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“The fact that you still don’t understand why you should’ve asked me,” she says.

Something in me snaps tighter.

“I made a plan, Blaire,” I say.

“I wasn’t issuing an order.”

“It felt like one,” she replies.

“That wasn’t my intention,” I say.

“Intent doesn’t change what you did,” she replies.

I exhale hard. “Fine. Don’t come,” I say.

Her eyes narrow. “That’s not the point either,” she says.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

“I want you to stop acting like every disagreement is a problem you can solve by overriding it,” she says.

“I’m not overriding you,” I reply.

“You are right now,” she says.

I laugh once without humor.

“You know what? I genuinely don’t have time for this,” I say.

Blaire goes still. The second the words leave my mouth, I know they were the wrong ones.

She nods once. “Right,” she says.

“Blaire—” I begin.

“No,” she says, reaching for the door.

“Go to Brussels. Handle your meetings. Make whatever decisions you need to make.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I reply.

She turns back toward me.

“You’re being an asshole, Ross,” she says.

The words catch me completely off guard. Before I can answer, she opens the door and walks out. I stare after her until the door closes. Then I pick up the phone from my desk, cancel her travel arrangements and set it down harder than necessary. The office goes quiet again, but nothing in me does.

***

I deliberately stay away from the estate for the next two days. I choose to work from the London office, bury myself in the Brussels issue and keep my schedule full enough that no one has reason to ask why I haven’t been back. By Wednesday morning, I’ve cut the trip down to the essential forty-eight hours and removed everything I’d added for Blaire. There’s no reason to stay longer now.

The meetings in Brussels go exactly as they should. I sit across from people who disagree with me, push back when necessary and move the discussion where it needs to go. None of that bothers me. Conflict has never bothered me.

Blaire does.

Not because she challenged me.

Because she was right about part of it.