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By the time we get back to the estate I am pleasantly drunk and bolstered by Magnus’s confidence in me. There’s something freeing now about the fact that he knows—nay, the whole entire house knows—that there’s something going on between Laila and me. Of course the biggest bloody issue is that there isn’t anything going on between us—not anymore.
But if I can make it up to her somehow, if I can perfect the art of groveling, then perhaps I can change that. If I explain to her how I truly feel and how I’m going to try to work through what I’m afraid of, whether that’s with her or with a therapist, then that’s what I’m going to do.
“James,” Magnus says to me in the hallway as I’m about to walk off to Laila’s room. He puts his hand on my shoulder, keeping me in place, and I sway a little. “Tell me you’re going to bed right now. Your own bed.”
I give him a sheepish look. “I was hoping to maybe do a bit of groveling.”
“It’s almost midnight and you’re wasted,” he whispers roughly.
“I believe you said you’d fire me if I stayed sober,” I point out.
“Do your groveling some other time,” he says, giving me a hearty shake that makes the hall spin. “Let the dear nanny rest.”
I sigh and he lets go of me, and I nearly stumble into the wall. I make my way to my door and open it, glancing over my shoulder to see Magnus staring at me with his arms crossed, like a father making sure his child is really going to bed. I’ve never felt more like Bjorn.
I go inside my room and close the door behind me before flopping down on the bed in my suit.
I lie there for a moment, trying to gather up the strength and courage to go out and see Laila anyway. Then I hear her bed creak from her room. I move myself up on the bed until my head is pressed against the wall.
“Laila?” I say. “Are you up?”
No answer.
“Laila?” I say a little louder.
I push my ear harder against the wall.
“I want to talk to you,” I go on, trying not to slur my words. “I need to talk to you. Can I come over?”
Silence.
Then, “No.”
I shouldn’t be surprised at the rejection, but my drunk little heart feels the pinch.
I open my mouth to protest, to say something, anything to convince her, but I hear her sigh loudly. A sigh filled with sadness and longing.
“Go to sleep, James.”
And so I do.
Twenty-Two
JAMES
“Bloody hell, it’s freezing,” I mumble as I step out of the house.
“Not going to lie,” Magnus says, closing the door behind him, “I’m actually getting sick of this weather. Coldest January in a decade. I’m counting down the days to Morocco.”
“So am I,” I admit. Next month the family is going to Morocco, and because the kids are going, that means I get to go. I’ve been craving sunshine like nothing else, and a week in the heat will do me a lot of good.
Unfortunately, it means that Laila will be going too.
Being around her now has become unbearable, and of course I have only myself to blame.
It’s been two weeks since I did the stupid thing where I didn’t reciprocate her feelings and said things in order to push her away, partly because I was protecting her and partly because I was protecting myself. In that time, and since Magnus let me know that the family is totally wise to our affair, I’ve been doing all I can to tell Laila both that I’m sorry and how I feel. I know laying out an “actually I love you too, and that’s what scared me the most because I realized how far gone I was” isn’t going to get me anywhere, but neither is a good old-fashioned apology. Laila refuses to be alone with me, and when we have to interact with each other there’s a fake pleasantness. No one in the house is buying it, which makes things extra awkward because everyone knows why Laila is acting that way, but of course no one is saying anything.
So whenever I’m around her, I feel like I’m being punished over and over again. Something I totally deserve, yes, but quietly devastating all the same. I just want to make her smile, hear her laugh, see that light in her eyes again. I want to be the person who puts that light there, who opens her doors and climbs over the walls, and sees the precious person she hides from me. I want her in every way possible, but I can’t get much more than an icy stare and a cold hello.
