Mr. Arrogant: A Billionaire Romance (17 page)

Naomi’s heart pounded in her as her blood began to race. She looked up at the door and saw Jonathon as he walked through it, and at his side, with her arm linked possessively through his, was Susan Grayson. Naomi froze and stared at them, everything in her coming to a halt. She could not think or breathe as she watched from the floor, her fingers curled around the two champagne flutes. The only thing in her that was moving at the rate of a hummingbird, was her heart.

Phillip pushed the microphone back into the stand before them and then turned to face his son and the chubby redhead who was hanging off of him. Naomi felt her stomach tighten nauseatingly.

Jonathon looked at his father and his father narrowed his gaze and lifted his chin. With a sigh and an expression of solemnity, Jonathon turned toward a blissfully happy Susan. She stared up at him with her adoring green eyes, the smile on her face reaching from ear to ear.

He sighed heavily and leaned toward the microphone, and then he pulled a little baby blue box out of his jacket pocket, opened it up, and presented it to her. “Susan Grayson, will you marry me?” he asked in a strained voice.

There was total silence in the room, and Naomi’s mouth fell full open. She could not believe what she was seeing.

Susan reached for the ring and took it, sliding it onto her finger, and then she leaned up and kissed Jonathon full on the lips. She grinned and said a little too loudly, “Yes! Jonathon Cross, I will marry you!"

In the split second after Susan said yes, Naomi could not feel any part of her body, and without realizing it, her grip on the two champagne flutes failed, and both of them fell silently to the marble floor at Naomi’s feet, shattering as champagne sprayed all around her, just as the crowd of people erupted in applause and cheers.

Jonathon heard the sound of the shattering glass in the split second before the chaos of the crowd before them, and he turned sharply to see what had caused the noise. His eyes met with Naomi’s and agony filled them. His heart felt as if it had been ripped out of his chest as he saw the deep pain, confusion, and torment etched across her lovely face. He wanted more than anything to run to her at that moment and comfort her, to tell her that it was all a lie, but he was locked into the place he stood by manipulation and duty; more than anything, duty to her, and she would never know it.

Naomi’s eyes held his for a long moment as the feeling slowly came back in to her body and mind, and a white hot pain shot through every part of her heart, and then stretched out through every fiber in her body. Waiters rushed to her feet to scoop up the shattered champagne glasses and mop up the fallen golden bubbles.

People all around her cheered happily, and somewhere inside of her, a black hole formed; a void so great and cold and strong that it sucked everything in her heart and mind into it slowly, ripping everything in her apart, and she turned away from Jonathon’s green eyes, and blindly stumbled through the crowd, vanishing into an elevator and taking it to the top floor where her office was.

Her office was like a ghost town. Everything was on, and not a soul was there, except for her. She rushed to her desk and began grabbing everything that was hers, shoving it into a box she had been meaning to take to the recycling area. It took almost no time at all to pack it.

When she was finished, barely able to see for the pools of tears in her eyes, she stared at her computer for a moment and then opened her email and printed the message she had gotten from Justin Drake at Jupiter Inc. She shoved it into the box, turned off her computer, and walked back to the elevator with tears streaming down her cheeks and a hole where her heart had once been.

The Final Chapter

Naomi laid in her bed for three days with the phone off. On the third day, Andrea showed up and let herself in with her spare key. She pulled Naomi from the bed where she’d been laying and put her into the shower and then made a hot meal for her.

After two bites, Naomi was done. She sat in her bed in her thick terry cloth robe, staring listlessly into oblivion as Andrea tried to talk to her. “I saw the papers. I guess it’s official. You were right, she does seem like a rotten woman. Honey, I am so sorry. That must have totally taken you by surprise.” Andrea said kindly, patting Naomi’s hand.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Naomi whispered. Andrea handed her a cup of hot tea.

“Here, drink this. You need it. You haven’t been taking care of yourself. Honey, I know you’re hurting, but you can’t just sit here and lose your whole life. Not for him. Not for a man who left you for another woman. He’s not worth it. You listen to me. Are you listening to me?” Andrea reached her hand under Naomi’s chin and lifted it so that Naomi’s empty eyes were facing hers.

“You are worth so much more than this. You are an amazing, talented, incredible woman, and just because he didn’t see that, doesn’t mean that you are any less important than you were last week. Now don’t you dare give up on yourself or throw away everything that you and your parents worked so hard for. Are you hearing me in there? You get your ass out bed this minute, and you never give that man another thought; not another moment of your life, because you have given him enough already, and he doesn’t deserve any more than he’s already gotten. No. You get up and you focus on yourself, and you make yourself your own priority again.

"You did it all of your life until he pulled you off the tracks, and distracted you. Now you let all of that go; there is no sense holding on to it. You let it go, you get up, and you change your life starting right this very second.” Andrea ordered her firmly.

Naomi blinked. Some of Andrea’s words were filtering through to places in her brain and heart that had been strongholds before Jonathon had taken over every one of her senses. The words were touching places that her parents had always touched, and where their memory lived even in death.

“How?” she whispered faintly, trying to focus on her friend’s eyes and the meaning behind what she was pulling Naomi out of the black hole with.

Andrea saw that there was some slight progress, and she grabbed on tight to it and pulled harder. “You get up and take a step at a time. One step at a time. You can do that. You have the strength to do that; I know you do, I’ve seen you do it. Just like you did when you lost your parents… one step at a time, and then before you know it, one step becomes three steps, and then three steps becomes several feet, and in no time, those feet become miles, and you never have to look back. You never have to carry any of this pain and heartache with you. You just let it go and you look forward and you move on.”

“One step?” Naomi asked with a little more volume to her voice.

Andrea nodded. “One step. Get out of bed.”

Andrea stood up off of the edge of the bed and reached her hand out to Naomi, and Naomi took it and sighed and pushed herself up from her nest of darkness.

“One more step.” Andrea said, looking at her intently, “You go to the living room and get out of here, because I know you’ve been in here since you left your office.”

Naomi walked silently to the living room and sat on the couch. Andrea followed her and sat near her.

“Next step.” Andrea said, looking at her seriously. “You need another job.”

Naomi nodded, and somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she remembered the email that she had printed off. “There’s an email… in the box from my office…” she said quietly, looking around the room. She didn’t remember coming home from the office. She didn’t remember where she put the box.

She didn’t remember anything after she walked out of the crowded foyer with her box in her arms, leaving her job while everyone behind her toasted the happy couple with champagne and congratulations. There was nothing but a dark void of time following that moment, and she had no idea what had happened between then and the moment Andrea walked into her bedroom.

Andrea was up and walking through the apartment. She called out from the kitchen. “I found your box.” It was quiet for a moment and then she called out again. “Is it this email from Justin Drake?” she asked hopefully.

Justin Drake. Justin from Jupiter Inc. who had called her and pleaded with her to come and work for him.  A tiny shaft of light moved slowly through the darkness in her heart and mind, and the light illuminated her inside, just a little.

“That’s it.” She answered, her voice a bit stronger. Andrea reappeared in the living room and pressed the email into Naomi’s hand. Naomi stared at it and Andrea pushed a cell phone into her other hand.

“Call him. Right now, next step, you call him. You tell him you want a job.” Andrea told her firmly.

Naomi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She focused on the digits in the email and dialed them on the cell, and then lifted the cell to her ear.

“This is Justin.” Came his voice through the phone.

She blinked. She didn’t know how she was going to have a conversation with him. She didn’t want to talk about anything to do with Cross Corp.

“Hello?” he asked in the long silence.

“Justin?” she spoke just above a whisper.

“Yes, this is Justin.” He answered her.

“Hi. This is Naomi Bradshaw.” She said quietly.

She heard him chuckle in happiness as he realized who was on the other end of the line. “Well! Naomi! What a great surprise! I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to hear from you. You seemed adamant about staying where you were. I hope you are calling to tell me that you will come to work here with us. Is that the good news that you’re going to share with me today?” he asked lightly. She could hear the hopeful grin on his face.

“Yes, actually. I was calling about coming to work for you.” She said with a little more strength in her voice as her heart began to beat again slowly; one barely detectable beat at a time.

“Wonderful! When can you come in? I am open tomorrow morning to get you started and show you the ropes if you are interested. How about that? Does tomorrow work for you?” he asked anxiously.

The beats in her heart began to move a little faster, and it felt like life was pumping through her body and soul again. “Yes, tomorrow works fine. I appreciate that. I’ll see you at nine.” She told him as she looked up at Andrea’s smiling eyes.

“That’s the best news I’ve gotten all day. I am looking forward to seeing you then!” he told her with another light laugh. “Thank you, Naomi! You have a good afternoon.”

She nodded her head slightly. “Yes, you do the same.” She answered and then she ended the call and looked at Andrea, blinking in surprise. “I just got another job.” She sighed looked around a little. Her heart almost stopped as her eyes grew wide with realization.

“Harold! I haven’t fed Harold!” panic shot through her and Andrea reached a hand out to her and patted her shoulder.

“He’s fine. He still had a little food in his feeder bowl. I filled it back up for him and he’s just fine. Cats are resilient; like people. So, you got a job and you start in the morning? Is that what I heard you say?” Andrea looked at her encouragingly.

Naomi nodded and set the phone and the email on the coffee table. “Yeah, he wants me to start in the morning. I have no idea how I’m going to do that.”

Andrea stood up and reached her hand out to her friend. “You’re going to do it one step at a time. Come on. Let’s go find an outfit for your first day at your new job.”

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.