Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [48]
It hadn’t been an easy decision. She had worked for him for so long, had become so accustomed to postponing any decision to leave for another day, that finally doing the deed, resigning at last, had broken her heart. It was the dreadful finality of it. No more stolen glances, no more of that vibrancy which she felt whenever she was in his presence. It had to be done, but still hurt like hell. No amount of reasoning could lessen that. Her only hope was that he would never know how much.
‘Well?’ he barked angrily. ‘Don’t just stand there gaping, woman!’
‘I’ve done all the filing,’ Natalie informed him quietly, while inside everything continued to crumble, ‘I’ve also answered that backlog of queries. Everything’s in order for my replacement to take over.’
‘You can’t leave! You’ve just been promoted!’
‘I realise that, and I’m sorry.’ Her voice was a whisper. Beyond the sheer agony of knowing that she was creating her own empty vacuum by leaving, she doubted that she would be able to find another job that was either as satisfying or as well paid as the one she was leaving behind. And there would certainly never be another boss like Kane Marshall. She loved his ranting and raving, his thunderous bad tempers, his charm, his sense of fair play.
She swallowed hard. It was no good thinking about what she would miss. Kane Marshall had already absorbed far too much of her life. It would do her well to escape his stranglehold.
He was no longer staring at her. He had picked up his fountain pen and was fiddling with it. ‘If you want an apology for what happened the other night, then you have it.’
‘I didn’t ask for an apology.’ Natalie didn’t want to discuss this; she would much rather have pretended that it had never happened. ‘Besides, I’m not going to pretend that I was an innocent party. It takes two.’
‘We can put it behind us. A mistake. They happen.’ He glared at her and she shook her head.
‘I…’
‘I won’t be chasing you around the desk, if that’s what you’re so damned afraid of,’ he snapped. ‘That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it? You think that we won’t be able to resume our working relationship, but we will. Trust me.’
Trust you? The thought made her want to laugh out loud, or scream, or cry or something.
‘It’s not that…’
‘Then what the hell is it?’
He looked at her directly and she couldn’t think of what reply to give him. Certainly not the truth—that she was desperately in love with him, that every day in his company would be an arrow through her heart, that sleeping with him had been the biggest mistake in her life because it had taken away all her illusions. It had shown her that at the end of the day, even when the impossible had happened and he had wanted her, he had only wanted her for a while, to fill a passing need until someone else came along. How could she explain any of that to him?
‘I’ve been here a long time,’ Natalie began shakily, ‘five years. I’ve gained a lot of experience and now I just feel that it’s time to move on.’
It was flattering that he wanted her to stay, he made no attempt to hide it, but it hurt that it was only on a working level that she would ever be indispensable to him. Then she laughed bitterly to herself. Good grief, had she ever expected otherwise? There was a place for girlish dreams and this was not it.
‘Where will you go?’ His voice was cold, and she realised that he had accepted the inevitable. He might not like it because her departure would interfere badly with the orderly workings of his office, but he accepted it and with that acceptance came cold indifference. Did he really give a damn where she went?
Natalie shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
He stood up and went across to the window, looking down at the busy street below. ‘I won’t expect you to work out your notice.’
‘Thank you.’
There was an awkward silence, then Natalie stood up. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she began, and he nodded curtly, not bothering to turn to face her.
‘You must drop by and let us all know how you get on in your new job,’ he said politely.
What a relief that