Naomi looked up at her and took her hand, rising to her feet. "You are the best friend I ever had. Thank you so much for being here for me when I needed you the most."
Andrea hugged her tightly and grinned at her. "That's what good friends do. Now, let's go find something for you to wear tomorrow so you aren't hunting through your closet alone with no direction right before you're supposed to be taking your next step."
Naomi gave her what might have been a small smile, and together they walked back to Naomi's bedroom and spent a long while going through her clothes until they found just the right outfit for her to wear the next day. Andrea stayed for dinner, and Naomi ate with her, finishing most of her meal, and then Andrea hugged her goodbye and made her promise to call the next day after she left her new job.
It took a while that night, but Naomi finally let herself fall asleep and pushed every little thought from her mind, making herself find some peace in the chaos of pain and change.
The next morning she awoke to the fluffy orange cat that had camped out with her for her entire duration of solitude and heartbreak, and he purred as she opened her eyes and reached over to pet him. "You're a good cat, Harold. Thank you." She said to him. He closed his eyes and purred louder.
The sun shone brightly through the curtains and she pushed herself up out of bed and showered, pulling on the clothes that she and Andrea had chosen the day before. She gave herself a semi-cursory glance in the mirror and walked out of the door, one step at a time, just as Andrea had said.
With each step she found a new strength, and by the time she walked through the doors at Jupiter Inc., she felt like she had begun to live again, in more than small ways. There was possibility before her, and it was not small.
Jonathon was sitting at his desk in miserable silence, going through the stack of papers and mail to his side. He pulled a plain envelope off of the top of the stack and ripped it open without even so much as a glance at it. Sliding the paper from inside it, he opened the letter and read it.
To Whom it May Concern,
Effective immediately I am tendering my resignation.
Naomi Bradshaw
Her signature was drawn across the bottom in carefully scripted handwriting. The sight of her name caught him off guard and it ripped open all of the fresh wounds in his heart. He had hated seeing the pain he had caused her when she heard the announcement, and he tried to follow her with his eyes as she disappeared into the crowd, but she had been fast and there was so much commotion that he could not see her. He hated that the last memory of her that he would ever know was the look of total agony in her eyes as she heard him ask Susan to marry him.
By the time he had gotten back up to the office, he discovered that all of her belongings were gone, and there was nothing that he would be able to do about stopping her from going. She would not be in another department. There was less than no chance of her ever happening across his path again, because she was no longer employed at Cross Corp. Seeing her deserted desk had hit him like a wrecking ball and he had sunk into her chair and laid his head on her desk as his chest tightened and he wept at having lost the most precious woman he had ever known.
His phone rang and disturbed him from his reverie. He blinked and drew in a breath, looking over at it and hating it. It seemed like every call that came in for him was no longer about business, and was instead about the wedding, or it was Susan.
He had managed to successfully evade her company by making himself inordinately busy, but he couldn't escape her calls, her constant texts, her emails, and her endless stream of conversation about the wedding. It was all she talked about, and it was the last thing he wanted to even think about. He had told his new assistant, Robert, not to put her calls through more than once a day.
Robert was a far cry from any woman who had worked for him in all of his days at Cross Corp., but following his meltdown at Naomi's desk, he made an immediate decision that he would not hire another woman to be his assistant. No one could replace her. Robert had been working for the company for years and was long overdue for a promotion. Jonathon hired him immediately and Robert was thrilled, and had spent every moment since his promotion giving his best effort.
He reached for his phone and picked it up. It was Susan. He sighed heavily and looked longingly at the open cabinet where the mini bar was fully stocked. Placing her on speakerphone, he set the receiver down and stood up, walking toward the bar while she blathered on about the latest wedding details.
"Jonathon! Darling! I'm so glad to get to talk to you. I know you must be thinking of all the things you want for our special day, but I just wanted to run a few ideas past you before I make some final decisions and purchases. Now, there is a china set that I want, and I know you have your mother's, but really … I've never cared for the design of her china, and I don't want to use it when we host and have dinners, so I'm going to have it put into a hutch in the back corner of the kitchen.
"I know you haven't seen this pattern that I like, but it's really beautiful. There are little green flowers and roses, and it's covered in gold leaf on the handle. It's so pretty. I know you won't mind if I choose this one for our set." She went on and on, and he stood at the bar and poured himself a double scotch.
He stood there, staring at himself in the mirror on the back wall of the bar, thinking that he had never looked worse in his life, and wondering when he was ever going to get a good night's sleep again. He hadn't slept well since the last day he had seen Naomi. Her light blue eyes and sweet sunny smile filled his mind. Her dark curls, her mahogany skin. The curves and lines of her body. The way she smelled like spring blossoms, the way she tasted so good to him. The sound of her laugh. The feel of her in his arms.
He tipped the glass of scotch back and let the old liquor roll over his tongue, warming him on the inside, wishing that he could pour it straight into his heart to ease the pain and melt the ice that had formed all through it. He hadn't felt anything in it at all since the last moment he had seen her before she vanished.
"Also, the crystal must be Lalique, and I have a whole set of that which I've chosen, so don't worry about that. We'll just tuck your mother's crystal into the hutch with her china. It's going to be so beautiful! I can't wait to show it all to you. It's going to be all over the house. I just love the way it looks. I was thinking we could take down a lot of what you and Phillip have up now and just put the Lalique crystal in each room, so there's a continuance … you know, some flow to décor. I think it will be tasteful. I have selected all of my favorite pieces for the house and especially the dining room. There won't be any place in our home without it!" she went on and on, unaware that he was not listening to her.
Jonathon was standing at the bar with his glass of scotch halfway to his mouth, his thoughts drowning him in everything about Naomi. He was reliving a memory of making love to her in a hotel downtown one night; they had gone out to dinner and taken a sunset cruise, and then spent the night in a penthouse suite overlooking the city. They had made love for hours, touching and tasting each other, losing themselves in the electric currents and fire that they felt for one another, and when she had finally fallen asleep in his arms, he had kissed her forehead and watched her as she drifted away peacefully.
It had only been a couple of weeks before the announcement his father forced him into. It was that night, as she lay there in his arms, dreaming happily, snuggled against him, that he realized that there was no place in his heart where she did not reign. The newspapers had it wrong. He knew that night that he had fallen in love with her. It had nearly broken his heart in two when he realized it, lying there beside her, holding her to him, gazing at her in her slumber.
He had kissed her softly on the lips, and whispered to her against their fleshy curve, ‘I love you … ' but she had been dreaming and she hadn't heard him. He didn't know how he would ever tell her and he didn't know how she would feel about it, or react if he did tell her, and he just wasn't willing to risk losing her because of the depth of his feeling. He shook his head at the irony. He had found his queen, but it wasn't the woman who was talking nonstop on his speakerphone.
It was a woman who he had fallen for without realizing it. A woman of strength and beauty, a woman who had grace and determination, a woman who had turned on everything in him, from his mind and soul to his heart and his body, and he had let her go, like the most miserable fool in the world, he had let her go. He knew he had no choice, his father did not make bluffs; his father made promises, and it was more important to him to save her and everything she had always worked so hard for, than to keep her and risk her never speaking to him again for what his father was ready to do to her.