“How soon do you want to go?” Olivia asked him, wondering how much notice he was giving her. Logistically, it was going to be a nightmare for her, and throw off progress on the chateau dramatically. She couldn’t manage all the crews the way he did and install the interior too. Aside from the fact that she liked him and had grown fond of him, she needed him to do his job or it would take much longer to finish hers.
“Tonight, tomorrow,” he answered her. She looked shocked and angry for a minute.
“Are you serious? It’ll shut down the whole project.”
“If I get killed, it will too. Or if you do,” he said coldly. This wasn’t an argument he was prepared to lose. He was giving her no choice. He was telling her what he was going to do. “I shouldn’t even have come here, but I wanted to tell you in person. That’s only fair. This is about saving your life, Olivia. Not about the chateau.” But there was nothing fair about any of it and they both knew it. It wasn’t fair that he had to give up a life, a job, a golden opportunity for the next steps of his career, and it wasn’t fair that his mother’s heart was breaking again and she had lost a son, and could lose another, or that she had to spend her final years alone and wouldn’t have the comfort of a loving son near her. It wasn’t fair that it had come to this, and that Javier had managed to damage all their lives with the poisonous way he lived his own. “I don’t want you killed,” Joachim said heatedly. “I won’t put you at risk.”
“I don’t know how you can call this fair,” she said angrily to Joachim. “What am I supposed to do?”
“It’s not fair to any of us. I have no choice. Call the agency. They’ll send you someone else,” he said. It only made her madder.
“People like you don’t stand on every street corner waiting for a job.” She’d never had another employee like him. It wasn’t just about his training, which was really not adapted to his job with her anyway. It was about his common sense, his dedication, his fine mind, his ability to solve problems and make everything work, to fit the puzzle together in just the right way, and work endless hours in the process, making everything easier for her. It was about how much he cared. She knew she’d never find that again. He loved his job with her. He didn’t want to give it up either, but he knew he had to, and all thanks to Javier. He had won in the end, and Joachim was the loser, and so was Olivia, and his mother. It infuriated Olivia as she sat looking at Joachim. “And what are you going to do for a job?”
“What I was doing until I met you. There aren’t many butler jobs these days, as you know, but I’ll try to find one. Maybe for another Russian who wants to look important to his friends. I can make anything work if I have to.” He had with her. He was flexible and could adjust to any situation, and he was willing to.
He had no personal life he cared about, so he could do whatever he wanted. There was no one dependent on him to complain about the compromises he made. But he didn’t live entirely in a vacuum. He knew that his mother would be deeply affected by his leaving. And now Olivia would be too. But in the end, it was just a job for him and Olivia, and he reminded himself of it now. They’d been working together for a few months, and it had always been temporary. He hadn’t intended to stay. That had only changed recently, when she asked him to stay on. But she wasn’t even sure if she was going back to New York to get a job there, after she finished the chateau. Nothing had been sure, and both their lives were up in the air. They were equally unattached and independent, and very similar in that way. The similarities between them were coincidental, but they understood each other because of them.
“You’re running away, Joachim,” she said in a low voice. She was angry at him and it showed. “You’re scared.”
“Yes, I am,” he admitted freely. He was an honest man, and never tried to hide his flaws. “I have to run away. And I have a right to be scared, for you, and for myself. You’re going to be better off without me. You’ll see that one day.”