“Don’t make it sound so noble. You’re leaving me in the lurch and you know it. Can’t you at least wait till I find someone else? That would be the decent thing to do, even if this is just a job to you. And I thought we had become friends.” She looked hurt as well as angry, which went straight to his heart, but he had to put a shield up to protect himself from her too, and he already had. He had spent the past few days bracing himself for what he had to do, even if it meant hurting her. He was willing to hurt her, if it meant saving her life.
“And what if they find me before that?” he said, angry too. “And yes, we’re friends, as much as the job will allow. We both have the same fears. We’ve both spent our lifetimes avoiding deep attachments, you know that as well as I do. Being attached to anyone is dangerous. You’ve seen it in your life, and I’ve seen it in mine, and now here it is again, only this time the danger is real. You need to remember that now. You don’t know me. We don’t own each other. In the end, Olivia, even if we were friends for a while, I’m an employee, and this is just a job, for both of us.” That hit her like a slap in the face. He wanted to tell her to toughen up, but he didn’t dare. “Don’t forget how strong you are,” he reminded her, for her own sake.
“I guess I forgot that for a minute,” she said and stood up. “You’re right. We’re both strong and we’ll find our way, and it’s just a job.” She smiled coldly at him and he knew she didn’t mean it. He had hurt her, and he knew it, but he had to in order to let her go, and make her let go of him. He couldn’t allow her to have a hold on him. It would be too dangerous for them both. “I hope you find a job you like in England. They’ll be lucky to have you.”
“Thank you,” he said politely. “And I hope you find the right person for the job.”
“I’ll send you a reference, if you want one,” she offered, decent to the end, and gracious. But he didn’t need one from her. His reference from the Cheshires, and the length of time he’d worked for the family, would get him any job he wanted. His few months with her was just a sidebar and wouldn’t carry much weight.
“Good luck, Joachim. Stay safe,” she said, and held out a hand for him to shake, which he did, looking her in the eye with everything he couldn’t say.
They had both respected the boundaries between them right to the end, and she was glad they had. He was right about them, because of all the things that had happened to them, neither of them was able to attach, in their personal lives or their professional ones. She hadn’t spoken to her past employees at the magazine in months, except for Claire. They had gone on with their lives, and so had she, and drifted apart, no matter how close they appeared to be while working together. And now it was true of him too.
He was a solitary person and had chosen jobs until then that had reinforced that. It was a spell put on them that neither of them would ever break, and she knew that now. It was both a blessing and a curse, and the protective covering they wore, like a suit of armor, but the blows of life still found a way in from time to time. She couldn’t allow him to hurt her, or herself to care.
As she watched him go through the door of her apartment, it was hard to believe that only five days before they had gone to a movie and had sat with his arm around her and they both had the illusion that they were friends. It was only an illusion, she realized that now. She couldn’t allow herself to be sad or miss him when he was gone. She put his coffee cup in the sink for Fatima to put in the dishwasher, and she went to her work area to call the agency. She didn’t want a butler this time, she needed a real assistant, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake, of allowing herself to believe that they were friends. It was just a job, as Joachim said.
* * *
—
The woman at the domestic agency was surprised to hear from her.
“I thought it was working out so well, for both of you. I spoke to Mr. von Hartmann when we found Fatima for you, after that nasty little business with the girl before her,” she reminded Olivia of Alphonsine. “He seemed very pleased with the job working for you, even if it was somewhat out of the ordinary for him. And the last time I called him to check on how Fatima was doing, he said he was helping you refurbish a chateau. That was quite beyond the scope of what we originally discussed. And he said he was enjoying it very much. I’m so sorry he’s leaving.”