Mr. Arrogant: A Billionaire Romance (9 page)

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Monday morning found her resolved, steeled, her heart broken and cold, and her mind focused with laser beam intensity on the only thing that mattered to her: her work. She was never going to let herself down again.

She was sitting at her desk working when Jonathon came in. He went straight to her, but she barely glanced up at him. “Your messages are on your desk,” she said shortly as she kept her eyes on her monitor.

He was quiet a moment, watching her, surprised at her coolness and the wall that she seemed to have up between them. “I… I wanted to thank you for coming to the event on Saturday. I wish I could have seen you before you left.” His eyes were searching her face for some kind of answer to why she had left early and why she was barely acknowledging him then.

“You’re welcome.” She reached for her phone and began to dial the phone number of one of the other staff members.

He understood that she was busy and that she wasn’t going to take time to talk with him that morning. He nodded and left and when she heard his office door click shut, she closed her eyes and bit her lip, hoping to stem the sting of tears against her eyelids.

She knew it was going to take some time before she was fully able to control her emotions around him, before she could convince herself that she felt nothing for him, but she was determined to make it happen. She was not going to fail herself or her parents again. She was going to reach every dream and goal she had, and the only way to do that was to let go of him entirely.

A few minutes later she saw an email from him. Her heart caught in her throat and she opened it up. The message was short. ‘No Ivy League coffee this morning?’ it read. Since the first morning she had left the coffee and the note on his desk, she had continued to do him the favor of leaving coffee for him as he had once requested.

It was her way of showing him that she cared about him, because he knew full well that someone with her Ivy League education wasn’t about to get coffee for her boss like a secretary. She made the humble change, giving him her friendship instead, and that morning she had stopped herself from doing it.

That morning had been the sea change in her in which she refocused everything in her to stay in tune with her goals. Getting coffee for him that morning would have been an acceptance of what could not be between them; what wasn’t between them, and she wasn’t about to be his fool any longer, whether he knew she was his fool or not.

She was going to be completely businesslike with him, and nothing was going to change that. She was his employee, and nothing more.

She deleted the email and did not respond to it. Instead, she worked on several files and busied herself with advancing projects that she had been working on. Thoughts of him crept into her mind and each time one came to her, she pushed it aside and made herself think only of her work. Her heart ached with the loss and the change, but she would not let herself feel warmth for him again.

Jonathon tried to read through the pages in the file on his desk, but he read the first page more than four times before he realized that he had no idea what was one it. His mind was completely distracted with Naomi, sitting outside of his office door in her office, ignoring him and working on the things she was working on.

He was confused and disappointed when he had discovered that she had left the party early without even so much as a word to him, and then to come in to the office and find her so cool and indifferent toward him. He could not understand what had changed between them, and why she was acting the way that she was, but it bothered him and no amount of trying to ignore it and concentrate on work would make it go away.

They had a meeting that day just before lunch, and when he walked out of his office to get her so that they could go to the meeting together, he found that she was already gone. When he got to the meeting, he saw that she was seated between two other ladies.

He looked hard at her for a moment, willing her to look up at him so that she could move and sit beside him, but she was looking intently at the papers in the file in her hands, and she would not look away from it. He sighed and sat down by himself on the other side of the table.

Jonathon spent the entire meeting glancing at her subtly and wondering what was bothering her, if anything was, and wondering why she was suddenly so distant and cold. His heart ached that she had put up a wall between them out of the blue, and he wanted nothing more than to break it down.

When the meeting ended, he moved quickly to get to the door and as she passed through it, he reached for her arm and pulled her aside. She looked up at him, startled, and drew in a breath. He was too close to her. He was much too close to her for her to be able to concentrate or even breathe; and his eyes bored right into her as if he was looking as deeply as he could, hoping to see right into her mind.

She took a step back and a look of worry flashed in his eyes. He reached for her arm again, and she didn’t wait to find out what he wanted to talk with her about. She turned and left him, rushing quickly toward the main elevators. She had to get away. She had to get some fresh air and some space between them so that she could think and refocus her mind.

Naomi made it to the elevators and pressed the button several times, praying hard that one of them would open up soon for her. It did. The doors of the elevator to her right slid open and she rushed inside.

Just as she turned around she saw that Jonathon was coming up right behind her. Panic flushed through her and she jammed her finger on the button to close the doors, but he dashed into the elevator just as the doors were closing.

He was breathing fast and he looked at her in shock and amazement as she turned away from him. They were alone in the box and the moment the doors closed she felt trapped. She had needed space and air more than anything so that she could breathe, but she was as far from that as she could be, alone with him as she was.

Her heart pounded and she began to feel a little dizzy as the box moved downward. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to cry. She was adamant that she would not cry in front of him. He didn’t need to see her break down like that, especially over him. Biting her lower lip, she kept her head turned from him, and remained silent.

“What’s going on with you? What’s wrong?” he asked as his breath began to come back to him. “You left the party without saying anything at all to me; you just vanished, and now today you are acting so distant! You’re so… removed! No coffee this morning, not that I expect you to get it, but you just… have been… every day, and I guess I got used to it. You took off for the meeting without me, and then you didn’t sit by me when I got there. Not that you have to, you don’t… but, you always do! What’s going on?” he pleaded as he looked at her in desperation. His heart was in a full blown panic.

He could not begin to understand why it was so important to him that she not turn away from him as she had since he walked into the office that day. He could not begin to reason why she was suddenly so cold, but it was more than he could take, and he wasn’t going to let her keep doing it without at least explaining what had changed between them.

Naomi kept her head away and her eyes closed. The tears were there. They were right at the edge of her eyelashes, and it took everything in her to keep them held back. Her heart pounded against her chest and her body felt as though there was a riot going on in her heart to rival the riot going on in her mind.

His hands closed firmly on her shoulders and he turned her toward him. The action surprised her and she gasped and opened her eyes, but as she did, nothing held the tears back and they fell down her cheeks.

He stared at her and shook his head. His voice was soft. “You’re… you’re crying? What… what happened? Why are you…?” he could make no sense of it at all.

She tried to pull herself from his grasp, but there wasn’t much strength in her. “Let me go.” She whispered.

He shook his head. “I can’t let you go! I don’t want to let you go!” he spoke just above a whisper as he pulled her near to him. “Don’t shut me out… whatever is going on with you, please don’t shut me out!” he breathed, staring at her bright blue eyes and watching the tears as they rolled down her cheeks. “Please don’t cry. I can’t see you cry… it hurts me to see it.” He said softly as he reached his hand up to wipe the tears away from her cheeks.

The feel of her skin beneath his fingers bound him almost in a trance. He had wanted to touch her for so long that the moment it happened, it magnetized everything in him and he could not resist his feelings for her any longer.

He wrapped his arms around her fully, pressing her against his chest, and he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her tenderly, feeling the soft fullness of her lips on his. Everything in him sprang to life and he lost himself in her, in their kiss, and in the moment that he had wanted with her for so long.

Naomi could not have been more stunned to find herself in his embrace, pressed against his chest, with his mouth moving gently over hers. She felt like her whole body had gone up in flames and she might melt right where she stood. Her body seemed to react to him without her; her heart pounding, her breath growing shorter, her blood rushing through her like fire, and she let her eyes close as she parted her lips and felt his tongue search for hers.

The air around them warmed just as swiftly as their bodies did, and as he kissed her deeply, his tongue entwined with hers, his lips pressing firmly over her lips, everything in them and around them seemed to catch fire. He moved her backward and pushed her up against the wall, his mouth taking hers over as he moaned and held his body to hers.

Naomi had never been kissed as Jonathon was kissing her, and she felt as if she lost total control, as if she had surrendered everything in herself to him in that moment, and the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth at all was him. She moved her hands to his arms and felt the strength of his muscles there; muscles that were tensed and firm, holding her tightly as their embrace became impassioned. She had no thought in her except him and everything that was happening between them, until the elevator came to a stop and the bell rang.

It seemed to yank her back from a sweet hot dream and into the cold harshness of reality. She pulled away from him, breaking his embrace, and he stared at her with slightly swollen lips and hungry eyes. He shook his head slightly in confusion and she took a step back, her heart aching for what she knew she could not have.

She could not let him hurt her more than he already had. She could not become just another one of his work lovers. She pushed herself away from him fully and turned and bolted out of the elevator, leaving him standing there in a broken daze, staring after her for a moment before he broke into a run and began to chase after her.

Rushing out into the daylight, she was overwhelmed by the chaotic noise of the city. Cars honked and rushed by, people bustled and yelled and talked, machines grinded and banged, and the rhythm of the city around her woke her totally from her reverie; from the steaming dream of being in Jonathon’s arms and kissing him.

She heard his voice and turned to look over her shoulder. He was racing to her, calling out her name, but she turned away from him and reached for the door of a cab that was at the sidewalk near her. She climbed in and the cab pulled away from the curb just as Jonathon reached it. She wouldn’t let herself look back at him. Instead, she covered her face with her hands and felt the hot tears as they washed her fingers.

Chapter5

Naomi stayed home from work the next day, calling Helen Klein to say that she wasn’t feeling well. She called in a second day and repeated her reason for staying home. She had not slept peaceably the first night that she went home after Jonathon kissed her. She couldn’t understand why he had kissed her, but the memory of it haunted her, the flames of desire and need had burned through her body instantly when his lips moved over hers, and she had lost something more of herself to him in that moment.

The only reason that she could possibly conceive of that he might kiss her was that he had finally decided that he wanted her the way he had wanted all of his other women; all the other assistants and secretaries that had worked for him. She thought when she first started working for him that he might come on to her, but then as their relationship changed, she felt as though she had earned his respect and his trust, and even his friendship.

His action in the elevator that day when he had taken her into his arms and kissed her so passionately, told her that he had not in fact come to respect her or the friendship that they shared. It seemed to her, in her afterthoughts, that he had only waited and bided his time until she was comfortable with him, and then he came on to her in her weakest moment, overpowering her will and her strength when she could not have fought him back or turned him down.

She wondered if he knew how she felt about him. She wondered if she was as transparent to him as she felt she was to herself. Naomi thought that perhaps he had been around so many women that he had seen right through her the entire time and she wondered if it had all been a game to him; if he had only gone along with their so-called friendship for sport, just to play with her mind and make her fall in love with him to appease his ego.

Naomi told herself that he wasn’t that cruel or selfish, but the doubt in her mind lingered and deep down she wasn’t completely certain that he wasn’t that selfish or cruel. He had been with so many women who worked for him that she thought perhaps he had needed to change his game up a little bit just to make it more interesting to himself.

She thought that perhaps that might be why he had been so “cat and mouse” with her, and there she had been the whole time, thinking that she was making headway in a friendship with him, thinking that she was earning his respect and that he thought of her as at least an equal person to himself, even though she was his employee.

Then he waited until she had been tortured with the sight of him with his serious relationship, Susan, and the realization that she was nothing to him. He had perhaps waited until she was broken and miserable and her only option was to pull away from him. Then he could conquer her and take what he wanted because she would not have the strength or willpower to fight him any longer, and she would succumb and give in to him.

All of those scenarios and thoughts plagued her mind over and over again, from the first night after he kissed her, into the next day when she did not go to work, and on into that night, and the following day.

She tried to sleep, but her thoughts and her broken heart would not let her. Her imagination took her mind to places that her heart could not stand to go, and the longer she was alone, the more heartache she dragged herself through until she could not take it any longer, and she felt that her only option was to call a friend.

She called Andrea, and begged her to come over to talk it through with her. She was desperate to get out of her own mind and to try to see it from someone else’s point of view.

Andrea came over that morning, and as soon as Naomi opened the door, Andrea’s arms were around her in a hug, holding her tight and consoling her.

“Now, I know you aren’t sick. Do you want to tell me what you’re doing home two days in a row? What’s going on with you?” she asked worriedly as she took Naomi’s face into her hands and held it there carefully, looking into her eyes as if she might find the answer there.

Naomi’s eyes flooded with tears and Andrea nodded. “I knew it! I knew there was something else going on. You haven’t been sick since I met you in college. Now, you just come right in here with me,” Andrea said, taking Naomi by the hand and leading her back into the living room, “and tell me what’s going on. Here, sit on the sofa. Here’s a blanket.” she said, nestling Naomi in as if they were sitting in Andrea’s house instead of Naomi’s apartment.

“Now, you tell me what’s going on. What’s causing you so much pain that you’re here instead of at work?” Andrea’s eyes continued to search Naomi’s and she took her friend’s hand into hers and held it.

Naomi bit her lower lip, and Harold hopped up onto the couch and padded over them both to curl up in Naomi’s lap. He had snuggled her through all of her crying and sadness for two days, and he was ready for more comfort duty.

Naomi covered her mouth with her hand and looked at Andrea. “I screwed up.” She said quietly in a choked voice.

Andrea’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean you screwed up?” She asked in confusion. “You never screw up. What did you do?”

“Oh, I don’t screw up very often, but I think I saved it all up for this one big screw up and did them all at once.” She said with a sigh as she closed her eyes and willed her tears not to fall again.

Andrea rubbed her hand over Naomi’s. “Well, what did you do?”

Naomi sighed and shook her head slowly. “I fell in love.”

Andrea’s hand stopped moving over Naomi’s and she blinked in surprise. Then a smile began to curl at the corners of her mouth and she turned her head slightly. “You fell in love? Well honey that’s no screw up, that’s wonderful! Who’s the lucky guy?”

She pursed her lips together and shook her head again. “It’s not good, and he’s not lucky, and neither am I,” she said sadly. “I fell in love with Jonathon Cross!”

Andrea’s mouth fell full open. She stared at Naomi for a long minute before she closed her mouth once more and leaned forward, staring, almost unblinking. “You…. You fell in love with Jonathon Cross? With your boss?
The
Jonathon Cross?” She turned her head back and forth and hummed low.

“Mm hmm honey, you did screw up. How in the world did that happen? I thought you didn’t like him. I thought you couldn’t stand him! We talked about how much you didn’t like him! We sat right here on this sofa and you told me all kinds of things I didn’t know and wouldn’t like, and even all of that was on top of a reputation that I already knew all about!” Andrea was astounded and it showed in her wide eyes.

Naomi shrugged. “That was him… and I didn’t like him. I couldn’t stand him. Apparently he must have viewed that as a challenge. I got to know him and he never made a move on me; he never tried anything with me. We got to be sort of friends, and then I started to like him. Just as a person,” she explained sadly, “you know, I thought I was seeing the real him. I thought I was seeing someone worth knowing. He had me fooled. I thought he was so different than all of the rumors and everything everyone says about him, including me.”

Andrea watched her and sighed as she listened, handing a tissue to Naomi as she saw Naomi begin to tear up again.

“Then our friendship kind of… grew… into something more, and I realized that I had fallen in love with him.” She let her head fall back miserably.

Andrea frowned. “Wait a minute, what do you mean your friendship grew into something more. Is he in love with you, too?” she looked stunned.

Naomi laughed out loud and two tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “In love with me? God no. Nothing like that at all. I fell in love with him, and I don’t think he knows it. At least, I hope he doesn’t know it. It would be horrible if he did. No, he doesn’t fall in love. He likes to get around with too many women too often.”

Andrea tipped her head and gave Naomi a curious look. “Have you seen him with a bunch of other women? You said you saw the real him. Is the real him like all of the rumors?”

Naomi shook her head. “No, the real him, or at least the part of him that he let me see, is nothing at all like the rumors, and I didn’t actually see him go after any women, now that I think of it. I have seen women flock to him, but mostly just in the office and when we are out for public functions, but he never takes them up on anything; he just kind of flirts back and then leaves. He’s totally noncommittal.”

Andrea raised her brows in surprise. “Huh, well, there you go. I never would have thought that. I thought he had a different secretary on his couch every day.”

“No, I’ve never actually seen a woman in his office with him with the door shut, come to think of it.” Naomi frowned slightly and thought about it. The realization came as a surprise to her.

“So why is it so bad to be in love with him if he isn’t the slime ball that everyone makes him out to be?” she asked curiously, rubbing her thumb over the back of Naomi’s hand.

Naomi shook her head. “Oh, well…. It’s just that he’s my boss and he has been with a lot of women, I think… at least, that’s what the ladies in the office say. They’ve all been there longer than me, but I’ve never seen it. Anyway, I have no business falling in love with my boss, especially him, and especially since he doesn’t love me back.”

Andrea’s eyes grew wide with understanding then, and she nodded quietly. “I see… my poor girl.” She said sorrowfully as she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Naomi. “I thought when you said you two were friends that he was falling for you, too. I didn’t know he wasn’t into you, and it was just you on the field. That’s really terrible,” she said softly as she pulled Naomi into a big hug and held her tightly.

Naomi let a few more tears fall and she closed her eyes. “It’s so horrible. I tried to fight it. I did. As soon as I realized that I was falling for him, I kept a little more of a distance, I tried to be more professional, and I kept telling myself that I had no business feeling like that, and that I had to focus on just keeping a working relationship with him, or at most a developing friendship. But he just got under my skin and now I’m trapped and I’m in love with him, and there’s no way out of it for me.”

Andrea leaned back and lifted Naomi’s chin, looking into her sad blue eyes. “What do you mean there’s no way out of it for you? There’s always something that can be done.”

“No… he’s my boss and it’s my dream job. What am I going to do, quit? I’m going to leave my dream job that I worked so hard all of these years to get?” Naomi looked imploringly at her friend. “I want to work there, but I can’t now. How am I supposed to work with a man who I am in love with, who doesn’t love me back?”

“Change bosses? Work for someone else in the same kind of capacity at the same company but for another person?” Andrea suggested helpfully.

“Anyone else would be a step down. He’s the second in command there, after his father. I guess I don’t mind stepping down, but he’s still going to be there. I’m still going to run into him.” She sniffled and touched the tissue to her eyes and nose before looking back up at Andrea.

“Besides… it gets worse.”

Andrea’s eyebrows shot back up. “Worse? How could it be worse?”

Naomi closed her eyes and wondered how she was going to tell Andrea what had happened. It was bad enough that she had thought of it over and over and over again in her mind, and that every time she thought of it, her body reacted hotly and desire swept through her, but admitting it and trying to explain it to her best friend was difficult.

“I was having a hard day the last day that I was at work. I was trying to ignore him, trying to just keep it business between us, and he got too close to me and I couldn’t take it, so I ran. He chased me and I thought I could get to the elevators in time, but he made it inside the elevator with me before the door closed.

Then we were in there alone and he kept trying to talk to me, but I wouldn’t look at him, and then all of a sudden, he was holding me, wiping tears off of my face, and then before I knew what was happening, he was kissing me.” She looked away from Andrea.

Andrea’s mouth fell open again. “Oh my god, he kissed you?” her fingers closed firmly around Naomi’s hand. “Did you kiss him back?”

Naomi raised her eyes and looked at her friend. “At first I didn’t, but then… it was so… incredible. It was too much for me to say no to, and I did kiss him back.” She sighed as the memories gripped her and her body heated at the thought of it. “That man can kiss…” she breathed deeply.

“Well I bet he can, he’s had a lot of practice.” Andrea said with a side glance away from Naomi.

“No… it wasn’t like that… not, um… not technique, although he is very good at that, too, but just… the feeling of it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. The feeling of it was amazing. It was so powerful… so strong and just overwhelming, really. I thought I was going to melt right there in his arms. I couldn’t take it.” She said sadly, looking at Andrea.

“So what did you do?” Andrea asked, looking excited about the whole part with the kiss.

Naomi shrugged. “Well, when the elevator doors opened I ran. I ran outside and grabbed a taxi and came home, and I’ve been here ever since. I shut my cell off, except to call you, so I haven’t heard from anyone. I’m too worried that he’ll call me. I don’t want to talk to him.”

Andrea frowned again and leveled her gaze at Naomi. “Honey, this isn’t high school. You can’t do that. He’s your boss; you have a job to do and it isn’t getting done while you are here hiding out at home because you wish you hadn’t fallen for him. You have got to figure something out one way or another and then do it. You either suck it up and go back to work and just deal with it, or you quit the job and get a job somewhere else, but laying here on your couch with your cat, crying about being in love with your boss is not an option. That’s not a choice. You’re going to have to do something else.”