Romancing my Boss

Chapter 13

The solemn words filtered in like a death knell, each one a visceral punch to my gut. "...medical emergency...unresponsive...life support..."

My surroundings blurred and tilted violently as the color leeched from the world. The bistro's warm, romantic ambiance seemed to judder and collapse in on itself, suffocating me beneath an avalanche of anguish.

Dimly, I was aware of the phone slipping from my trembling hand, hitting the floor with a clatter that sounded a million miles away. The concerned furrow between Max's brows as he registered the naked devastation on my face.

A strangled sound escaped my constricting throat - part sob, part keening wail of denial. Because no, oh god no, it couldn't be happening like this. Not so brutally, senselessly soon.

"Charlotte?"

That deep, grounding rasp sliced through the roaring in my ears. Blinking rapidly, my vision swam back into focus just enough to find Max now beside me, a supportive hand curved around my elbow.

Whatever implacable mask he typically wore was nowhere in evidence. In its place was a startlingly open look of genuine concern tempering the hard angles of his striking features into softer lines.

"Charlotte, what is it?" he pressed urgently, giving my arm a subtle shake. "What's happened?"

I opened my mouth, but only a thin whimper escaped as the enormity of my father's devastating decline crashed over me in waves. Distantly, I registered Max signaling for the check with a subtle wave of his hand.

Then he was rising, gently urging me to my feet with a firm yet infinite care. "Come, let's get you out of here."

I could only nod woodenly as he guided me toward the exit with a solicitous hand at my back. Stumbling numbly, I allowed Max to propel me forward, wholly unable to process anything beyond a cyclone of anguish and panic steadily obliterating my senses.

The next thing I knew, I was ensconced in the plush leather interior of Max's town car, drawing harsh gasps that did nothing to calm the ragged sobs wracking my body. I hugged my arms protectively around my midsection as if that could somehow contain the howling maelstrom ripping me apart from the inside.

At some point, Max slid in beside me, his solid presence the only anchor in the tempest slowly robbing me of reason. I wanted to shy away, to hide this ugly, shattered version of myself. Yet the low rumble of his voice pulling me back from that dark precipice was irresistible.

"Charlotte..." That deep timbre sliced through the white noise clogging my ears - urgent but infinitely measured. "I need you to breathe with me now...slowly, in and out..."

Fractured slivers of lucidity pierced the fog as Max inhaled deeply, his broad chest expanding with the action. The subtle movement repeated in my periphery, over and over in a mesmeric pattern.

Retreading at the surface. Gasping for reprieve.

Almost against my will, my ragged breaths began to sync with that calming cadence. Each exhale seemed to beckon more fractures of reality back into focus. Until finally, my dad's anguished face flickered behind my lids with brutal clarity.

With a broken cry, I doubled over, strangling in the biting chains of grief looping around my airway. Max's steadying hand found my nape, kneading in firm strokes along the taut muscles there. Grounding me.

"It's my dad," I choked out between jagged pants. "H-he's in emergency care and it's...it's not good. The nurse said to p-prepare for...for the worst."

My voice fractured on the last words, already buckling beneath the full weight of their implications. Of losing the last shred of family I had.

The last shred of my childhood, my very identity.

"Oh Charlotte..." Max's low rumble resonated with a soul-deep sorrow that felt too acute for mere platitudes. Before I could tense or flinch away, his arm encircled my shoulders and pulled me firmly against his side.

My pride briefly warred with allowing such unguarded vulnerability before that core-deep hurt won out. With a ragged exhale, I crumpled against Max's solid frame, burying my tear-stained face in the column of his throat and allowing his clean, masculine scent to surround me in a fortifying cocoon.

Beneath the torrent of grief, a tiny flame of astounded disbelief flickered inside me.

That Maximilian Pemberton - TortureMaster™ heartless corporate fuck and unrepentant hedonist - would offer such unadulterated solace to his lowly assistant. Yet here he was, anchoring me against the brutal tempest determined to unmake me.

"It's alright..." His voice rumbled soothingly against the crown of my head where it rested on his shoulder. His hand curved around my nape with gentleness belying its size. "Whatever happens now, you don't have to face it alone."

Those words should have sounded hollow, just empty assurances. So why did they feel like a balm to my lacerated soul? I clung to them fiercely, let them shelter me from the cruel realities closing in from all sides.

For a few blessed moments, I let myself drift unmoored beneath the steadfast masculine strength of Max's frame and that core-deep solace in his voice. Allowed myself to escape the waking nightmare that was rapidly becoming my life.

But such reprieves were never meant to last - a truth that crashed over me with renewed force. With a choked sound of denial, I burrowed deeper into Max's solid strength as if his arms could somehow shield me from the inevitable.

"I can't..." My words muffled against the fabric of his shirt. "I can't lose him. He's all I have..."

The harsh admission cut me to the bone. Yet Max simply held me closer, tilting his head until the scruff of his jaw brushed my hairline.

"You're not alone in this," he murmured in a tone of bedrock conviction that vibrated straight through me. "I'm right here."

Burning teardrops traced scorching tracks down my cheeks anew at that soft vow. Against my will, I felt the weight anchoring me to Max's frame grow inexplicably denser, as if he alone could tether me to this reality from which I longed to flee.

I didn't dare say another word, couldn't bear to voice the plaintive question burning through me - whether this moment of solace was merely a fleeting chimera soon to vanish. For once in my life, I had no barbed retort or brash defiance to fall back on.

So instead I simply let myself sink into the inscrutable shelter of Max's embrace, drawing shallow breaths of his reassuringly solid presence like a lifeline against the crushing inevitability looming before me.

Just for tonight, this single reprieve from the brutal, unforgiving darkness that was my life.