The Last Time He Chose Her

The raft went over, and the boss went for the intern first. On instinct. Again. Nine years with the boss. All of it kept secret.

Everyone at the office had her pegged as the future Mrs. Brennan. Me, I had a fractured hand and nobody looking out for me. Just a sad single girl.

This time I didn't cry and I didn't make a scene.

I just smiled a little and agreed with them. "That's great." "I'll be waiting for a slice of their wedding cake." The words had barely left my mouth.

Silas, standing in the doorway of my hospital room, went rigid. Chapter 1 My coworker jumped.

She took it for the boss coming by to check on an injured employee, and she had the sense to clear out. Silas sat down beside my bed.

His eyes went to the apple my coworker had just washed. His fingers, knuckles sharp, picked up the knife.

He peeled it clean, not a scrap of skin left, before he held it up to my mouth. If she'd still been in the room, her jaw would have hit the floor.

The cool, untouchable boss taking care of me like it was nothing new.

I took it, and couldn't think of anything to say except, "Thank you." Silas and I had never had a silence like that between us, quiet to the point of awkward.

Before, in a situation like this, I would have gone hysterical, demanding he explain himself. And Silas would have told me, impatient, to calm down. This time I said nothing.

He was the one who spoke first.

His voice, always so composed, came out almost hurried. "I went for Amber first because she was in more danger." It was the first time in his life he'd explained himself without being asked.

I nodded. "Oh." Something went blank in his face for a second. I said, calmly, "The retreat's over.

Can you sign off on my last day like you said you would?" His voice dropped. "Yes. I'll sign." "Take the time and let it heal properly.

After that you can work or not work, whatever you want." "When your hand's better, I'll go back to Savannah with you and meet your parents.

Okay?" It was the first time Silas had ever backed down first. He'd even said he'd meet my parents. Once, I would have jumped up like I'd won the lottery. Now I was just tired.

In that moment I didn't want to think about anything. I only wanted to say the words myself and put a period at the end of nine years.

The words were sitting on my tongue when a knock came at the door and my coworker was back. "Mr. Brennan, they need you over at Amber's!" With his back to her, Silas looked at me.

There was something reassuring in it. Then his tone went back to business. "Rest up. Anything that comes of this, the company will cover. All of it." He stood and left.

When I really thought about it, ever since Amber came into our lives, what I'd seen most was Silas leaving me, his back turned, walking toward her.

Every one of those times I'd been either sick with insecurity or falling apart with jealousy. All that mess of feeling. And not one moment of it had been like this one.

I felt nothing at all. So that was the upside of not loving him anymore. I would never hurt over Silas again. Silas was as good as his word.

By the time I got back to Chicago, my resignation had been signed off. My handoff was mostly done already. I turned around and bought a ticket to Savannah.

I tied up the last of it online, then looked out the window and sank into a quiet that felt rare. Rare. That's the word for it.

It was hard to imagine now, but for the year and change since Amber arrived, I'd been living under a constant low pressure.

It started when Silas skipped the company's hiring process altogether and put her on the payroll himself. Chapter 2 She was a girl from his hometown, someone he'd grown up with.

Word was her family was dirt poor. Him giving her a hand, I could understand that. Amber's first day in Chicago, Silas introduced me to her. So she knew he had a girlfriend.

She still called him in the middle of the night, all the time. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, every day that mattered.

Amber always happened to need Silas for one thing or another. And every time, Silas dropped me and went to her first. The worst was the time my parents came to Chicago.

We'd agreed on it a long time in advance. He was going to meet them. He didn't show.

We waited until the food went cold and the restaurant was nearly closing, and he didn't even pick up the phone. I didn't want my parents to worry.

I dug my nails into my palms until they bled and made myself smile like it was nothing. "Mama, Daddy, I'm sorry. I got the time wrong." "Silas is traveling for work.

He's on a plane, he can't answer." "Excuse me, could you have the kitchen warm these up for us?" My parents weren't the least bit upset.

They ate the cold food and said it was delicious. I thought my performance was airtight.

Then, the day I drove them to the airport, my mom took my hand in hers and said, "Treasure Odom." "You remember what your name means?" My parents almost never called me by my full name like that.

I nodded right away. "Of course." She squeezed my hand and looked at me. "Me and your daddy never had much schooling.

That's just how we thought about it, and that's what we named you." "However old you get, wherever you go, you'll always be your mama and daddy's one and only treasure." My dad isn't good with words, but he said, "You don't have to sit there and take it.

You come on home. Your mama and me can afford to keep you." The ache in their eyes ate into my heart like acid. They knew everything.

They just hadn't said it out loud, because they didn't want to make it worse for me. My chest felt packed tight with wet cotton. I could hardly breathe around it.

And of course, on the way home, Amber's Instagram came up on my feed. The caption: [A cozy family dinner.] The photo was the three of them.

Silas and Amber standing on either side of a middleaged woman. Silas, who never smiles for anything, had the corner of his mouth turned up.

The three of them looked exactly like a family.

Two more lines were stamped across the bottom right corner of the picture. [Made Si turn his phone off for three days and he didn't argue once.] [I mean, nothing on this earth matters more to him than dinner with me and my mom. ^^] I sat on the couch for a long time.

Silas finally came home.

When I opened my mouth my voice came out hoarse. "Was dinner with Amber's mom fun?" Silas frowned. "You've been checking up on me?" My hands wouldn't stop shaking. "Checking up on you?" "Do I need to?" "Amber posted it herself." "If you didn't want to meet my parents, you could have said so.

You didn't have to shut your phone off for three days—" My eyes burned.

I tasted rust at the back of my throat. "Do you know I sat there calling you like an idiot, over and over and over?" Next to me falling apart, Silas was rational as an algorithm that never makes an error. "Some things are more urgent than others—" My chest was heaving.

I cut him off, unable to believe him. "So playing host to Amber's mother is important, and meeting my parents isn't?" "Silas, if you want to break up, say it.

Do you have to make me sick like this?" Silas's face didn't change.

He looked like a parent correcting a child throwing a tantrum. "Treasure Odom, you're too emotional." "I have work to get through.

We'll talk when you've calmed down." Chapter 3 The study door shut, and the sound landed on the back of my head like a club. I stood there, frozen, ridiculous.

Then I heard the lock turn. And it all came down on me at once. Jealousy, grief, rage, and the hurt running underneath every bit of it. I lost whatever sense I had left.

I broke down and cried and knocked on the door. "Silas, open the door!" "You're the one who did something wrong.

Where do you get off acting like you're in the right?" "Just because I love you, that means you get to treat me like this?" I don't know how long I knocked.

I don't know how long I cried. I slumped down onto the floor. My eyes had gone dry, too dry to make any more tears. I was hot, then cold. My voice had worn down to gravel.

I couldn't tell if I was asking him or just talking to myself. "…Silas, do you actually love me?" The man I loved was one wall away.

The only answer I got was the cold, unhurried sound of his keyboard. The next morning I woke up in bed.

Someone had changed me into pajamas, and there was a folded towel on my forehead. I opened the door and there was breakfast on the table.

Silas's handwriting was like the rest of him, sharp and cold. [Remember to eat your breakfast.] [I approved your sick day. Get some rest.] He always seemed to be like this.

Said less, did more. In college, a paper of mine got plagiarized. The guy who did it was a few years ahead of us, and his family had connections.

Silas collected the evidence without telling me and reported it to the school under his own name. He was the one who put his name at the top, too.

In the end, they made him pay for it. If his roommate hadn't told me, I never would have known his scholarship was pulled.

Or that the guy had people corner him and beat him badly enough to put him in the hospital. I took one look at the bandages around his head and started crying.

Silas has never known how to comfort anyone. "Stop crying. You'll give yourself an eye infection and you have an exam the day after tomorrow." I came across a phrase once.

Love and hate grow from the same root. A person's greatest strength is the same thing as their greatest flaw.

I loved that Silas was calm and selfpossessed, steady, someone you could count on. Which meant accepting that he was too rational, and no good at talking.

Give it one more try, Treasure. That's what I told myself. Then I drove to the office. I was barely holding together, so I stopped for coffee first, at the place I like.

And walked right into Amber hanging on Silas's sleeve, wheedling. "Si, let's switch the retreat to rafting back where I'm from." "My mom's headed home anyway.

She's a country woman, she's never once flown by herself, and I can't stop worrying about it." "We could fly back with her, and we'd get a couple of days there after. Please?

Come on, please?" Silas hated mixing personal things with work. That was why we'd been together nine years, seven of them in the same office, and never told a soul.

Sure enough, his brows drew together. Amber's eyes went red. "Si, you know how it was. My mom raised me by herself.

It was never easy on her…" Just when I was sure Silas would turn and walk away, he spoke. "Okay." One simple word, and it went through my heart like a blade and split it in two.

So he did know how to soothe someone. He just didn't know how with me. And his principles did bend for tears. Only I wasn't Amber. I stood there and suddenly felt like a joke.

Shut out, again and again, telling myself he just wasn't good with words. Setting my own pride lower and lower until there was nowhere lower left.

Making myself so small that my parents counted for nothing along with me. And lying to myself the whole time that this was what working at love looked like.

Amber had the answer she wanted. She grabbed his arm, delighted. The two of them looked as sweet as any couple in love. Chapter 4 It was August. Even the air was restless with heat.

My heart had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, cold all the way through. The second I turned away, I saw my parents' faces, that hurt, sorry look in their eyes.

I thought, I'm never going to be able to love Silas again.

At the office, my coworkers came straight over with the gossip. "The retreat got switched to rafting out of nowhere." "Linley Fork, you ever heard of it?

Place is dirt poor." "Word is that's where the intern's from." "Somebody saw her getting out of Mr.

Brennan's car the other day, too." "You think he moved the retreat so he could take her home and meet the family?" There was a time when, if they'd been gossiping about those two, forget joining in, it would have been an accomplishment just to keep it off my face.

Now there wasn't a ripple in me.

I opened my laptop and started typing up my notice, and I could still answer them without thinking about it. "Probably." "They do look good together." All that chattering stopped at once.

I was still wondering why when I looked up into Silas's blank face. His eyes stayed on my face. I couldn't tell if he was angry or not. "Come to my office