Page 31 of Maid for My Billionaire Boss
“Everything went according to plan.” Lowering my voice, I added, “I don’t want to talk about it until we are out of here, though.”
“Oh, okay.” She took the descending steps away from the hut, watching the ground as she walked.
I walked closer to her, stumbling over my own foot, resembling a clumsy toddler who didn’t know how to work his legs. Atalie’s presence was having an effect on me I couldn’t brush off. I had been excited to see her this morning but this somber expression she gave me had my heart constricting in a way which left me breathless. Out of ideas for words, I held up the oars Robert had given me. “I came prepared this time with two sets.”
“That’s good.” Her voice seemed tired, and she hardly looked at me. “Is everything settled for us to leave?”
“Yeah,” I said enthusiastically, expecting to hear her rejoice. Yet, she only offered me a weary smile as she headed down the worn path back to the river. Though she stayed right on my heel, she didn’t hook her arm onto mine.
She had to be upset with me.
Okay, I know she was upset with me for bringing her here, but something beyond that.
“Is everything okay?” I eventually asked, letting my eyes linger on her face, searching for clues to what she was thinking. “I mean, aside from all of the extraordinarily life-threatening stuff I’ve put you through?”
Her lip didn’t even twitch at my joke.
I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “Is this about the lawyer thing?”
She pinned a perplexed indention between her brows. “What?”
“Do you remember how you asked for my lawyers’ info?”
She shook her head but didn’t seal her lips as she replied, “No. I wasn’t thinking about that.” She lowered her head down again. Now we were near the river’s edge, and she caught her reflection in the water and let out an amused gasp. “Why didn’t you tell me I looked like Chewbacca?”
Her words came out like a lightning bolt that shot through my ear and did a loopy loop around my brain, landing somewhere in the vicinity of my heart, making it pound harder.A woman who speaksStar Warsis a woman after my heart! It was like poetry.“Ah, Chewbacca is hairy, not dirty,” I teased.
“I knew that. Well, I mean, I should know that. Josiah is pretty good at ensuring I’m up on myStar Wars. I was mostly referencing the brown color.” She knelt, lapped the water in the palm of her hand, and scrubbed her face, venting, “Everyone talks about how bad technology is for our mental health, but nobody mentions how harmful a lack of it can be.” She used her bare arm to swipe away the excess water dripping from her chin but was unsuccessful. I didn’t have anything close to a towel, so I offered the sleeve of my favorite worn hoodie and she willingly leaned forward and dried her face with it. I had expected to see her gaze soften, but she held her stiff expression, her eyes fleeing back to the water.
She wouldn’t even look at me.
Could I blame her, though? I dragged her out here. In my defense, I had no idea it would be this bad. But lucky for us both, we only had one boat ride upriver before we’d reunite with our guide, and that should cheer her up.
I walked over to the boat I had stored upside down on a large rock and pulled it to the water. Clenching the back ridge to hold it steady, I looked over at her, saying, “You can climb in first.” She crossed before me, stepping into the boat without glancing back. I handed her the extra set of paddles before I found my way into the boat, sitting in front of her. Taking a minute to balance the weight between the two of us, I then set my paddles and started to row, calling out, “After while crocodiles.” She followed my lead in rowing but didn’t crack a sound at my joke. I caved in the silence. “Atalie.” My voice came out raspy like it does when I’m nervous, so I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry if this was too much for you. I didn’t know it would be this bad.”
Since I couldn’t see her face, I had to rely on the pacing of her breath to know how she was feeling. I didn’t notice any growling or hissing, so I figured that was good.
“It has been too much,” she finally said.
Part of my heart was heavy, knowing how hard this had been for her, but the other part of my heart told me it was going to work out. Now I needed to make sure she didn’t hate me. “For what it’s worth, thank you.”
“I hope it paid off.”
“It did. It may seem extreme to you to go through all of this, but Robert was the only person I could trust, and I knew unless I talked to him in person, he wouldn’t really understand how strongly I felt about that. As you can probably tell, I’m not the best with this stuff. But it worked out, and Robert’s going to fly out at the end of the month. He’s all the way on board with taking over my software division.”
“Wait,” she interrupted me. “What about his fiancée?”
“She’ll come too. That’s why they must wait. I’ll get everything set up for them and they will run away in the middle of the night so they can elope.”
She sucked in a loud breath. “Are you kidding?”
“No,” I tried to keep my tone respectful. “This is a tribe who still does a lot of arranged marriages and having your daughter marry a foreigner is not something they would ever approve of.”
“But not being able to see your family member get married is better?”
“In their eyes, it allows them to be together.”
“I had no idea it was like that.” Her voice was filled with astonishment when she went on, “I can’t believe she is willing to lose her entire family for a chance to be in love. I couldn’t imagine being that brave.”
