The Girlfriend (The Boss) (12 page)

“You sleep in here.” I held up my hands and let them fall. “It looks like a museum, and you just sleep in here.”

“I don’t
just
sleep in here,” he said, his arms wrapping around my waist from behind. He leaned down and nibbled my ear, as though the sentence needed further punctuation for me to get the hint.

“I can’t imagine how you’d even keep track of another person in that bed. Or two or three.” I wandered away from him, trailing my fingers over the oval-shaped surface of a delicate lacquered table with spindly legs. “Is there a phone in here?”

There was one thing on my “To Do Before Leaving NYC” checklist that I hadn’t gotten to yet, and I couldn’t let it wait any longer. I’d held off calling Holli, because I hadn’t wanted to worry her or take up her time. Since I’d left my keys and my pre-filled out rent checks with Deja, I figured she would know what was up already, but I had to give her a ring.

“Yes, there is. Do you need help calling?”

Huh. Even the phones were different from ours? “I guess you would know better than I would. I need to call Holli in Paris.”

I spied my purse, set neatly on a wooden secretary-style desk in the corner. I went to it and fished out my cell. It didn’t work in England, something I didn’t realize until Neil had pointed it out to me in the car on the way from the airport. I pulled up Holli’s number and passed it off to Neil.

As Gabriella’s assistant, I had made plenty of international calls from the US. The dialing was a little bit different here, but Neil patiently explained it, then he handed me the phone and moved away. I watched him go to the wall and open it. There was a secret door in Neil’s bedroom. Holy shit, this was like
Clue
a little more every minute.

“Hello?” Holli answered uncertainly, and I realized she wouldn’t recognize the number.

“Guess where I am,” I prompted, lowering my voice a bit. It felt weird to act excited about being here; after all, it was Neil’s house, not some tourist destination— not for me, anyway. And I was here for serious reasons.

“A halfway house for unmarried pregnant women like in
The Cider House Rules
?” she asked dryly. “Why haven’t I heard from you?”

“A lot has gone on in the past week. First of all, no, bitch, I am not at a halfway house. I’m not even pregnant anymore, so that’s a total non-issue.” I took a deep breath. “I’m in England.”

“What?” Holli shrieked down the line. “Where the hell are you?”

“Langhurst Court? It’s Neil’s house.” I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see me.

“So basically, you let him take you to a second location?” She snorted. “Seriously, though, you’re not in England.”

“I am! Check your phone.” I waited for her to check, then when she came back on the line, I said, “Told ya.”

“Sophie... what is going on?” She lowered her voice, too, like maybe she was somewhere she couldn’t talk candidly. That is, candidly for her. “You were supposed to go back to Michigan for Christmas. And you were like, broken up with Neil. What are you doing in England with him?”

“It’s a long story, do you have time?”

“Give me the highlights,” she said reluctantly. “I’m actually at a run through, we’re on a ten minute break and five are up.”

I took a deep breath and sank into the dainty, embroidered chair in front of the desk. “We’re not not-together anymore. We didn’t keep the baby, Neil has leukemia, and I came with him to England while he goes through chemotherapy.”

“Um... wow. That’s a lot to process. Are you okay?” she asked. In the background, I heard someone yelling in French.

Now wasn’t a good time to spill all my deepest emotions. She was at work, so I bucked up as best as I could. “Yeah, I’m doing good. I’ll talk to you about all this when you can. Save this number, I’ll be here until the twenty-sixth, I think.”

“Okay, but... Soph. Are you seriously okay? With the... you know?”

I did know. “Yeah. I felt guilty, which I wasn’t expecting. But Neil was really supportive about the whole thing.”

She sighed heavily. “I feel like such a see-you-next-Tuesday for not being there for you.”

“No.” I wouldn’t let her feel bad over following her dreams, just because the timing was bad for me. “You are doing exactly what you need to be doing. I’m not alone. Things with Neil are better than they ever were, and I’m really happy to be here.”

“Look, I have to go. I don’t want to. Promise me we’ll talk soon?” The longing in Holli’s voice might have had a little to do with just plain old homesickness, but I flattered myself by thinking it was all for me, anyway.

God, I missed her. It had only been a few days, and I missed her the way a kid misses her parents at camp. “Absolutely. Go get your runway on.”

When we hung up, I only cried a little bit.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Christmas morning dawned with beautiful flurries over the ornamental gardens at the back of the house. The heaping snow helped disguise the protective black plastic, covering the shrubs and fountain. It looked a little like the Beast’s castle in
Beauty and The Beast
, in the scene where Belle taught him how to feed birds out of his hands.

This observation was somewhat lost on Neil.

“I rarely watched cartoons with Emma when she was growing up,” he said apologetically, taking a sip from his coffee mug. He stood in front of the window in the bedroom, wrapped in a navy dressing gown. “I couldn’t stomach them. All the happy songs, the anthropomorphized woodland friends...” He shivered. “The very notion of speaking to a chipper squirrel who can process abstract concepts would keep me awake at night.”

“You might want to see a counselor about all that.” I lazed on the bed, painting my toenails. “Your way of doing Christmas makes so much more sense. Sleep in, bum around all day, party all night.”

He turned to face me with a smirk. “Remember, ‘bumming around’ means something extremely different here.”

“Oh, right. Anal.” I wiggled my toes at him then carefully lowered my foot so as not to get polish on the duvet. “Whatever, I like doing Christmas this way.”

“I’m glad.” He set his mug on the small table near the end of the bed as he came back to join me. “Although I do miss Emma bursting in here at four in the morning, demanding to open just one present before everyone arrived.”

It wasn’t four in the morning, but there was a polite knock.

“If that isn’t Emma, I’ll give the person on the other side of that door a hundred pounds,” Neil called. “Come in, Emma.”

I carefully arranged the blankets around my lower half. I was wearing a tank top and a pair of Neil’s boxers, and they covered everything that needed covering, but I didn’t necessarily want his daughter to see me wearing her dad’s underwear.

“Happy Christmas you two,” she warbled, and I had a feeling her uncharacteristically bright mood had more to do with Michael staying here than anything about Santa Claus or cookies.

Though I would never say so to Neil, I liked Michael, and I could see why Emma liked him. The son of powerful attorneys who worked for the U.N., Michael was well-educated, well-spoken, as handsome and toothy as a Kennedy, with waves of brown hair and the most drop-dead gorgeous blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’d played football at Stanford, and he’d maintained his athlete’s build. He towered over tiny Emma like a fairytale prince rescuing a damsel. The guy was totally swoon-worthy, Emma adored him, and he treated her like a princess.

Neil
hated
him.

Emma stood in front of her father, dressed in pajama pants and a well-worn Stanford t-shirt that hung nearly to her knees. Holding out her cupped hands, she said primly, “You know why I’m here.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Neil went through the secret door— which lead to a dressing room— and returned with a neatly gift-wrapped box. He handed it to Emma, and she hurried over the nook in the wall to open it.

My stomach clenched with dread. “Oh no.”

They both looked over at me with perplexed expressions.

“I was so busy getting ready to come over that I didn’t get anyone any presents.” How embarrassing was that going to be?
Hello, family, this is my girlfriend Sophie, she’s rude at Christmas time.

“It’s okay,” Emma said with a happy shrug. “I didn’t get you anything, either. Out of spite. I’m still not okay with all this.”

“None taken,” I said dryly. “Neil, I didn’t get you anything.”

“You’re here. That’s really all I need.” The smile he gave me was so warm and earnest, I was able to momentarily forget that I’d come bearing no gifts, like some kind of shitty reverse Santa Claus.

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to buy this man presents, anyway?” Emma huffed. “He’s like a toddler. If he wants something, he gets it. By the time the holidays roll around, he’s already got every book, DVD, and gadget that came out during the year.”

“So, you have to work extra hard to impress me. That builds character.” He sipped his coffee as Emma pulled the lid off the box.

“Ooh, very nice,” she cooed as she lifted out a distinctive Stella McCartney tote of dark blue faux leather. “Thank you.”

Neil leaned down to kiss her on the head. “Now the rest you’ll get after dinner—”
 

“And not a moment before, I know, I know.” She popped up from her seat and gestured to me. “I hope you have something for Sophie.”

“I think being here is my present,” I told her. “Oh, and some earrings that he already gave me.”

“Do I have anything else?” He pretended to think. “Yes, I think I do.”

I gave him a very suspicious arched brow as he left the room again.

“Get used to it, Sophie. He’s going to spoil the hell out of you.” She snorted. “The first Christmas Elizabeth spent with us, he— “

She quickly stopped herself and flushed bright red.

“Don’t worry about it.” I waved my hand. “I’m not egotistical enough to ban the mention of his ex’s name. You guys liked her for a reason.”

“She liked my father for a reason, as well,” Emma muttered.

“Who likes me?” Neil asked as he returned, looking between the two of us.

“I do,” I chirped sweetly.
 

He had a small, flat box in his hands, and he passed it over to me, leaning down to whisper, “Merry Christmas,” in my ear.

I unwrapped it warily. “Why do I feel like you’re using the anniversary of our Lord and savior’s birth to satisfy your need to buy me things? Not that I’m complaining.”

“Sophie, complain? Never,” he chided.

Under the paper was an instantly recognizable flat, navy blue box with the initials H and W printed on the flocked velvet. I looked up at Neil with wide eyes. “What is this?”

“It’s me, using the anniversary of our Lord and savior’s birth to satisfy my need to buy you things. You wouldn’t be so churlish as to turn down a Christmas gift, would you?” he asked me innocently.

“Oh my god, open it!” Emma squealed.

I lifted the lid and almost choked on my own spit. Nestled inside, attached to a delicate chain, was an enormous round brilliant cut diamond surrounded by a scalloped square platinum setting and more tiny diamonds. It was delicate and opulent and so, so shiny.

“Wow,” Emma breathed. “It’s very pretty. Men probably died for those diamonds, but very pretty.”

It took all my force of will not to roll my eyes at her. “Harry Winston diamonds come from Canada.”

“Oh?” she sounded surprised. “Good job, Dad.”

“Thank you, Emma.” He glanced nervously to me. “It’s too much, isn’t it?”

Emma rose, taking her present with her. “I’ll give you guys a minute. Michael and I are having breakfast in the morning room in half an hour, if you’d like to join us?”

“Thank you, perhaps we will,” Neil told her. But he still looked nervously at me.

Emma closed the door behind her, and I looked up, unsure of what to say. The necklace I held in my hands probably cost as much as a car. Money was already a huge sticking point in our relationship. But now that I had more of an idea about the kind of world he lived in, the kind of fortune he actually had and the privileges of his upbringing, I understood why it was so difficult for him to grasp why expensive presents wigged me out.

“Please, don’t be angry.” His voice was soft and uncertain. “You don’t have to keep it if it offends you.”

It was hard to figure out a response. “It’s lovely. It really is, Neil. And I think I’m starting to get it. It would be one thing if you only showed your love by buying things. But you make me feel so cherished and protected every day, not because you spend money on me, but because you do things like... like spot me so I can nap in the bathtub without drowning.”

He laughed gently at that. “Well, why wouldn’t I? I don’t want you to drown.”

“The point is... maybe I’ve been a little bossy about the way you spend your money. After all, you know better than I do what’s in your bank account. And I don’t want to know, just like you don’t want to know what’s in mine. We are from two very different worlds, and I have to respect our differences, too.” I tilted the box in my hand, admiring the way the light glinted and sparkled through the heart of the diamond. “And it’s so fucking shiny.”

We both laughed then, and he took the box from my hands, unclasping the chain and leaning with one knee on the bed. I lifted my messy, unbrushed hair and let him fasten the necklace. The platinum was cold against the hollow of my throat. It was a ridiculous thing to pair with sleepwear, but it was worth it when I saw the happiness on Neil’s face.

“I don’t buy you things to change you,” he said softly. “Please, don’t ever believe that of me. I treasure you. In a completely non-objectifying way. And I suppose I still subscribe to the outdated patriarchal notion of showering a woman with gifts to woo her.”

“You don’t have to woo me. You’ve already got me.” I laid my hand gently over the diamond at my throat. “Look, I’m done telling you what to do with your money. Just don’t tell
me
what to do with your money, and we’re on good terms.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness, because there are other gifts under the tree for you.”

“Oh man.” I hung my head in shame. “I’m so sorry, Neil, I could have gotten you something, I was just so busy getting stuff nailed down for the move—”