Chapter 14 Rosalee
Rosalee
Xavier was being weird. Weird in a way that was completely different from how weird he usually was.
He was still grumpy—I was pretty sure that was etched into his DNA—but he was also awkward and distant.
All day he'd been withdrawn, spending hours in the backyard staring off into the distance, and I wondered if he was contemplating the best way to fire me.
He will or he won't, I told myself and shook off the anxiety that gripped and tightened my belly.
I knew I couldn't change whatever he planned, so I did what I could while I was still here and focused on recognition activities with Violet.
She was growing so fast, getting taller with each passing day.
She was more mobile these days, and any day now she would utter her first real word. I hoped I would be around to see it.
While I did her exercises, my gaze wandered out to where Xavier was, his ear glued to the phone.
He was so serious, so intensely focused on the caller that I assumed it was Serenity on the other end of the line, trying to find a suitable replacement for me.
But then I heard a bark of laughter, and that green-eyed devil settled into the pit of my stomach.
Nope. Not my concern, I told myself. Xavier wasn't mine, and he would never be mine.
With that depressing thought, which I wasn't sure was depressing at all, I picked up Violet, and we went to her room where she practiced standing and carrying oversized plush bricks to her play mat.
"You're doing so good, Vi!" She was starting to show recognition of colors, shapes, and patterns, which was a good sign according to the literature I'd read on kids her age. "Good job, sweet girl."
She smiled at me and continued the serious business of stacking blocks.
I watched the little girl move back and forth across the room, smiling and babbling the entire time. When my phone rang, I pulled it from my back pocket, my gaze still fixed on Violet, and answered without thinking. "Hello?"
"Rosie, baby, thank God you answered!"
Jason. My spine stiffened, and my jaw clenched. "Jason? What do you want?"
"I need you, baby. I need you to come back to me."
I laughed, pulling back and staring at the phone as if the caller spoke a foreign language. "That's not happening. Ever."
"Come on, Rosie. I need you, baby. You're my good-luck charm."
I nodded because now it was all becoming clear. "Bull."
"Seriously, you're so good at charming people, and I need you to do that. I have an important meeting in two weeks, and I need you at my side, charming the suits into opening their wallets for me."
I rolled my eyes. "No."
"Rosie, please! I need you. I'm desperate."
"Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought about that before you did what you did.
You never once apologized for your terrible behavior or for the way you treated me.
You didn't care about me then, and I need you to keep that same energy from now until forever.
Find some other sucker to fall under your spell.
" I ended the call with a satisfying smack of my index finger against the screen and quickly blocked his number before he could call back to beg, or worse, apologize.
"Boys are stupid, Violet. Don't ever fall for their charms."
She babbled in my direction with a wide smile and handed me one of the blocks. "Ba-ba-ba-ba!"
"Yeah, I know you're too smart for that.
Stay that way." My heart donkey-kicked my chest at the thought of just how silly I'd been when it came to Jason, allowing him to lead me and following him willingly.
I let him use me until there was nothing left for me, and when I left, I promised myself I would never do that again.
Yet here you are, doing everything possible to make Xavier's life easier.
I could lie to myself that it was all about Violet, but the truth was just that this was how I was built.
I was a natural-born nurturer, which was why I was such a damn good assistant.
I could anticipate my boss's needs without his input, giving him or her what they wanted before they even knew what it was they wanted.
It was my superpower, so to speak, and during my first career, I'd lived to regret it.
Now here I was, doing the same thing for Xavier while he snapped and growled at me as if I were an annoyance.
The more I thought about it, the madder I got, and when Violet finally wore herself out, I disappeared into my room and stayed there most of the night, only venturing out for a sandwich because we were all on our own for dinner tonight.
It was just one step, but it was an important one that I promised myself I would keep up when I received my next placement.
If I did, considering what I'd done.