Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Madison
" I 'm going to quit. I'm typing my resignation letter right now."
"Hm... why have I heard that one before?" Emma asked.
At first, I ignored her, but I needed someone to blame so I kept responding.
"This is all your fault, you know?"
She sent me choked emojis.
"How the hell is it my fault? What are you talking about?"
"You distracted me. You were talking about the dress, and I was excited, and I mistook his email for someone else's, and now I'm in fucking trouble. Now his company's in trouble." I trailed off for a little while, and I couldn't help but feel bad.
"That's unfair," she said, and I nodded.
"I know, I'm sorry. I just... it was my fault, but you contributed."
"Accepted. Now, how are we going to fix this? And you better stop thinking about resigning."
"He..." My mind went to what I had seen on his bed, and I still couldn't believe it. I was so hurt, it felt like my heart was being crushed from the inside out. However, I couldn't delve into my emotions about this. I glanced at him and saw that his eyes were closed. He seemed so peaceful while I was struggling to keep my eyes dry. I wanted to hurt him so much I couldn't think.
"He hasn't spoken to me," I said to her. "And he..."
"I'm sorry, once again."
"He what?" she asked. "You keep saying that and then stopping. He didn't... he wasn't violent toward you, right? Maddie?"
"At this point, I wished he was violent towards me. I could have stupidly been able to forgive him. It wouldn't hurt this much."
"He didn't do something worse?" she asked. "What couldn't possibly be worse?"
I didn’t respond to this and continued on with my resignation letter, but soon enough, she understood and sent a brief message.
"Please don't tell me another woman is involved."
"Yup," I replied.
"Fuck!" she swore. "Fuck!"
"Why would he do that? I mean, nothing has happened yet. Perhaps all of this will die down now. Maybe there'll be no damage even? How could he do that?"
"They met at the bar," I said. "Spoke for hours, and then she ended up in his bed. I feel so stupid, I want to jump out of this plane right now. Of course, we had gotten together. Of course, we had sex. I was available, and I had all but thrown myself at him. That was the same thing said and done except she wasn't just his fucking secretary with an incredibly good job on the line. I feel so stupid, I don't know what to do with myself. I didn't even know how to face him."
She went silent, and this made me feel even worse.
"I'm pathetic, aren't I?" I asked. "I should have known better, right? He's a fucking billionaire. He's a workaholic. I should have known better."
"Does he usually just fall into random women's beds?" she asked.
"What?" I replied.
"You know him best, don't you?"
I thought about her response and didn’t know how to process it.
"You're not pathetic," she said. "Because you know him. You forget that you know him. You didn't just start sleeping with him. There were no barriers to knowing him before you two got together, and this was why you are so in love with him. So, I'm asking, is he the kind to just see a woman at a bar and take her back to his hotel room?"
I considered her questions, and once again, I felt hopeful because when I thought about it, he wasn't the kind to do that. But what did I actually know about him? Sure, I had been his secretary with no boundaries to him since I needed to know all that I could to make his life as easy as possible. However, ... I didn't know what he did outside of the office and when my working hours were over. Come to think of it, I realized now that it was insane for me to assume that a man like him didn’t have a personal life. Of course, he did. He didn't have to flaunt it. And he had his own time to himself despite the fact that it felt as though he was always in the office. But that wasn't the case at all. Sighing, I decided then to stop thinking about him, to stop thinking about any of this.
"He drank at the bar," I told her. "He drank at the bar, and even if he's not usually the guy to do things like this, I wouldn't be surprised if he did because he drank at the bar, and... maybe he was doing this as well to send a message to me. To remind me that there was no commitment between us and so there was no need for me to expect him to be lenient with me. Actually, and now that we're talking about whether I know him or not, I should tell you that the fact that he hasn't fired me yet because of this is incredibly out of character for him. He's fired people for much less. Much, much less. So rather than force him to have even more torment for how to handle this in order to save my feelings, then it's best for me to quit."
"Alright," she said, and my heart sank.
I closed the chat app then and focused on my resignation letter. Was I looking for someone to talk me out of this? I knew that I didn’t want to but... why wasn't I willing to fight either?
I read it one last time and opened up my email. If I sent it now, he would see it when he woke up. However, if I didn’t, then I would be waiting for him to fire me after all this was done. I didn’t know which I wanted or preferred. Either way, I was going to be kicked out, I guess I just had to choose now if I wanted to make it easy for him. And in the end and shutting my eyes, I sent the email and shut my laptop. It was so uncomfortable and painful because he was only a few feet away from me. What I didn’t realize, however, was that he wasn’t already asleep. He hadn’t dozed off as the notification came on his phone. Instantly, I shut my eyes and turned away in complete disbelief that he was still awake. I understood though. It was probably hard for him to fall asleep.
"Focus," I cursed under my breath. Now I would have to call him. I wanted and wished with all my heart that I could check how he had read it. However, I couldn't do it. I couldn't risk meeting his eyes... I would break down from the hurt. And so, I kept my eyes shut until finally, I fell asleep.