Page 38 of Love Unspoken

She wiped her tears, now looking again at the floor. "None of this is making sense."

"What is not making sense, Naya?"

"You. What…what was that?"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you."

"Yes," she said angrily. I'd never heard her angry, ever before. "You have a girlfriend. And I know how you think of me. Okay? I know."

"What do you think you know?" I demanded. "Damn it, Naya, look at me when you talk.

"She did, and her eyes were fire. Fucking hell if that didn't turn me on some more.

"I have no curves to speak. I have terrible fashion sense. And I'm boring as fuck," she said quietly, softly, no emotion now, no inflection. "I heard you say that right after your girlfriend mentioned how I had a crush on you. Your response was that you knew because everyone knew but you didn't think of me like that."

I felt shame course through me. She'd heard that entire conversation and remembered each word. I'd forgotten the exact words, but she hadn't.

"I'm so sorry, Naya that you overheard that."

She gave out a harsh laugh. I'd never seen her like this, almost like a wounded animal. God! I'd done this to her. Me. Why had I brought her in here? Why had I touched her? Why had I treated her like shit for so long?

"Nothing untrue about what you said. I don't have any fashion sense. And trust me, I know my body is nothing to write home about. Oh, how well I know that. It's ugly. I get it. And you're not the first person to think I'm boring. I know that about myself too. So, when you're touching me like you just did, what's your plan? See if the girl who has a crush on you responds? And then what? You'll tell your girlfriend and the next time I bump into you somewhere in Back Bay, Ann can make fun of me? Is that the plan?"

She seemed to be breathless after her tirade.

My chest felt tight like I couldn’t breathe. The fire in her eyes that I thought was anger I now realized was pain. She was hurt. Her tears were a result of her agony.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Naya," I repeated.

"Me too. I was going to do this in a couple of days after I signed the contract. But now is good a time as any. I'm resigning." She said this looking at me, her voice calm again, her eyes cleared of the pain. She was taking control of herself. She'd lost it for a moment there but now she was taking her own back.

"Resigning?" I blurted.

"Yes. I can't work here any longer. I just can't."

"Why?"

"Because you hired me as a favor to Nolan. I overheard that too. I don't need your charity. I'm very good at what I do. And I loved working for Ethan but since I've been working for you, you have spent an inordinate amount of time cutting me down." She took a deep breath to slow herself, like she was running a marathon and needed her energy to keep going. "You got better in the past few weeks but before that you sniped at me to the point that everyone on my team wondered why you hated me so much. I don't know what I ever did to you, or Ann, or my brother or Kara. I don't know why you all treat me the way you do. I'm a person."

The anguish was back. The tears were back. I cupped her face and wiped her cheeks with my thumbs.

"Why can't you all see that I'm a person with feelings? What did I ever do to you?" she demanded desperately.

"Nothing." I felt my eyes prick with emotion. I couldn’t believe that I felt so strongly about what she'd said. I couldn't remember the last time I had tears in my eyes, but they were here, in response to her pain. "You're a wonderful person. We're jerks. Entitled assholes."

"And you think you're entitled to hurt me?" she asked so forlornly that I pulled her into my arms again and hugged her close.

She didn't push me away this time, but she didn't burrow into me, just stood still as a statue.

I stroked her back. "Naya, I'm so sorry. Not just that you overheard what you did, that I said what I did."

She seemed to stay still for a long time, not responding to me. I kept stroking her back and then she whispered, "Please stop touching me."

My hands stopped mid stroke and took a step away from her, my hands off, palms out so she could see I wasn't touching her.

"Have you signed a contract with InnoWare yet?"

I put two and two together. Eva Chen had called me out of the blue and asked me how I was doing, how a recent product release was going. A product that Naya had worked on. Two days later, I'd seen Conrad at a bar, and he'd joked about how I'd stolen someone from his team, and he promised to return the favor.