Boss in the Bedsheets - Kate Canterbary Page 0,111

quilt and sheets. I climbed onto the bed and held my arms out to her. "Come here, love. It's no good sleeping without you."

I'd also suffered no fewer than five heart attacks in the past twenty-four hours, not that I was sharing that issue with Zelda. She didn't need to absorb the weight of my worries on top of dealing with the wholly unwelcome appearance of her fleabag ex.

My office building's security firm was already on alert about him, as was my apartment's management company. He wasn't to be allowed inside under any circumstances though that didn't seem adequate. I didn't believe anything could ever be adequate so long as he was capable of tracking Zelda down.

All I could do was trust Zelda's belief he'd go and stay gone. I couldn't hide her away or hire a private investigator to keep tabs on him in perpetuity. Couldn't hire a hit man either, as much as that appealed.

The list of things I couldn't do in this situation was extensive but so was the one with everything I could. There was no restriction on loving her the way she deserved or honoring her boundaries when she asserted them. I was free to give her the affection—and sparring—we both required on a fundamental level.

Right now, I intended to do just that.

Zelda tucked herself up against me, her knees folded to my torso and her toes pressed to my bare thigh. "How's Magnolia?"

A soundless laugh rattled in my chest. "She should know better than to take anything from my mother's stash but otherwise fine. She reminisced for a few hours before passing out."

"I tried to do that," she said. "The passing out, not the reminiscing. I've relived enough today." She peeked up at me from her spot on my chest. "But you probably have questions you want to ask."

I shook my head even though I had no fewer than a million. Plain and simple, this wasn't about me or my questions. "You said you didn't want to talk about it. You said you're all right. That's all I need to know."

"You want to know how I let it happen," she continued, as if I hadn't offered an end to this conversation. "How I didn't notice that he was bad news or how I didn't know better but—"

"No, love. No. I'm not thinking that at all," I interrupted.

"—but the thing you have to understand is nothing ever happens all at once. It isn't terrible from the start. It isn't until you've made tons of tiny sacrifices that you see the giant hole where you used to be and the person who consumed it without regret." She pressed her hand to her sternum. "Now, I get to start over without Denis's shadow leering over me and that means windowsill gardens and green plates and—and you, Ashville. I get to start myself over with you."

Though it was exactly what I wanted to hear, I had to ask, "That's what you want?"

"If you're worried about being my rebound, you should worry about something else. My relationship with Denis was closer to roommates, I guess. If one roommate used shreds of validation and praise to coerce the other into writing academic papers and paying his rent."

I was working my ass off at staying quiet because I wanted to let Zelda say everything she needed but I must've reacted in some way.

She paused, peered up at me. "We're not going to be upset about it, Ash. That's a waste of energy. I made these mistakes, I've learned from these mistakes, and I sat down beside you on that plane because I was ready to leave those mistakes behind. All right? That's where it stays, behind us, never to be relived again."

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to accept all of her words and use them to pave the path forward but something tickled the back of my brain in a way I couldn't shake.

Since I couldn't explain this tickle in a meaningful manner and it was the middle of the damn night, I ran my finger down Zelda's nose and over her lips. "You're tired, love. Let yourself rest now."

It was late when I woke up, the morning's sunlight poking in through gaps in the curtains and the sounds of life from the downtown below fracturing the tender quiet we'd found. Zelda, for her part, was undisturbed by the bright and the noise, still fast asleep in her threadbare boxers and a tank top that seemed more like a