She gave him a light smile and a nod. "Hello, you must be Mr. Cross." She said briefly and politely.
He smiled back at her. "I am indeed, and you are?" he asked with interest.
She extended her hand to him and he took it in a firm shake. "I'm Naomi Bradshaw," she answered in a professional and friendly way. He nodded.
"It's good to meet you, Miss Bradshaw." He looked toward his son's closed door. "I don't suppose that Jonathon is in his office, is he?"
Naomi shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, he left a little while ago. It's just me until after lunch."
He nodded. "Do me a favor please; put me down in his calendar for an appointment this afternoon. I'd like him to come to my office when he gets a chance."
She agreed and wrote the appointment into Jonathon's book. "You are all set, Sir. I'll send him over as soon as he returns."
He nodded at her and thanked her and then disappeared back down the hallway.
She smiled to herself, thinking about how similar to and how different from one another they both were.
When Jonathon came back to the office that afternoon, she informed him of his meeting with his father and he pursed his lips together and left her, heading upstairs to the old man's office.
Phillip Cross smiled when his son walked in the door that afternoon. "Hello! It's a lovely day, isn't it? How are you doing?" he smiled brightly, and Jonathon knew that there was something up his father's sleeve.
"Good afternoon, father. What can I do for you today?" Jonathon asked pensively. He never regarded it as a good sign when his father called him in for a meeting. Sometimes it was business, but more often than not, it was to discuss personal matters with him.
"Well, son, I went down to your office today to speak with you and I met your new administrative assistant. She's a lovely young woman." He said it almost with a cautious tone.
Jonathon sighed. "Yes, she's great. What can I do for you?" he repeated.
Phillip looked at him with his keen eyes and penetrating gaze. "I wondered just how well things were going between the two of you. She's a beautiful woman."
Knowing where the conversation was headed, Jonathon decided to cut it off right where they were. "I suppose so. More importantly, she is a good worker. She's efficient and helpful, and that's exactly what I need."
"Son, I want you to be honest with me. Have you had any illicit interactions with her as of yet?" Phillip asked, his eyes boring into his son's.
Jonathon had tried not to think about it, but his thoughts had strayed more than once to the swell of her lips, the curves of her body, the scent on her skin that intoxicated him with breathless intrigue when she was close to him, but he wasn't about to admit it to his father.
"No. There hasn't been anything between us at all. Nothing whatsoever, and there is less than no chance that it will happen, so please let that go." Jonathon had begun to realize that there was nothing he was going to be able to say or do that was going to turn Naomi's head, not that he wanted to, but it had begun to bother him tremendously that she was absolutely unaffected by him in any way. It was an anomaly in his life that there could be a woman who did not want him like she didn't. He had never had it happen before and it was utterly strange to him.
His father looked at him humorously. "Is that so? Well, I just wanted to remind you of our previous discussion on the matter."
Jonathon sighed loudly in frustration and pushed himself up out of the chair in front of his father's desk. "It's not going to happen, okay? She doesn't like me, so even if I did want it to happen, which I don't, it still wouldn't happen anyway! She is an amazing worker; she is extremely punctual, she's tidy, she's detail oriented … she's responsible and smart and she actually has a good sense of humor … with other people. Everyone else in the office just seems to love her and get along with her really well." He said with a hint of dejection.
Phillip watched him quietly as his son paced around the room, shoving his hands down into the depths of his pockets. He rubbed his finger over his chin and said nothing; letting his son do all of the talking.
"She is actually a really great woman. I'm quite impressed with her. She's just … got a wall up with me," he finished in a low tone.
His father grinned and chuckled slightly, shaking his head. "Well, well. I'm so glad to hear it."
Jonathon frowned at his father. "Why are you glad?" he asked in frustration.
Phillip stood up and began to walk toward the door in his office. "Because that's exactly the relationship you should have with her. That's a professional relationship and an appropriate one. You've finally gotten it right, and gotten the right woman helping you make your business work. You're on your way and I'm so glad to hear it."
He reached for the door handle and opened the door, looking expectantly at Jonathon. His son sighed and looked away from him for a moment and then taking a deep breath, walked through the door and out of it, paying no attention to his father at all.
It might be the best thing, at least according to his father, and it was true that he was getting more work done in the office, but he was constantly thinking about her, and that part of their business relationship was driving him crazy. It was the thoughts of her that crept into his mind at unwanted moments that was pushing him to distraction.
Every time he found himself with any kind of an idle moment, she was there in his mind. When he was busy and trying to focus on any number of things, thoughts of her were there, when he was trying to fall asleep at night, when he awoke in the morning, when he tried his best to push thoughts of her out of his mind and ignore her, she was there, and it seemed like there was truly nothing that he could do to keep her out. She had gotten under his skin, and nothing he did was getting rid of her. She didn't like him, and it seemed like no matter what he did, she was never going to like him, and that bothered him more than anything else. That was what had driven her under his skin and into his mind.
Chapter3
Naomi had found a semi-workable way to be around Jonathon, but it was becoming a little more difficult almost every day. She had stuck to her guns about not giving him any respect that he didn't earn, and she had disallowed herself to give him any kind of leeway or extra grace when it came to him interacting with her.
His looks, which had gotten him far with everyone else, had gotten him exactly nowhere with her. His cool, standoffish, arrogant, egotistical demeanor, which had intimidated countless others, had no effect on her whatsoever. So that was what she showed him, and though he had tried everything that he could think of to make her like him, all of his charms and sweet talking had done nothing to get him any closer to her, and she knew it, and he knew it, though neither one of them said anything about it.
Two months after she had started working for him, they had developed a workable though somewhat twisted relationship. She did what he needed to have done without really connecting with him beyond a professional level; at least, that was what she showed him on the outside, but what she saw on the inside was something that had begun to touch her heart every single day.
He was fallible. He had weaknesses that showed through his facades of bravado and she began to see that the wall of arrogance that he showed to so many others was almost transparent to those who might choose to take a few moments and really look at it. He wasn't nearly as shallow and vain or egotistical as she had originally believed him to be, but he didn't let anyone see that in him, either.
His walls of ego and attitude, his arrogance and defiance were defense mechanisms, and they kept people away; even all the women who wanted him were kept away, only allowed to be physically close to him, but never close to his heart, at least, not close enough to hurt him. Two months in, she had begun to feel protective of him, and it amazed her that she could feel anything for him, most especially protectiveness.
He came to her one morning and stood a slight distance from her desk, his eyes on hers rather than on her body. His voice was quiet and respectful. "Good morning, Naomi." He greeted her with a pleasant smile.
She looked up at him with a smile and her eyes did to his insides what her eyes always did to his insides; it was like a huge hook that caught him somewhere in his torso, between his stomach and his heart, and the hook caught him hard and yanked the inside of him. He took a deep breath and tried to focus.
"We need to go out of town on a business trip." He set a folder down on her desk and she opened it and glanced over the papers inside, and then looked back up at him expectantly.
"We're both going?" she asked in surprise. Her first thought was that he was going to try to seduce her while they were out of town, but then some kind of common sense pulled her attention away from those thoughts and she felt like scolding herself for even thinking it.