Her words were soft, but they hit me like blows. I could hardly get my response out through the gravel that had taken residence in my throat. “Yes.”
She dropped her bare feet back onto the floor, and I noticed her toenails were painted a soft shade of pink. “Understood,” she said, standing to cross the room to stand at the door. She opened it and glanced at me meaningfully. “In the future, a text or an email will suffice. There’s no need to bother yourself with a personal visit when you need to threaten me.”
“It’s not a threat,” I said, joining her at the door. “It’s the truth.”
As Iris met my gaze, her back was straight and there was no moisture in her eyes. A door had been shut between us, and I had the awful, sinking realization that I was the one who’d done it. Maybe I hadn’t even done it when I’d kicked her out of my office. Maybe there’d been a sliver of light still coming through the opening, but I’d walked in here and slammed it shut.
“Goodbye, Jared,” she said, and there was steel in her voice.
I tore my gaze away from the line of her neck, the shape of her body in those loose, shapeless clothes. She was just a former employee. A former lover. She didn’t mean anything to me, and I meant nothing to her. Now we were on the same page, and we could both move on.
“Good luck with the new job,” I told her, then walked out of her apartment.
The worst part of the whole visit, I realized when I got back to the car downstairs, wasn’t the widening gulf between us. It wasn’t the stilted conversation. It wasn’t the dead look in her eyes when she said goodbye, or the scent of her all around.
No, the worst part was that despite how horrible the visit had been, it was better than not seeing her at all.
Iris’s POV
Roseanne was in Grenada until the beginning of March, so we set a meeting for the fourth of the month when she’d be in the city. I spent the first two months of the year getting my life in order. I had enough savings to pay off my debts, but I had to sell most of the designer clothes and accessories I’d acquired during my employment at Branson in order to sustain me until I could get an income.
So for all the fun I’d had during those two months, I was left with none of the luxuries that had pushed me to sign the contract in the first place. It seemed fitting, but I did hate letting go of my Judith Leiber bow purse.
As the days turned to weeks, I found the courage to go to the doctor. I booked the scans and read the pamphlets. I lay in bed at night, overheated and unable to sleep, imagining a newborn baby at my breast, wondering how soft their skin would be, if they’d have any hair when they came out.
Jared’s visit had been awful, of course, but oddly, it had given me more strength. It was clear he wanted nothing to do with me, and all I could do in response was move on. I’d tell him about the baby eventually, I promised myself, but it was so early. No sense opening that can of worms until I knew for sure that everything would be okay.
It was a convenient excuse for my cowardice.
In the weeks leading up to my meeting with Roseanne, I kept busy, but I avoided my friends. My newfound strength was brittle, and I knew that one nail driven at just the right angle would shatter me. If I were to feel like a sad little wretch, watching them jet set off to Europe for shopping sprees without me, I’d lose my courage.
So I went through a couple months of self-imposed isolation. When I was feeling gracious toward myself, I called it nesting. My new apartment was my cocoon, and I the chrysalis undergoing a transformation.
But when the fourth of March came around, my transformation didn’t feel quite complete. I was just over twenty weeks into my pregnancy and my bump was beginning to show. I’d learned a few days ago that I was having a girl, and it was starting to feel real. I dressed in a tunic dress with comfortable shoes, taking extra time with my hair and makeup.
Roseanne met me at a cute caf穒n Midtown. She sat in a tall, winged armchair like a queen, her loose pants draped artfully over her crossed legs, a mug steaming in her delicate grasp. When she looked up at me, the diamonds dangling from her ears twinkled in the coffee shop lights.
“Iris!” she exclaimed, setting her cup down to stand. She hugged me tightly and planted a kiss on my cheek. “You look fabulous. I’ve paid for your drink already, so just dash up there and tell them what you want,” she said, nodding to the barista.
To her credit, though her gaze drifted down to my midsection, she didn’t ask any indelicate questions. I smiled at her and did as she said, ordering myself a peppermint tea before joining her at the table with my drink.
“How was your winter?” I asked, wrapping my hands around the hot mug.
“It was wonderful, but it’s good to be back in the city.”
I hummed in agreement. My heart was beating rapidly, all my carefully planned speeches fluttering out of my brain as the woman across from me read me like a book.
“You’re not going to work for me,” she guessed-correctly, “and you’re here to let me down easy.”
I let out a long breath that ended on a weak laugh. “No wonder Wilbur takes you along to all your social engagements.”
Roseanne laughed, then looked at me with such kindness that I nearly changed my mind.
But I’d had two months to think about this, and there was only one way forward. I liked Roseanne and Wilbur. I liked them a lot.
I couldn’t lie to them.
If I were to accept the job as Roseanne’s stylist, I’d have to come clean about my contract with Jared. And if I did that, I’d be breaking my NDA. Worse, though…
I’d be hurting Jared.
No matter what happened between us, our time together had been intense and full of so much joy that I was hardly able to contain it all. He was a complicated man who closed himself off when I wanted him to open.
But at the end of the day, I loved him. I loved him so much that thinking about him felt like a hundred daggers quivering in my chest. I loved him enough to give up my dream job, to sit here and politely turn down a future that would provide stability and growth for the price of hurting the man I loved. I couldn’t do it.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your offer, Roseanne,” I started, “but I have to refuse for personal reasons.”
“May I ask why?”
I took a deep breath. “Jared and I have gone our separate ways,” I admitted. “I think it’s best for my own sanity that I try to avoid the circles where he spends his time.”
“I didn’t take you for a coward.” Her gaze was sharp. She saw right through me.
I shrugged. “I guess you were wrong.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, but I’m going to let it go for now. How’s the baby?”
I jerked back, and Roseanne laughed.
“Don’t look so shocked. I could tell when you came down to visit us before the holidays, darling. It’s more than obvious now.” She gave me a loaded look, and I leaned back in my chair, laughing.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.