"Sure, that sounds great. Just go ahead and come in tomorrow. We'll see you then." And then he thought of something and called out her name. It was the first time he'd said it. "Naomi!" he called out.
She turned and glanced over her shoulder, not really looking right at him, but rather, looking somewhere near him.
"I just … . wondered … . How was your first day?" he asked in an awkward attempt to make light conversation with her.
She was not impressed. He was trying to chat with her. She was resolute. She was not going to chat with him like he was a friend, like he was a confidant. Like he was a lover she could share anything with. "It was fine," she replied shortly. "I'll see you tomorrow." She disappeared, closing the door behind her and as it shut, he stared at the closed door with his mouth hanging slightly agape.
He knew it then. She didn't like him. He was dumbfounded. He wondered how in the world she could not like him before she had ever met him and didn't know him. It was her first time meeting him on her first day and she didn't like him. He hadn't even had time to offend her yet. It was completely astounding to him.
The result of it was that he could not manage to get her off his mind for the remainder of the night. Thoughts of her kept creeping into his mind. Thoughts of the way she had been short with him without actually being rude, and the way she had been not quite disdainful, but more indifferent with him.
She was not impressed at all with his looks or his title or his money, or power, or even with the fact that he was her boss. Nothing about him seemed to hold any significance for her and it was a totally foreign experience for him. He'd never been treated with indifference before in his life.
He made up his mind that he would pour on a little more charm on the next day. The same charm that he used with the other ladies in the office, except he would really play it up and then she would like him; that woman with the full lips and the dark skin and the blue eyes, that woman in a pinstripe suit and skirt with the long shapely legs. She would like him. He wouldn't quit until she did. Just like all the rest.
Naomi went home a little nerve wracked but happy. She had been hired at the job that she wanted and she had made it through her first day there, despite the fact that she had been hired to be Jonathon Cross's administrative assistant. She could not wrap her mind around it in the least and the more she thought of it, the more she thought of him, and the more annoyed she grew.
She couldn't believe she had given him a double take when he walked into the room. He didn't deserve that. Sure, he was handsome. One of the most handsome men she had ever seen, but that meant nothing to her. She was all about business, and he wasn't, and she was going to make it clear to him that it was going to be strictly business and nothing else between them, whatsoever.
She made up her mind that she was going to show him just how a professional woman acted in an office, and she wasn't going to put up with any of his advances or flirts or even his beautiful looks and soft voice. There would be only business between them. She would make certain of that.
Naomi went to bed enormously bothered and irritated, and had a fitful sleep that night; tossing and turning, dreaming and arguing and fighting in her dream. She awoke in the morning and told herself that she was going to be calling the shots between the two of them.
She was at her desk when he strolled into the office the next day, and he was surprised at her punctuality. She was already working when he walked up to her desk to tell her good morning.
He wore a button down shirt the same color as his deep emerald eyes, knowing that they would be complemented by it. He'd paired it with a dark blazer, and he knew that would make his black hair stand out a bit as well. It was carefully styled to perfection. He knew that he looked as if he had just stepped off the cover of a magazine.
Jonathon had made a point of walking through the cubicles in the main open office area, just to reassure himself that he was looking good, and just as he had thought, nearly every woman there was staring at him, admiring him, smiling at him. By the time he reached his office he was feeling enormously confident.
He smiled down at her, making sure to face his right cheek to her so his dimple showed. "Good morning … ." he said with a charming manner.
She didn't respond right away. Instead, she gathered up a few small pieces of paper from her desk and handed them to him, almost without even looking into his eyes. "You have some messages this morning. There's a meeting with your father in half an hour, and you need to sign the paperwork that I filled out yesterday as your new hire." She reached her hand out to him, thrusting the papers in his direction without even barely looking at him. He was completely miffed. He furrowed his brows slightly and pursed his lips. There had to be a way to get beneath that cool exterior.
"You look nice today," he told her with his dimpled smile, looking down at her body and admiring the sweater dress and knee high boots that she was wearing. She didn't respond, instead, she picked up the phone and began to make a phone call.
He stared at her incredulously as he tried to comprehend the strangest woman he had ever met. The caller she was trying to reach on the telephone was not around, it seemed and she hung up the phone.
He was still standing there. He lifted his chin a little and looked down his nose slightly at her. "Get me a cup of coffee when you get a chance. Fresh, with two creamers and about eight or nine packages of sweetener." Jonathon took one step to turn away and she stood up and faced him. He turned back toward her slightly, believing that she was unable to resist him.
"You have an email that needs your attention right away, and the coffee is in the break room. I'm not a secretary. I'm your administrative assistant. I don't handle coffee. I'm here to help you with your work, to lighten your load, to handle the small details and big work projects for you. You'll have to get a proper secretary if you think for a moment that you might want anyone to get you coffee, because that is not why I went to an Ivy League college." She turned her back on him and tried to forget the way his shirt made his eyes stand out, the way he had leaned so close to her on her desk, and the way that his voice sounded like melting honey.
He stared at her. "You aren't going to get me coffee?"
She looked up at him and her bright blue eyes were searing. "I'm not going to get you coffee. I have work to do. I'm sure that you can find the break room." She was doing it. She was being assertive with him, and she liked it. It made her feel like she wasn't quite so far beneath him, and that she wasn't quite in the grasp of his power; his charming allure and magnetic draw.
Jonathon blinked and stared for a moment. "Um … okay. That actually is part of what I expect from someone in your position. We might not have had an Ivy Leaguer in here before, though."
She turned away from him and picked up the phone to make a call. He knew that their talk was over and he was dumbfounded again that she could be so casual and nonchalant around him; that she could speak to him with no hesitation, like she was immune to him. No one was immune to him; they either loved him or they hated him, but no one was immune to him at all.
Naomi stood up and walked past him toward the copy machine and printer where she had just printed out a few things. As she walked past him, a wave of her perfume enveloped him and he breathed it in and closed his eyes for just a moment. Then he turned and watched her walk away, admiring everything about the sweater dress that she was wearing, and the way that it clung to her like a lover, showing off every curve and line like a second skin. He swallowed.
His father's words returned to his thoughts and he remembered that his job had been on the line. Closing his eyes, he pushed her from his thoughts and headed to the break room to go make himself a cup of coffee. She was a confounding woman; confounding and exasperating.
The two of them continued on in this same manner as each day passed for her first week. He would ask her for coffee each day, and she would tell him no, that it wasn't her job. He got so frustrated with her that he started calling her Ivy League behind her back. She was so frustrated with him that she went out of her way not to give him even an inch of approval in anything that he did.
She determined that if he wanted her respect, he was going to have to earn it, and he began to see that and feel it in the way that she treated him. She wasn't unfair to him, but she wasn't going to let him just have anything he wanted, either.
Two weeks into their new employer and employee relationship, Phillip showed up at Naomi's desk and when she saw him walking toward her, she knew right away who he had to be. His son was a younger more handsome carbon copy of him.