Because This Is Forever (3 page)

Mia
laughed. “My mother just had me and my sister and she would say the same
thing.”

“Hmm,
then we might be looking at your little girl. I grew up with three older
brothers and I sometimes wonder if my fourth child would have been a girl. But
I’m not willing to take the chance of having to raise another little monster.”

They
both laughed.

“Do
you have any names picked out yet?” Dr. Ellis asked.

Mia
nodded, a soft smile on her lips. She spent years thinking of her future family
and had baby names picked out as far back as she could remember. “If it’s a
girl, I was thinking of
My-ee-ah
but
spelled M-A-I-A. That’s the name my mother originally wanted for me but
supposedly the nurses got it wrong on the birth certificate.”

“Maia?”
Dr. Ellis repeated, testing out the name. “Very pretty. And if it’s a boy?”

A boy
that looked like Nate? Her heart lurched at the thought.

“I
always liked the name Michael,” she whispered dreamily, already imagining a soft
creamy brown faced baby boy with dark wavy hair. Or would it be curly? Mia
shook her head, laughing at herself. Those little details didn’t matter. She
just couldn’t wait to hold her baby in her arms.

Chapter Three

It was
finally Friday and Mia was grateful the long, hellish week was coming to an
end. It had been her most frustrating, draining week by far. The past few days
she had found it hard to concentrate, even on the simplest of tasks, and making
the most ridiculous mistakes, which Charles McArthur was not shy about pointing
out to her. She nearly ruined his international travel plans for next week. There
was an important summit happening in Belgium next week and he was supposed to
arrive there next Tuesday. Instead, his flight itinerary had read he would be
arriving in Chicago that day.

Mia was
grateful the travel agency had called to confirm, which had given her plenty of
time to fix her colossal screw-up. In the two years she’d worked for Charles, she’d
made it a point to be extremely careful around him. He was a shrewd man who demanded
excellence and Mia tried to meet his expectations.

It didn’t
help, though, that her boss reminded her regularly of Nate. Just working with
him, having to look at him every day, made her heart twist. Charles’ features
were older, more mature, and his dark hair was peppered with grays, but the
resemblance between him and his son was unmistakable. Only Nate’s eyes were
less shrewd and his jaw less blunt. That, however, didn’t excuse her
carelessness and Mia wasn’t surprised when an impatient Charles eventually
voiced his irritation.

“Mia,
what happened to my four o’clock?” he asked, hovering above her as she stared
into her computer monitor. “I asked you to set that up two days ago.”

Mia
scanned over her calendar, which toggled his, searching for the meeting she
could have sworn she’d set up the night before. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “It
should be here…”

“Well,
it’s not or else I wouldn’t be asking. Now did you schedule it or not?”

“I-I
can’t seem to find it,” she replied helplessly. Then she found it and the
breath was wrenched out of her chest. She had scheduled the meeting for the
following Friday. This was the third time this week she’d misscheduled
something. Only those other meetings hadn’t been quite so urgent. If Charles’
patience with her hadn’t already reached the breaking point, it would now.

“Mr.
McArthur, I’m sorry but I just realized I have it scheduled for next Friday.
I’ll send out a new invite now.” Though it would be a challenge getting anyone
to a meeting a couple of hours before it was supposed to begin.

Charles
let out a heavy sigh, his lips pressed firmly together. “This meeting is very
urgent, and I need to have it today.”

“Yes,
of course. I’ll start calling everyone on the list now.”

Unfortunately,
Mia hit a roadblock. They were either not available, had other urgent meetings that
conflicted, or had already left the office for the day. She called up other
executive assistants and there was no room on anyone’s schedule to work around.
Even Charles’ calendar was booked until six that evening.

If he
expected her to pull a miracle, he was in for a disappointment. The earliest
she could get his meeting scheduled was first thing Monday morning. Something
he would not be happy about.

She
stood in his office explaining that to him but, by the end, Mia couldn’t muster
the energy she needed to care. Getting coffee, scheduling meetings, and booking
travel were trivial compared to the issues swarming in her mind as of late.

“I
invited my son to this meeting,” Charles said, displeasure evident on his
weathered face, “but seeing as it’s not going to happen, you’ll need to call and
tell him it’s been rescheduled.”

Mia
froze as the bottom dropped in her stomach. She didn’t want to call Nate. She
didn’t think she could force professional indifference in her tone. Not when
she missed him so much.

But
she didn’t need to.

To
both their surprise, Nate walked into his father’s office just as she was
thinking of an excuse to give Charles for the reason she would not be able to
make the call.

She
turned at the sound of his confident steps as he strode into his father’s
office. They stared at each other and at that moment she forgot all about her
boss.

Nate came
to a sudden stop but his expression softened as he stared down at her. Her
heart tingled and she exhaled, her lips parted slightly. He always looked good
in a suit. Seeing him again made her acutely aware of how much she still loved and
missed him. She wanted to go to him but held back. Not because of their one-man
audience, but because she wanted him to come to
her
.

Pride
was a traitorous snake. Even as it offered a small sense of righteous comfort, it
camouflaged true desires and wants only to later strike the heart with
poisonous despair and loneliness.

 
It was easier to uphold that pride when she
wasn’t steps away from him. He started toward her, his eyes bright and intense.
She inhaled sharply. But before he could reach her, Charles’ hard tone stopped
him.

“Nathan,
you’re early.”

Nate held
her gaze for a moment longer before he turned to his father. “I thought you’d
appreciate that.”

Charles
looked from her to his son then back at her. His hard stare bore into hers and
she had to glance away. Was she wearing her heart on her sleeve? Could Charles
see? She hoped not.

“There’s
been a slip-up so the meeting’s been rescheduled,” Charles said curtly. “But
since you’re here, I might as well debrief you. Mia, be sure to add Nate to the
meeting on Monday.”

She
couldn’t yet find her voice so she nodded, not looking at either man. It was
vain of her, but she suddenly wished she had worn something more alluring than the
plain black skirt and light pink top. She jotted down the reminder in her
notepad just to keep her fingers busy but couldn’t even read what she wrote.

“I
also want you to send out a memo to everyone on the meeting.” Charles gave her
the message and Mia tried her best to capture the essentials but she could
barely concentrate. Nate’s eyes hadn’t moved away from her. Even as she jotted
her notes down, she could feel them on her.

“Did
you get all that?” Charles asked, breaking the invisible chain that kept her attention
wholly bound to Nate’s very presence.

Mia
nodded.

Charles
regarded her intensely. “Then repeat back what I just said.”

Mia’s
mind went blank. Humiliated by his request, she looked down at her notepad, trying
to make sense of her writing.

“She’s
got it,” Nate cut in, his tone hard. “Now let her get back to work.”

Mia
glanced over at him, surprised but grateful to him for coming to her defense.
She was used to Charles’ condescending barbs, and any other time she could have
handled it, but not today. Not in front of Nate.

Charles
shot his son a hard glare then let out a sigh heavy with exasperation. “Just
make sure the meeting is on everyone’s calendar and the memo goes out tonight,”
he said to her.

Mia
cleared her throat. “Yes, of course.” She turned to leave. Nate’s eyes followed
her every step toward the door. Those few steps felt never-ending but
eventually she was out of her boss’ office—and away from those piercing eyes.
She sat at her desk and tried to ease the trembling in her stomach.

It
took a few minutes but the quivering eventually passed. She glanced at Charles’
closed door. She didn’t want to miss Nate leaving but she was called away from
her desk and when she returned, she found Charles’ office door open and both
men gone. Her shoulders slumped and she went back to her desk, trying to overcome
her budding disappointment.

But
her disappointment swiftly turned into alarm when she received a call from human
resources. They needed to meet with her right away. Mia took a steadying breath
that did nothing to relieve her anxiety.

This can’t be good.

And it
wasn’t.

At five
o’clock that Friday, she was fired from McArthur, Murphy and Company.
 

* * * *

“Mia,
how could you let this happen?”

Mia
held on to her patience as she sat beside her mother on the worn leather couch.
With her feet tucked beneath her, she listened half-heartedly to her mother’s
words, wondering if she made the right decision by coming to Detroit this
weekend.

I can’t help that Charles McArthur is a bastard
, she wanted to inform her mother. The disgraceful
manner in which Charles had her terminated made her want to cry, punch, and
vomit all at the same time. He hadn’t even had the decency to fire her himself.
It was his company. If he didn’t want her, he could have at least told her
himself and spared her the humiliation of hearing from HR that her inability to
fulfill her job requirements were not measuring up to the company’s
expectations. If their expectations were machine-like perfection then she
certainly didn’t fit in.

“Mama,
I’ll find something else,” Mia said, realizing she wouldn’t get the comfort or
backing she had hoped to get from her mother. Yvette Trent was too busy
lecturing her on life and responsibility. “MMC is not the only company in
Chicago and I’m sure I’ll find something better. A place that respects and cares
about their employees.”

Her
mother huffed. “What have I always told you, huh? When you work for other
people, they don’t care about your problems or your feelings. They’re running a
business and you need to show them that you mean business.”

Mia
sighed. She wouldn’t argue with her mother because no matter what she said, her
mother would never understand. She believed working to support herself and her family
was the most important thing in life. Though her mother hadn’t argued with her
decision to go to law school, she would have preferred it if Mia had used her
political science degree to find a steady job with a lucrative retirement
package and savings plan.

“So
what are you gonna do now?” her mother asked. “Have you started looking for
work?”

“Well,
I was fired yesterday,” Mia said, unable to keep the exasperation from her
voice. “So, no.” Then she glanced away and stared down at her hands. “But they
offered me a severance package,” she lied. “So I can afford to take a few days
off.”

Lying
wasn’t something Mia liked doing but she didn’t want her mother to worry.
Yvette wasn’t making much from the health clinic where she worked but she would
still feel compelled to lend her financial support.

“Why
do you need time off?” her mother asked, incredulously. “You’ll have plenty of that
if you don’t start looking right now. A job isn’t gonna just land on your lap,”
she added, breaking into a fit of coughing.

Mia
looked over at her mother with concern. “Mama, that cough doesn’t sound good.
Have you been to the doctor?”

“It’s
nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just a little phlegm. Don’t worry about
me.”

But
Mia was worried. It had been three years since her mother had been diagnosed
with the rare lung disease, what the doctors termed pulmonary sarcoidosis. It
hadn’t been fair since her mother hadn’t even been a smoker, but the doctors
had stated there wasn’t a known cause for that type of lung disease. Unfortunately
her mother’s case had also been one of the rare severe ones, but she had
successfully completed her therapy and the disease had gone into remission. But
Mia worried every time had the slightest cough. She had done her own research and
had found that there was no real cure or treatment for the lung disease. It
could either stay in remission or flare back up at any moment. Mia made a
mental note to get her mother a doctor’s appointment. She didn’t want to have
to worry about her too.

“Don’t
look at me like that,” her mother said. “I’m fine. What I’m more concerned
about is you in that city, by yourself, without a job.”

Mia
shifted on the couch, drawing her legs closer to her. “Please don’t worry about
that, Mama” she countered. “It was for the best.”

Mia had
to believe that or let the thought of her sudden unemployment overwhelm her. Some
time off would help ease her mind of all her recent stressors as of late, she
repeated to herself. She would find something. She just had to stay positive.
Before she embarked on the dreaded job search, however, she wanted to break the
news to her mother—in person—that she would soon be a grandmother. She imagined
her mother’s disappointment but soon it wouldn’t be something she could hide.
Even now she was struggling to calm her queasy belly.

By
dinner, it was getting harder for her to hide her nausea. And every time her
stomach churned she thought of Nate. She had half expected to hear from him
after yesterday, hoping he would reach out to her, but nothing. Her heart broke
a little bit more with each passing day. She wondered if she had imagined the
longing she read in his eyes when they’d been in his father’s office.

She
didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity though. She had to come to terms with
the fact Nate wouldn’t be holding her hand at doctor appointments. She wasn’t
going to get the husband, the house, or the white picket fence. The sooner she
accepted that, the better off she’d be.