Before I’d gotten to grips with seeing him again, Anna’s voice came over the speaker in my phone. “Mr. Scott is here for you. Can I send him in?”
“Yes. I’m ready for him.” I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
I’d known I was going to be calling him in today, though. So I was as ready as I was ever going to be.
Ethan and I had stayed up so late talking that he’d slept over. Early this morning, he’d even helped me choose my outfit. He didn’t know what I was going to do, but I’d been going back and forth about it myself until five minutes ago.
There wasn’t really a choice, though. I had to be true to myself. I didn’t really know much about what was going on in my life or even who I was anymore, but the parts that I did know, I had to stick to. If I didn’t, there was no telling where I’d end up.
That was until Jaxon appeared in my doorway. He paused when he came into view, his golden-brown hair mussed like he hadn’t been planning on doing anything today and his matching eyes darker than usual with determination.
A small and yet not insignificant part of me wished he’d looked at me with that gleam on the morning we left Fiji. Wished that he’d stayed and had looked at me that way while telling me that he wasn’t ready to say goodbye either.
I stuffed a mental pillow over that part of my brain and smothered the romantic piece of crap. No matter how much I wished things would’ve been different, they weren’t.
Jaxon let out a small sigh. As if he’d seen that secret hopeful part of me being snuffed out and was disappointed about it.
That wasn’t my problem, though.
I stood up, just like I would if this was any other meeting, and waved him into a chair. “Have a seat, Jaxon. Thank you for coming in on such short notice again.”
His forehead twitched like he’d been about to frown at my tone before he managed to clamp down on his expression. “Of course. I was happy to receive your message.”
My heart broke a little at how formal we were both being, but formal, I could handle. It was the familiarity he’d dished my way during our last meeting that’d been unbearable.
“I’m sorry we took so long to get back to you,” I said.
His brows moved up a fraction of an inch. “Long? It’s only been days, ba—” He mashed his teeth together to shut himself up, and I was glad he had. Folding his hands in his jeans-clad lap, he gave me a tight smile. “It’s no problem. I was expecting the investigation to take much longer.”
“It might have if it wasn’t a cut and dry case.”
He cocked his head, his shoulders opening up as his spine straightened. “Cut and dry, huh? Good to know.”
I almost smiled. I knew what he was thinking, and I was looking forward to proving him wrong about me. It would be interesting to see his reaction when he heard what I had to say.
“Yes, Jaxon,” I said, my voice gentler now. “I’ve spoken to your manager and everyone else involved in the chain of command. There was no fault on your part. You didn’t leave without notifying anyone. We have an email on our server, as well as records of several phone calls. It was an error on our end that your request was never logged.”
Deafening silence echoed in my office following my statement. Jaxon looked like he might leave his jaw on my floor, but there was also something new in his eyes.
Hope. Respect. Relief. Maybe even adoration. I couldn’t quite pin it down.
“Why are you doing this for me?” he asked eventually. “You hate me. The ball was in your court. Why would you clear all this up for someone you can’t stand?”
“It’s not about you, Jaxon. It’s about me.” A cliched line, but that didn’t make it any less true. “I am who I am, and I won’t change that just because I’m pissed off with someone. Too much has been taken from me. I won’t let that go too.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t let him. Exhaling deeply, I rested back in my chair and let my professional demeanor slip.
If I didn’t do it now, I was never going to get the truth out. I needed to get it out