough energy to get
through another hour of work. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes
open, but Jonathan showed no signs of stopping yet.

 She
knew how to make him stop. She could tell him she wasn’t feeling up to working
any more, and he’d immediately tell her to go rest. Or she could make him think
about sex, and that was a surefire way to get him to take a break.

But
this was the last day before they were going on vacation, and she wanted to
finish the project as much as he did.

Maybe
one more hour would do it.

He
was peering at the DNA strand she’d just pulled up on the monitor, but he
turned to her without warning, peering at her with the same focused attention
he’d been giving the monitor. “We can stop,” he said.

“I
don’t want to stop.”

“That’s
your fifth peppermint in the last hour.”

Her
lips parted. “You keep count?”

“You
only eat that many when you’re ready to drop. You can go to bed, if you want.
It’s really fine.”

“I’m
not going to leave you here to work all night on your own.”

“I’m
not tired.”

“Yes,
you are.”

He
narrowed his eyes, obviously annoyed at her disagreement.

She
reached over and smoothed down the sleeves to his lab coat. “The more tired you
get, the more wrinkled your lab coat gets.” She felt a sudden wave of affection
and wrapped an arm around his waist, stretching up to run her lips across his
jaw.

She
felt him relax against her, but he murmured, “None of that in the lab. Someone
might see.”

She
giggled. “You know they all know we’re together now, right?”

He
grunted in affirmation.

“You
know they all knew we were going to get together long before we actually did,
right?”

He
grunted again.

“You
know everyone else turned in an hour ago, right?”

As
expected, another grunt.

“So
why can’t I kiss you in the lab?”

There
was a smile in his eyes, although he was still trying to frown. “Because you
distract me. I’m not good at multi-tasking.”

“I
know that. I’ve never seen anyone as single-minded as you. Only one thing can
go on in your brain at a time.”

His
brain had obviously shifted gears, and he pulled her against him, fitting her
body against his, which she could feel tightening. “We can go to bed now,” he
murmured thickly, “if you really want.”