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  “I didn’t call you,” he said tersely.

  “I’m aware of that, sir,” I said, struggling to keep my tone polite. “I just thought you might like some cinnamon coffee. They brought in a new blend only yesterday, and I remembered that meeting where you specifically requested cinnamon coffee.”

  Jake looked stunned for a moment. Then I saw his eyebrows rise a little. “So…you remembered that little detail and brought me cinnamon coffee this morning?”

  “I did,” I nodded.

  “I already had coffee on my way here,” he said, glancing down at his papers.

  I paused. “You can never have too many cups of coffee,” I said, forcing the smile to stay on my face. “Why don’t you try it? It’s really good.”

  “You tried my coffee?”

  “Uh no, of course I didn’t try your coffee,” I said. “I had some coffee myself a little while ago. It was good, so I can definitely recommend it.”

  Jake looked slightly nonplussed, but I refused to excuse myself just yet. I was going to power through this awkwardness that stood between us for the last few weeks. I wasn’t sure how much more of it I could take, but I didn’t want to have to quit, either.

  “Kristen,” Jake said, saying my name for the first time in a week. “I’m really busy, and I’ve made myself extremely plain before. I don’t like interruptions. I expect to find you in my office when I’ve asked you into my office.”

  I set the cup of coffee down onto his desk, wondering if he would drink it once I’d left or just throw it out. I knew he expected me to leave, but I simply could not abide the way he was treating me.

  “How’s Noah?” I blurted out.

  Jake raised his eyebrows, and I detected slight anger in the downward tilt of his mouth. “I have work to do,” he said. “I don’t have time for small talk.”

  “He cut his hand,” I said. “Has it healed yet?

  Of course it would have healed. That was weeks ago, but I was just so desperate to find a way out of the awkward work environment that had encapsulated me lately that I was willing to bring up anything.

  You need to change the bandage,” I added, when Jake didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t think I’m aware of that?” Jake snapped. “I’m his father; I know what’s best for him.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that you didn’t,” I said, holding my ground. “I just wanted to make sure his hand was alright.”

  “It’s fine,” Jake said shortly. “It healed awhile ago.”

  “That’s good,” I nodded. “And the leaf project he was working on… How did that go in school?”

  I saw the furrow of Jake’s eyebrows, and I realized immediately that he had no clue that Noah had a leaf project to complete. I could also tell that he didn’t want to admit that. He stood up and narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Go back to your desk,” he said, in a commanding voice that reminded me he had served in the military. “Now.”

  I held his gaze for one second and then nodded, having finally lost my smile. “Enjoy your coffee,” I said curtly.

  “Take it with you,” he said. “I don’t want it.”

  I bristled at how rude he was being, and instead of embarrassing myself further, I picked up the coffee I had brought him and headed out the door. By the time I sat back down at my desk, I was fuming. I felt angry tears prick at the corner of my eyes and wanted to scream or throw something or storm back into Jake’s office just to tell him I was quitting because he was such an obnoxious jerk.

  I almost stood at one point, but fear won out as I realized that I was still too nervous to confront him that openly—or confront him at all, really. Frustrated at myself by this point, I turned to my computer to try to get some work done, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything. Every time I tried to get something done, I found myself rehearsing the speech I would use to chew out Jake in my head.

  “Fuck it,” I said to myself as I opened my email and started typing on a whim.

  “Jake,” I started, refusing to call him sir or Mr. Middleton, which was how I usually referred to him. “Over the last few weeks, you have behaved incredibly unprofessionally towards me. I understand I am your subordinate, and you are my superior, but that does give you the right to treat me as you have for the last few weeks. I have done my best to do everything you have asked of me; I even went out of my way to do you a favor and babysit your son. And how did you choose to show your appreciation for that bit of kindness? You kicked me out of your apartment at four in the morning, forcing me to walk the streets of San Diego like some common hooker. I could have been raped or murdered or worse.”

  I knew I was getting a little carried away. I knew the email was teetering off into strange places, but I didn’t care. It was therapeutic to get it out, and I was actually feeling a little better as I put it all down. Halfway through writing the email, I realized I was never actually going to send it, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to get everything off my chest, and this was proving to be extremely helpful.

  “How would you have felt then, Jake? What if my dismembered corpse had turned up in some lonely alleyway? Would you have even cared? Probably not, because there are people who are innately selfish, and these people don’t give a flying fuck about the little man. I have realized that you are one of those people.

  “I have to say I’m disappointed. When I first took this job, I was proud to work under someone who had served our country. In my mind, you were a hero. More than that, I thought you were a good man and a decent human being. But apparently, you are neither. No, you are a selfish, arrogant prick who thinks you can just use people and then discard them afterward. I didn’t expect anything more than a thank you that night. But all I got was a cruel awakening.

  “You, Jake Middleton, may be the CEO of this company and you may have been a major in the military, but I regret to inform you that you are also a complete and total jerk. That’s right, a jerk.

  “Actually, you know what? Jerk is too nice a term for you. I’ll go with asshole, bastard, and douchebag. They seem more appropriate. You may rank above me, but that does not mean you are better than me. It does not give you the right to treat me like a slave and a non-person. I am a human being, and I deserve and demand respect.

  “Yours sincerely, Kristen.”

  The moment I finished typing, I let out a breath of air and felt instantly better. I stared at the email I had just written and actually cracked a smile. I wondered how Jake would react if I actually sent it. I sighed. “I can’t send it,” I said.

  I moved my finger left slightly towards the discard icon just as the door to Jake’s office opened, and he stepped out. He looked in my general direction without actually meeting my eyes.

  “Have you finished my schedule for the week?” he demanded.

  “Uh…yes,” I nodded.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” he asked with one raised eyebrow. “Send it to me immediately.”

  Then he disappeared back into his office, and I was left biting my tongue to keep from screaming out a string of profanities. When I had composed myself somewhat, I looked down at my screen and realized immediately that something was not right.

  “Wait,” I said, staring at the little fluttering icon in the middle of my screen that told me an email was being sent. “Wait… No, no, no… This can’t be happening.”

  Apparently, my finger had accidentally pressed the send button when Jake had been barking at me about the schedule. There was no way to retrieve it now. It would have already landed in his inbox, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Fuck,” I said desperately, trying to figure out a way to take the email back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  “Kristen?” I looked up to see one of the other personal assistants walking through. She looked at me with concern. “Is everything alright?”

  “No everything is not alright,” I said, with my eyes still glued to my screen. “I think I just made a huge mistake.”

 
; “Oh… Well, can it be fixed?” Mona asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I cried, putting my head in my hands.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  I bit my lip. “I think I’m going to have to start looking for a new job.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake

  I had been a complete dick to Kristen, and I knew it. To make matters worse, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that cinnamon coffee she had brought me earlier. I knew I should have gone out there and said something to her. I should have apologized for the way I’d been treating her, but my pride prevented me from doing that.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair, wondering if at the heart of it, I wasn’t the great guy I had always thought I was. Was that why things with Daphne and derailed so fast towards the end? I wondered. Maybe it had nothing to do with Noah and his birth. Maybe it had everything to do with me. I had spent the weeks and months following Daphne’s funeral thinking about those last few weeks before she had been deployed. They had been the most stressful and disheartening weeks of my life.

  Daphne and I had spent those last two weeks tiptoeing around one another. We barely stayed in the same room together because we both knew that if we did, then we would talk to one another, and it would inevitably end up in a fight. So we had lived in the same house, slept in the same bed, and eaten at the same table, but our lives were already separate. There were moments when it felt like she had already gone. She would be sitting across from me at the dinner table, and it felt like she was a thousand miles away.

  I used to watch her with Noah sometimes. She would kiss his head and his cheeks and say sweet words to him and hug him close to her—and it never made sense to me. Nothing she ever said in those months made sense to me. And maybe that was the real reason she wanted to leave again. She certainly couldn’t lean on me, and stubborn as I was, I’d never let her feel like she could in the first place.

  Sighing, I tried to concentrate on my work, but nothing seemed to hold my attention for long. I decided to open up my mail and check for new messages. I had a few emails that didn’t seem so important, and one from my aunt in Colorado. She checked in with me every now and again, and I made sure to stay in touch because she was the only real family I had left.

  Of course Isabelle was family too, but ever since Daphne’s death she had started travelling. It was a way to escape and I understood that, but it also meant that we didn’t see her as often as we used to. She and I kept in contact only sporadically and when we did, it was all about Noah and not much else.

  I noticed an email from Kristen that had been sent about an hour ago. There was no subject, which was off because she usually told me exactly why she was emailing in the subject line. I opened it up and started reading. The first line had my eyebrows up, and it soon became clear what the email was. It was a personal letter that she had penned in frustration and anger, and it was chewing me out for the way I had been treating her over the last few weeks.

  At first, I was slightly annoyed by her tone and her bluntly direct insults. But as I read more and more of it, I realized that she had every right to write to me and every right to be outraged by my treatment of her. Somehow, I didn’t think she had it in her, but I was impressed that she had sent me the letter, at all. I read the letter once and then re-read it a second time. The second reading had me smiling a little, and I realized it was actually quite amusing. I didn’t take it lightly, nor was I brushing off her hurt; I just happened to like the spirit she showed.

  The third time I read through the email, I started thinking about Daphne. She’d had the same fire in her. She was straightforward and forthright, and she was not afraid to say what she had to or call me out when she thought I was being a dick. That was what I had missed most about her after Noah’s birth. She had transformed into someone I didn’t recognize. I kept waiting for her to call me out half the time, and she never did. That should have tipped me off right there. She needed me, she was so far gone that she wasn’t really herself anymore, and I should have seen that.

  There was something about Kristen’s letter that reminded me of Daphne. And instead of depressing me, it actually made me feel…better somehow. I liked the fact that she had referred to me as Jake in the email, completely ignoring the way she usually addressed me. I felt like something between us had shifted now, and I would always be just Jake to her. I realized I liked the informality.

  I was about to go talk to Kristen, but then I decided to send her an email in return. I clicked reply and started typing.

  “Kristen,” I wrote. “I received your email. I have to admit I was surprised to get it, but on the third reading, I realized that you are completely right. Now that I’ve officially gotten off my high horse, I would like to apologize for my behavior. I had no right to treat you as I have for the last few weeks. I would like to offer you a legitimate excuse for my behavior, but unfortunately, I have none. Sincerely, Jake.”

  I pressed send and watched my email transfer. I sat back and smiled at the screen, wondering what Kristen’s reaction to my apology would be. I was still lost in thought when I saw my inbox blink as a new email came in from her.

  All it said was, “I never meant to send that email.”

  I almost laughed out loud. It was only one concise sentence, and yet I could sense how mortified she was.

  “Really?” I replied. “What happened?”

  “Um… I was venting, and I wrote the letter, and I accidentally pressed send instead of delete when you walked out here an hour ago.”

  “I see. You were venting…by email?”

  “It’s a cathartic tool that any good therapist will recommend.”

  “You see a therapist?” I replied back.

  “No, I don’t see a therapist. I can’t afford a therapist… My point is that it’s a legitimate practice—venting by writing down your feelings. You don’t actually have to send it; it just makes you feel better.”

  “And did it?” I wrote. “Make you feel better?”

  “It did, until I realized I had sent it and then I started freaking out because I actually like this job.”

  “You assumed I would fire you?”

  “Umm, yes.”

  “Would you mind stepping into my office please?” I wrote finally, tired of the constant emailing back and forth. “I’d like to have a face-to-face chat with you.”

  I didn’t get a reply back, so I assumed she was making her way into the office. Except one minute turned into two and then two minutes turned into five, and I wondered what was keeping her. I stood up and walked to the door. When I looked outside, I saw that Kristen was sitting by her desk, staring at her screen as though she didn’t know what to do. When she saw me standing there, she did a double take and clutched her heart.

  “Jesus, I didn’t even see you standing there.”

  “You were busy staring off into nothing.”

  “I wasn’t staring off at nothing,” she replied. “I was staring at your last email.”

  I smiled. “And, what about my last email was so confusing?”

  “I… I…”

  “I’m not going to bite, Kristen,” I said, at last. “I just thought it would be easier to talk in here, rather than out there. But if you prefer…”

  I made as if to move towards her desk, but she stood up immediately. “No, you’re right,” she said in a panicked voice. “We’ll talk inside. It’ll be…better.”

  I could tell she was nervous, and for a moment, that perplexed me. Was I really so scary that the thought of talking directly to me had her so unraveled? She was fiddling with her fingers as she walked into my office, she bumped into the chair, and she seemed to be biting her lip a lot.

  “You seem nervous,” I said bluntly, sitting down in front of her.

  “Uh… I suppose I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the letter,” she replied.

  “I told you that you were right, Kristen,” I said. “And,
I meant it. I shouldn’t have apologized over email, though. I should have done it face to face, so I’ll do it now. I’m sorry for how I’ve been treating you these last few weeks.”

  Kristen stared at me for a moment as though she wasn’t sure whether to believe me or not. “You’re serious?” she said at last.

  “Of course, I’m serious.”

  “So your apology was sincere?”

  I frowned. “Did you really think I was pulling your leg?”

  “I can’t always read you,” she said honestly. “It makes me nervous sometimes because you’re not predictable. I thought you might be and making fun of me before you fired me.”

  I don’t know why that upset me so much, but it did. I felt this deep-seated disappointment in myself and wondered how I had become this kind of guy.

  “I hate that you think I would be capable of doing something like that,” I said.

  Kristen frowned at me and looked like she wanted to say something, but she was holding her tongue because for all intents and purposes, I was still her boss.

  “What is it?” I asked gently. “You can tell me.”

  “Well… Given how things went recently, I wasn’t willing to put anything past you,” she explained haltingly.

  I deserved that, but it still hurt. “I am sorry—sincerely,” I reiterated. “I know I was a complete jerk—and worse—and everything you said in your first email was absolutely on point.”

  “You’re not mad at me?” Kristen asked uncertainly.

  “No, I’m not,” I said honestly. “In fact, I’m mad at myself for how I’ve behaved towards you. I was completely out of line and very unprofessional. You did me a favor even though you didn’t have to, and I repaid you by kicking you out in the middle of the night. When I think about it now, I can’t quite believe that was me.”

  “You know, you could benefit from writing your feelings down,” Kristen said, and even though her tone was light, I could sense the seriousness underlying it. “It seems like you have a lot of pent-up frustration.”

  “You have no idea,” I replied darkly. “In any case, I want to make it up to you.”