She answered with a smile. "This is Naomi, how may I help you?"
His deep voice sounded in her ear. "Good afternoon, Naomi. This is Phillip Cross. I'd like to speak with my son immediately. Please send him into my office right away."
Biting her lip, her heart catching slightly in her chest, she lifted her chin and answered him. "I will do that, Mr. Cross."
"Thank you." He said shortly, and then he hung up the line,
She sighed and sent a fast email to Jonathon, informing him of his father's request. He responded right away that he would go, and to clear his schedule for at least the following hour. Naomi knew that the two of them had not talked about the announcement in the newspaper and that the conversation between Jonathon and his father about that situation was about to happen. Drawing in her breath and letting it out slowly, she returned to her work, glad that she wasn't involved in the meeting in any way.
Jonathon walked into his father's office and closed the door behind him. He gritted his teeth slightly and walked toward his father's luxurious desk, taking a seat across from him in a thickly stuffed leather chair.
His father looked up at him finally and sighed, slowly laying his pen down on the top of his desk, and folding his fingers together as he contemplated his son.
"You lied to me." He stated flatly, his eyes piercing his son's.
"I'm not sure what you think I lied to you about, but there's something else that you and I need to discuss. You've caused quite a big problem for me, and I have to tell you, I really don't appreciate it." Jonathon returned, his back straight and his chin lifted.
Phillip leveled his gaze at his son. He acted as though he had not heard a word of what his son said to him. "I asked you if you were sleeping with that new girl of yours and you told me that you weren't."
Jonathon sighed and looked away from his father. "Are we really back to this?" he asked impatiently, furrowing his brow.
"We are back to this because you lied to me, and because the fact that you are screwing yet another one of the women you hired. Those indiscretions of yours have come to an end, and I mean today!" Phillip said to him sharply.
Jonathon took a deep breath. "Okay, fine. It's true, Naomi and I have begun an affair, but she means more to me than any of the other women I've had. She's not just a fling, father, and I fully intend to keep seeing her and being with her. I care a great deal about her."
Phillip stared solemnly at his son and shook his head. "You will not see her again, and in fact, she is going to be moved to another department, so you won't see her at all, anyway. I will make sure of that." His father leaned forward and looked at him squarely.
"You are going to marry Susan Grayson." Phillip said calmly.
Jonathon's eyes flashed dark with anger and he leaned forward toward his father. "That's the other thing we need to talk about. I saw that announcement in the newspaper. How dare you publish something like that! I'm not in love with her, I'm not engaged to her, I'm not going to date her, and I'm sure as hell never going to marry her! I've had days of damage control to clean up since you published that! I can't believe you did that! What on earth did you do that for?" he shot at his father, grinding his teeth when the words stopped coming but the emotion was still fierce in him.
His father sat back a little and looked as if he might be humoring an errant boy. "I'm glad that you saw the announcement. Perhaps that will show you just how serious this is. That, and what I'm about to tell you."
He rested his back against the back of the cushioned chair and smiled subtly at his son, speaking in a calm voice. "You are going to give Susan an engagement ring today. She has already chosen it." He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and lifted a ring box from the drawer. He flipped the lid back and exposed a massive diamond engagement ring inside it. Then he reached forward and set the little baby blue box on the desk before his son.
"You will give that ring to her today, and you will ask her to marry you. Then you will set a date for the wedding within the next three months, and then you will never see that secretary of yours again. She will be working for another department by morning. If you ever attempt to see her, and believe me when I say that I am watching the two of you closely, I will fire her and make certain that she is unable to find a job in this city again. If you care about her at all, you will not jeopardize her future with your own sinful lust. You will do all of this exactly as I have said, or you will lose your inheritance, and I do mean all of it. Everything will be gone, including your job at this company, and you will be left without a cent." His father looked enormously pleased with himself, as if he had thought and planned so meticulously that he had covered every base and there was no way that Jonathon could get out of it.
Jonathon stared at him in horror. "You can't be serious." He said in a strained voice. Fury, confusion, frustration, disbelief, and panic were raging through every part of him as he tried to wrap his head around everything that his father had told him.
His father leaned far forward and locked his eyes on Jonathon's. "I could not be more serious."
Jonathon glared hotly at his father, his brows low and tight, his lips thin, and his voice as sharp as a razor. "You will not force me to marry her! I don't want her! How dare you try to do something like this to me!"
Phillip didn't flinch. "I am securing your future. As your father it is my duty to make sure that you don't make foolish decisions, and I promise you that every word of what I said to you is absolutely serious. I won't see you throw your future or the future of this company away. You will marry Susan, and you will never see Naomi again, or I will personally wreck Naomi's entire career and future, and you will be left with nothing! Do you understand me? I am doing this for your own good!"
Jonathon jumped to his feet and slammed both of his fists down on his father's desk. "You will not force me to do this! I am not some puppet that you can control! It will not happen!"
His father rose to his full height, standing a few inches taller than his son. He met his son's stance and glare and his voice grew thunderous. "You will do it, and you will do it today, or I will disinherit you today, fire you immediately, and destroy Naomi's whole life before this afternoon is over! You are the only one who can stop that from happening. You are the one who gets to make the choice. You will do as I have told you to do, or you will suffer the harshest and most immediate consequences and you will not suffer them alone!"
Jonathon's heart nearly stopped in his chest as he stared into his father's eyes. He knew that the old man was as serious as he had ever seen him. He knew that there was no way out of it for him. He could not be disinherited or lose his home, but he discovered in the furthest reaches of his heart that he could not bear to cost Naomi the rest of her life.
They had talked so many times about her parents and what her parents had sacrificed to give her the life that she had. He had admired them tremendously for doing what they had for her. He had admired her for all the hard work she had done over the years to get where she was. He had not had to work for anything, and the sacrifices that she made and that were made for her were not lost on him.
They were all the more precious to him because he hadn't worked for anything, it had all been handed to him, and he knew the difference. There was no pride in his own accomplishment of position in life, there was only a sense of right and entitlement that he didn't like, but that he knew came with the silver spoon that had been in his mouth since the beginning.
He realized as he stood there before his father that he was going to have to make a choice on the spot and that the choice he made was going to affect many lives, and that the most important of those lives, at least to him, was Naomi's. He knew his father was serious about firing him and disinheriting him. He had some money put away, and he would be able to live out his own life in a much more humble manner, and perhaps he might even be able to start his own company if his father didn't destroy every connection he needed to do it. But he could not risk his father destroying what Naomi and her parents had worked so tirelessly for all of their lives. The gift of it was precious and fine; delicate and beautiful, and it could not be tossed away because of him.
He would not cost her everything in her life just for the chance to have her, and he didn't know if she would even want to be with him, once she found out that his choice to keep her had cost her everything.
He was trapped and there was no way around it. His father had been so prepared that Jonathon was facing a checkmate. There was no way around it.