"I like knowing the people I work with. You're not around, so I’ll have to train every single new person who comes to work as our secretary."
Variety wasn't the spice of life. Variety was more work for me, and it also meant losing Emma from my everyday life.
"What does it matter?" Josh asked, clearly not understanding my irritation with that clause he and DeVille had agreed on. "Who knows? Maybe the next one will be even better than this one."
He didn't even bother to call Emma by her name. Clearly, I'd been jealous for nothing. That didn't change the fact that his decision pissed me off, though.
"I'm not interested in getting a new one, like a secretary of the month. You've just made more work for me."
"How can I make it up to you?" he asked, still not taking any of this seriously.
But I was.
"You can go to California early. I'm going to need peace and quiet to train the new person coming in next week, so go."
"Seriously? Are you kidding me? Come on. You're really upset about this, aren't you?"
I cracked my neck and tried to keep my cool, but all my emotions about Emma leaving my daily life threatened to come to the surface. "Not everyone is like you. You've never understood that. You blow into town and leave havoc in your wake every time. Normally, I can just slough it off, but this time you made more work for me, and to be honest, I'm pissed. So to keep everything between us good, you need to go. It's not like there's anything keeping you here, so just go."
"Damn, Mark. You're really mad. Okay, I'll head out for a while," he said. "We cool, though?" he added at the end, his eyes full of hope. Josh and I rarely fought, but he hated it when we did.
I nodded, tired of arguing with him. "Yeah, just go. I'll see you when you get back."
Josh walked upstairs to pack up his stuff, and an hour later, he was gone. It wasn't the first time we'd disagreed, but this time he'd gone too far. I knew the moral high ground wasn't mine to stand on considering I'd been sleeping with Emma, but he'd crossed a line.
He could go out to California and seduce all the secretaries he wanted out there. Emma was mine. I hadn't yet decided what to do about her, though. She had to know it was almost time for her to leave too. Maybe that's why she hadn't tried to talk to me much that day.
Or maybe she didn't feel for me what I felt for her.
A restless night'ssleep meant I got to my office long before Emma showed up for work. When she walked past my door, I saw she wore a black skirt and pink silk T-shirt that looked incredible on her. I waited for her to say good morning, but after five minutes passed and she hadn't come out of the kitchen, I couldn't wait any longer to speak to her.
She stood with her back to me toasting a bagel, so I said, "Good morning. I got to work early today, so there are a fair number of projects I need you to update this morning."
She didn't turn around to face me and quietly said, "Okay. I'll get on them as soon as I get to my desk."
I waited for her to continue speaking, but she said nothing more, so I said, "Josh left. He's on his way to California."
Finally, Emma turned around and I got to see her beautiful face. She looked up at me with those big blue eyes of hers that never failed to make me want to kiss her and innocently asked, "Did you fire Josh?"
I shook my head and smiled. "No. I can’t fire Josh. I just told him it was time to go. He'll find plenty of women to seduce out there."
That wasn't what I intended on saying since I hated that Emma had seen me jealous, but it came out of my mouth before I could stop it.
She lowered her gaze and said in a voice just above a whisper, "I'm really sorry. I think I caused a problem between you two."
I wondered again if she had enjoyed it. The attention from Josh, his making moves on her, his kissing her.
"It's over," I said, wishing I didn't sense such distance between us at that moment. "He and I will be fine."
Emma nodded, but then she turned back to her bagel and didn't ask the question I thought she would. Did she think we were over?
Before I could say another word, the phone rang and she hurried out to her office to answer it. I stood perplexed at what to do. Part of me wanted to ask her to stay, but I knew she couldn't afford the ten grand she'd have to pay to break her contract.
I could pay it, though. It had occurred to me that would work.
She walked back into the kitchen and went directly back to the counter where her bagel sat getting cold. "That was the man from the company that's coming by on Wednesday to take care of the bats. They were just calling to remind you. I left the message on your desk."
I took a step toward her and stopped. "Emma, I'd like to talk to you about something."