Quinn snatched the folder from Natalie's grip. "Let's get you drunk before we look at it."
"Drunk? It's still morning!"
"Then we'll start with mimosas at brunch and work our way from there. You were just
fired
, Natalie, do you really care about what's socially proper right now?"
As soon as Natalie stepped foot in her office the finality of it all struck her, and fresh tears threatened to fall once more. There wasn't much to pack, really, just her personal belongings and, perhaps ironically, the framed photo of her and James. She picked up the beautiful Tiffany frame and stared at the photo contained within.
"I'm going to go get my purse. Meet you in the lobby in five?"
"Sure," Natalie answered without really thinking. She wished she could be as nonchalant at being unemployed as Quinn was. Hell, she envied Quinn's ability to just quit on a whim because it suited her. Natalie had never been fired from a job. It was a kind of rejection she wasn't familiar with, one that stuck her deep in the pit of her stomach. None of it seemed fair, and she decided she couldn’t pretend not to care about the inevitable.
But she could drink.
"Natalie?" She turned to find Quinn standing in the doorway, her phone held out in her hand, her face blanched and slightly petrified. "It's Dr. Randall."
"Who?"
Oh
. She'd completely forgotten about the physician Quinn had taken her to the night she picked her up from the
Jacqueline
. She took the offered phone and put it to her ear. "This is Natalie."
"Good morning, Natalie. This is Dr. Randall."
"Hi. How are you?" Maybe the better question would have been, '
How am I?'
"I'm fine, thank you. Do you have some free time to stop by my office today? I'd like to discuss the results of your blood test in private."
There was no one in the Fitson lobby, not even April, the consummate professional receptionist who would wait until her bladder was near to bursting before ever abandoning the desk. Natalie consulted the time display on her phone through somewhat bleary eyes and saw that it was about half past five.
She should have been drunk.
She had to return the Tesla to Audra, and so she called up her now-former assistant Shane to pick her up from the restaurant-slash-bar where Natalie and Quinn had spent some of their morning and afternoon - interspersed with a bit of therapeutic shopping, perhaps not the best management of her money given she was now unemployed - eating their sorrows. Well, Natalie ate and Quinn listened and encouraged and did her best to make Natalie laugh. It only worked long enough for Natalie to eventually remember her heartache once more, order a drink, and forget herself once again. There was no physical way she could drown her sorrow enough. Shane and Quinn called a car and left Audra's Tesla in the capable hands of the valet. She could have just gone home satisfied that the car was returned, but she knew James was awaiting word.
She knew in her heart there would never be the absolute best time to tell him all that had happened.
Natalie bypassed reception and made her way back to James' office. The door was partially closed, and rather than knocking she let herself in. James startled from behind his desk but quickly recovered and held up a finger before addressing someone over the phone. Natalie took the moment to go to the floor-to-ceiling windows and look down at the rush hour traffic lining the city streets below. She caught her reflection and wanted to laugh at the sight of her crisp white blouse still tucked into her black pleated skirt. She looked so...
parochial
. She quickly untucked the blouse and smoothed her fingers through her hair before tying it back in a messy bun at the nape of her neck.
"Hey you," James greeted once he was off the phone. He kissed her shoulder before wrapping his arms around her waist and joining her to gaze down at the city scene below. "How was work?"
"
Work
." She said the word as though the weight of it carried new meaning all of a sudden. "Hmm, work."
"I was wondering if I would see you today after our conversation yesterday. I'm glad you're here." He nuzzled at her neck, kissed the delicate skin and inhaled her scent. From her peripheral vision she could see his reflection, puzzled by something. "Have you been drinking?"
"I had
a
drink. It seemed appropriate."
And it had more ice than liquor
, she added to herself.
He turned her away from the window until she was facing him, and seemed to do a double take at her appearance.
"You're drunk."
She felt her cheeks start to balloon with laughter, but stopped just short of letting the sound escape her. "I'm fired!" She smiled stupidly at his astonishment. "Why do you look so surprised?"
"I'm just shocked they actually fired you. I assume Ivy-"
"Blabbed her big fucking mouth to Graham Martin as soon as the little bitch could?
Yep
. Don't worry though. I could have saved myself." She removed herself from his grasp and headed to a small bar area that was neatly set up on the other side of the room.
"What do you mean you could have saved yourself?"
She picked up a glass and opened the concealed refrigerator hidden beneath the counter top, and then dug through the ice chest until her glass was full. "I mean that I could have kept my job." She picked a bottle of clear liquor at random and poured generously over the ice. She considered taking a sip but didn't. "Graham Martin was afraid that if he fired me he could lose you in the process. I assured him you would never do something so noble."
James ignored her dig and crossed the room. He tried taking the glass from her hand but she turned and moved out of the way before he could.
"Apparently if he fired me he'd also have to fire Joe - which is ridiculous - and Quinn threatened to quit. Quinn
did
quit. But only after I gave Graham my blessing to sack me."
"Why the hell would you do that?" James asked, eyebrows screwed above his forehead. "You could have kept your job and we could stop hiding our relationship."
"
Why the hell did I do that
?" she repeated, cursing each word as they slipped from her lips. "Because I'm not a fucking bargaining piece for your stupid account, that's why!" She slammed the glass of liquor down on the counter and ignored the liquid that spilled out onto her hand. "Because I'm a grown ass woman who accepts the consequences of her actions. I knew being in a relationship with you was against company policy and I did it anyway. If I had manipulated the situation to keep my job
and
make our relationship public I'd be no better than Ivy and I would lose the respect of my co-workers. Shit, I'd lose respect for
myself!
"
"Okay, I understand," he said soothingly, taking her hands into his and holding them tight. "You're sure Ivy is responsible?"
"No, James,
I am responsible
. Ivy's just the person who told Graham Martin. Which I told you she would!"
James sighed and reached into his suit jacket pocket for his cell phone. He tapped and scrolled for a moment before bringing the phone up to his ear.
"Who are you calling?" Natalie asked.
James shooshed her, then took a hold of her hand and guided her to one of the overstuffed chairs opposite his desk. He sank down into the expensive black leather and gently pulled her down until she was sitting on his lap.
"Graham, James Fitzgerald. I'm fine, and you?" Natalie watched him through alarmed eyes, wondering what he was doing. James' eyes shifted to her. "Yes, so I've heard. I will be discussing that very matter with Audra first thing in the morning. That's not why I'm calling you. I want Ivy Whitcomb removed from my account." Natalie had to bite down on her lip to keep from making a sound. "Yes, immediately. And if you want my unsolicited advice, Graham, you'll fire the girl. She acted unprofessionally and used a private matter that occurred on my company's private property for her own professional gain. Oh, she didn't mention that part? How surprising," he quipped. He looked at Natalie as he listened to Graham speak, his eyes burning into hers. "Thank you. I'll be in touch." Without another word he tapped to end the call and discarded the phone back into his pocket. "You want to take it a step further? I can make sure she doesn't find another job for a long time."
"You're serious!" she blanched.
"I don't like people who behave like Ivy. I like them even less when they get involved in my personal life."
Natalie leaned in and smashed her lips against his. It was a bit sloppy but he didn't seem to mind. "I don't condone using your power and influence to get a girl fired."
"That's one of the perks of being me, baby." He smiled so charmingly she felt she might melt right there on the spot. "There's my girl," he soothed when she returned his smile. "It'll all be fine."
"I'm not sure about that anymore," she replied forlornly.
'Are you sure?' She felt like she'd just been slapped in the face.
'We had the lab run a full panel and, other than a touch of anemia, that was the only test that came back positive,' Dr. Randall assured her. 'We can schedule a follow-up exam for this week to see how far it has progressed. I'm guessing you're no more than six, maybe eight weeks along.'
'Okay,' she replied autonomously, still in shock from hearing the words for the first time.
"You'll find a job soon."
Natalie cast a doubtful look in James' direction. "Says the rich man who's his own boss."
"I could be your boss, too."
She looked at him incredulously. "No. Are you kidding me? No!"
"Would you prefer Audra?"
Natalie grimaced and shook her head. "James, I don't want to work for you! Or Audra! I may be poor now but I'm not desperate."
At least not yet.
"Come on, you're not poor."
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Not yet. I have some money saved, maybe enough for three months while I find a job." Three months didn't seem that long all of a sudden. And there was the matter of her insurance. Could she afford to pay for her own insurance out of pocket now that she had no job? She doubted a private physician like Dr. Randall accepted a cheap HMO.
"That's not what I mean."
She abandoned her thoughts about insurance and looked him deeply in the eye. "What do you mean?"
"You have me," he said plainly, as though it were the most obvious fact in the world. "Do you really think I'd let you go hungry or not be able to pay your bills?"
"You don't
let me
do anything, James. I take care of myself."
"But you don't have to. There's no reason to have secret meetings or sneak you in and out of the office under the pretense of work anymore."
"No, there isn't. But that doesn't mean you suddenly become my benefactor."
He sighed, aggravated. "Jesus, Natalie, you know I would never suggest that. But you are now free to make certain choices you felt you couldn't make before. "
Oh my god
. It was a revelation. "Right. Because now I'm no longer inconvenienced with the burden of choosing you over my job." She got up from his lap and paced across the room, feeling her head grow hot with overworked heat.
Unbelievable!
"I asked you once to move in with me and you've known since then I was planning to ask you again."
"I'm not going to move in with you just because I'm unemployed!" she said, her voice raised but restrained; she wanted to shout.
"And here I was thinking you might move in with me because you love me!"
"Of course I love you!" she replied, though with a lesser requirement for restraint.
"So why not live together?"
She faced him, hands on her hips, ready to burst at the seams with all the things she'd long held within. "Because it's just all so goddamn convenient for you, isn't it? I wouldn't quit my job when you asked me to. I begged you not to talk to Graham Martin on my behalf. And even if you were asking me to move in with you because you love me there's still the fact that if I said yes it would force me to come to a conclusion about my job that suited you. And here I am,
fired
for dating you," she spat the word, releasing the full fury of her anger, and her voice, "and you're not the least bit unhappy for me! You got
exactly
what you wanted! Never mind the fact that I wanted to handle my own goddamn life in my own goddamn way!"
"Natalie-" he said as he stood, her name sounding like a warning for his waning patience.
"No, you listen to me, James Fitzgerald! Do not think that just because I sold myself to you for one night to pay my student loans that I am a woman who can be bought! You do not dictate the choices I make in my life. You do not give me ultimatums. And you sure as hell don't rescue me without the benefit of letting me try to solve my own goddamn problems first!"
He closed the gap between them and seemed to resist the urge to grab her arms. "Are you really so fucking stubborn that you think my only motivation for helping you is for my own selfish needs? Or are you even willing to consider the possibility that the reason I do anything for you is because I love you and only want the best for you?" He towered over her, his blue-green eyes so intensely pigmented they unsettled her.
"If you really want the best for me then you'll let me find what is best for myself, and that doesn't include being a Stepford girlfriend with no personal autonomy."
He recoiled as though she'd physically harmed him with her words. "Is that what you think I want?"
"That's what Celine was. Is."
His eyes went murderously wide. "Exactly! You think I'm with you because you remind me of my wife? You couldn't be more opposite from her if you tried!"
"Then why ask me to quit my job? To move in with you? Why all the rescuing?"
"I realize it was wrong for me to ask you to quit your job, but I did it, it's in the past, and I can't change that now. It wasn't so that you wouldn't have personal autonomy, Natalie, it was so that we didn't have to sneak around. You're so talented and intelligent. I know you can get a job anywhere else. I still know it. I want you to move in with me because I'm so out of my mind in love with you that I don't want to spend another day without you. Can you honestly find fault in that?"
She couldn't. And in that moment she was silenced by the realization that their relationship had spun so far out of control she had no idea which way was up anymore. What was she expecting from a married man with whom she'd had a paid evening of sex the first day they met? The relationship was wrought with drama from the outset, and the recent events were no different. They hadn't really been together long enough to truly get to know one another, and yet they still found themselves in love and overwhelmed by all that that entailed.
With a sigh she closed her eyes and leaned in to put her head on his chest, realizing at once that she was exhausted - physically and mentally. He held his arms around her and they stood in silence together for what seemed like countless minutes. When she finally pulled away she went back to the chair they'd sat in together and lowered herself down into it.
"James?"
"Yes, Natalie?" He followed her, crouched down and put his hands on her knees, his touch a soft and welcome embrace.
"There's something I need to tell you, and you're not going to like it."
"Okay..." he said, not sounding very sure of himself, or of her.
"I think I'm only just now realizing that I'm overwhelmed. By you
and
this relationship," she clarified. "I do love you, and I do believe you love me, too. But everything has happened so fast and every time I try to find some space to breathe or think for myself you show up asking even more of me. Not to mention you're an enormous distraction," she laughed softly, softening the blow of the preceding statement. "And I know you know that you distract me on purpose."