Page 36 of Charmed by the Obsessive Boss

"Rosey." I'm laughing and it hurts. "I'm indebted to a nine-year-old."

"She said you didn't look at your phone all day Saturday."

"I was otherwise occupied."

"I noticed." She wipes her cheek with the back of her wrist and leaves a faint blue streak across it. She doesn't know. I've never loved anything more in my life than that streak. "What did Maine say?"

"What?"

"The buyer. Four o'clock."

"That she's been waiting for someone to pick up the phone since April." It comes out of me in a rush because it's easier than the other thing. "She wants samples by Wednesday, and if they pass, two thousand throws by Christmas and a standing order after. She asked who runs the dye house and I said a woman named Rosemary, and she said good."

Rosey puts her hand over her mouth.

"I've said everything I had to say," I tell her. "There's one more thing and I've held it back for a day because I was afraid it would sound like a card to play. It isn't. I don't have any cards left." My voice drops. "I love you."

The vat bubbles. A pipe ticks overhead.

"I didn't say it in your kitchen because it would have been the last card in a losing hand. I'm saying it now because I've got nothing in my hand at all. I love you. I'm going to love you whether or not you say it back, and whether or not you ever let me carry anything of yours again."

For a moment I think she's going to say something clever. Instead her face crumples, all at once, and she makes a sound that's half a laugh and half a sob and she crosses the space between us in three steps and puts both hands in my shirt.

"It's been sixty-one hours," she says into my chest. "I counted."

"I know."

"It's stupid."

"It's remarkably stupid."

"I love you." She lifts her face. Her eyes are wet and green and fierce. "I love you, you terrible, charming, impossible man, and if you ever put a bet on me again I'll hold you under the indigo."

I kiss her. She's salt and steam and cinnamon, her hands come up to my face and leave blue prints on my jaw, and I feel her mouth smile against mine.

We're backed against the rim of the vat, the wool dripping, the whole room breathing around us, and she pulls away just far enough to say, "That's the third time you've kissed me against equipment."

"You started the first two."

"I'm aware." She presses her forehead to mine. "We have a problem though."

"Several."

"You're my boss."

"For six months. Technically." I draw back to look at her. "I'm the person who signs your reviews, which I'm not going to do. I've been thinking about it since this morning because I'm terrible at being sensible and excellent at being thorough. You'll report to the board, not to me. General Manager of the mill, which is what you've been doing for eleven years without the title, and now with the salary to match. I'll handle sales, finance, and Maine. We'll disclose it to Margaret in writing tomorrow, and anything I say that touches your job I'll say in front of a third party."

"A third party."

"Ruth, perhaps."

"Ruth already knows." She starts to laugh. "Ruth left the barn store unlocked for you. She's known since Friday afternoon."

"Then she's ahead of me."

"She's ahead of everyone." The laugh dies down and she looks up at me, and I see her making a ledger of it, all of it, the way she does with everything. "General Manager."

"If you want it."