JONATHAN'S POV
I hated Valentine’s Day. The day always sucked. Well, they didn’t always suck, at least not when I was with Tilly. But the day she left was the last year that I had a good Valentine’s Day. I typically avoided this day, spending my day busy with work or making my way to the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. This year, however, I couldn’t do that.
Jake had invited all of us siblings to Chicago. He was planning on surprising Amalia with a marriage proposal. He wanted all of us there, along with Amalia’s mom and dad. Amalia’s sister was heavily pregnant and couldn’t travel, and dad was not feeling great, otherwise the night would be full of family. Jordan was even supposed to be joining us after dinner.
I am doing this for Jake. I repeated to myself over and over again. I was happy for Jake. Hell, I had even been there when he picked out the ring, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to be here. Vale
Tilly’s POVTilly/Maddie are the same person. It might be confusing at first, but it will make sense soon enough!I got up early, like I always do. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. Over the years, I had refused to cut my hair, but I had dyed it black when I came to New York. I had tried several different colors, but I found that black was most different from my original hair color. My light blonde hair had been long gone. I had refused to cut my hair, deciding instead to wear it pulled up in a bun or braid most of the time. I found that this allowed for me to change my look without actually having to cut my hair.I had touched up my hair last night. It was a Sunday night ritual at this point. I touched up my roots so that the blonde wouldn’t show. I had even colored my eyebrows in an effort to completely change my appearance. I had also mastered makeup application skills, using contour and highlight to change the shape of my nose and cheekbon
I exited the elevator and stood not moving, holding my box of belongings. The head of HR, Willow, was leaving Jonathan’s office and gave me a weak smile and a sympathetic nod.“I have made it clear to Mr. Langley that this is his last chance with an assistant. We won’t be subjecting anyone else to his behavior if he can’t act appropriately with you. Let Emma know immediately if anything is off. I haven’t been able to get anything out of the other assistants who left.” Willow whispered to me before turning to leave. I nodded at her and headed into my office. I placed my box down.Instead of unpacking my things and settling me in to my office, I decided to go check in with Jonathan. Maybe it was my own curiosity to see how Jonathan would respond or maybe it was just my desire to be close to him again. Whatever it was, I found myself walking to Jonathan’s office.“Mr. Langley?” I called to him from the doo
The week overall went really well. I was pleasantly surprised by how things went with Jonathan. By lunch time on Friday, I was feeling pretty confident that Jonathan was not the only problem when it came to his assistants. He definitely was part of the problem, but was not the only problem when it came to his problems with assistants.I decided to take risk and ordered Jonathan sushi for lunch. He had always liked it, but for an assistant, it was a bold choice, especially if you didn’t know if your boss liked it. I decided to use my insider information to my advantage.Lunch arrived and I headed into Jonathan’s office with it. I handed him his lunch and he made a face.“Is it not okay?” I asked, standing off to the side of his desk. For a moment, I was concerned about disappointing him.He shook his head. “Sushi is great. I am just trying to figure out how you keep making such good lunch choices.”I couldn&
JONATHAN POVA sense of relief washed over me, and I wasn’t sure why. There was something about Maddie that drew me to her. Because of this, I was sure that I was treating her better than I had any of my other assistants. But I spoke the truth when I told Maddie about the bad assistants I had. There was a string of several who were just not good and lacked basic skills to be even a decent assistant. The one decent one I had was more interested in getting in my pants. I nearly let her give me a blow job in my office before I came to my senses and stopped her. She went crying out of my office and I fired her immediately. If that made me an ass, then so be it.Maddie was different. She knew her stuff and was able to adapt to my moods and needs. Even when I got upset following the meeting regarding the project manager, she just rolled with it. She knew I wasn’t yelling at her and didn’t respond by getting upset, like one of the assistants did when I
I had spent the last several days avoiding Jonathan. I did my job and that was it. The regular conversations we had during lunch or when I brought him reports and files had all but stopped. I had solidified my decision to ask Emma to come back and work with her after the retreat. I would talk to her about it as soon as we returned. I loved working for this company and wanted to stay here as long as I was in New York, but there was no way that I could stay here working for Jonathan.I couldn’t take the hiding and the pretending. At least if I worked with Emma, I wouldn’t see Jonathan every day. I didn’t sign up for being his assistant and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I also couldn’t be thinking about who Jonathan was doing what with. It wasn’t my business, but I could not help the way that I felt. It wasn’t just jealousy that I felt. It literally hurt my heart.On Monday it had looked like he wanted to say something about what
I woke up early to ensure that I could get in and out of the bathroom before Jonathan got up. I started the coffee maker and checked the fridge, pleasantly surprised to see that it was well stocked. I remembered how much Jonathan liked French toast. The cinnamon raisin bread in the pantry would be perfect for it.I took all the ingredients out and got cooking. I turned on some music and started making breakfast. I was moving to the music, singing along, just enjoying the morning. The sausage was cooking, and the French toast was nearly done. One of my favorite songs came on and I sang long, getting lost in the music. I turned off the stove and went to get two plates. I turned back to the stove, putting sausages and a few pieces of French toast on each plate. I pulled the warmed syrup out of the microwave and added it to the table. I was still singing along to the music when the sound of a chair moving pulled my attention.“Holy shit, you scared the crap out of me
I took a deep breath and opened my bedroom door. Jonathan sat on the couch, a glass of whisky in his hand. I stepped out and closed the door, walking towards Jonathan. He didn’t look up as I approached. He appeared to be staring at the coffee table, his jaw clenching and unclenching.I took a seat in the chair across from Jonathan. I pulled my legs up close to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs. I could feel my body shaking. The emotions coursing through me were just too much for me to sort out.“What the fuck, Tilly?” Jonathan seethed, his words coming out like fire. “No word from you for six years and you show up, hiding yourself as my assistant?”I flinched back at his cutting words. “It’s complicated.” I replied, realizing that the words were not going to help at all. He responded as I would have expected.“Complicated? Please enlighten me as to how it is complicated. It was so c
JONATHAN’S POVI watched as Tilly went to bed. I had been waiting for this day for so long and now that it was here, I had absolutely no idea what to think. I believed everything that she told me, I really did. I didn’t doubt that something significant had caused her to leave like she did back in college. And as much as I wanted to go into her bedroom and be with her again, my head was all over the place and I didn’t know what to think.“She told me some messed up shit, Jake. I believe what she told me but, damn, she has gone through more shit than I ever would have imagined.” I sighed, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, my hands on my head.Jake sat on the chair across from me, Amalia taking up the spot on his lap. “It must be some bad shit if she was disguising herself. No one would do that for the hell of it.” Jake stated, running one of his hands through his hair.I nodded my head, taking a deep breat
Jonathan“Got everything prepared?” Jake asked as Jonathan stood next to him, looking in the mirror. Jonathan was adjusting his bow tie.“Don’t you think I should be asking you that? After all, it is your wedding day.” I looked back at my brother. The smile on Jake’s face told me everything I needed to know; he was more than ready to be married to Amalia.Jake smiled back at me. “Of course I am ready. I have been ready for months now. All of these details are what Amalia wanted. I was okay with whatever she wanted.” Jake paused, turning to look at me. “You know if mom was still alive, this wedding would have been huge. Everyone would have been invited.”I laughed at Jake’s comment about mom. He wasn’t wrong. I remember walking in on my mom talking with my sisters about their weddings. They were young but my mom loved talking to them about it. Mom was the ult
Three Weeks LaterThe last three weeks have been spent healing. I overdid it a bit when I first came home and was sore for a few days. I learned my lesson quickly and followed doctor’s orders for the next two weeks. Now, I was feeling great. My pain was minimal, and I had stopped taking pain medication over a week ago.The downtime over the last three weeks gave me a lot of time to think. Jonathan worked from home the first few days but needed to go back to the office due to some problems with that expansion project that required him to actually be at the project site. While I did miss him, I appreciated the time to go through things in my life.The first thing I did was reach out to Duke University to see what I could do to finish up my degree. I was literally one semester away from graduating. After talking with them, I was able to get set up to take my missing three classes online. I appreciated that I had the option to go online to finish u
TillyThe sound of beeping pulled me from a deep sleep. I had no idea what was going on or where I was. The last thing I remembered was the sharp stinging pain that I felt in my side that followed several loud gunshot blasts. The sounds around me were muffled, which was not a surprise consider both the blast and the gunshots that occurred so close to me. I tried to open my eyes but I was so tired and weak that I was not able to do so. The pain in my side reminded me that something did happen to me. The gun that had been jammed in my side led me to believe that I had been shot and the beeping sound meant that I was in a hospital room.I attempted to move my hand to my face, but something stopped my hand from moving.“Baby, just take it easy.” A voice whispered to me. I smiled when I realized that Jonathan was sitting with me, slowing stroking my hand. “I love seeing you smile. I was scared for a minute there.” His word
TillyI stumbled away from the blast, the ringing in my ears not stopping. In the chaos of the blast, I was able to run away from those around me. I didn’t know where I was going, but I kept running towards the back of the warehouse. There wasn’t much that could be used for cover, but at this point, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get as far away from Gregory and those other men as I possibly could.My heart was pounding and my ears were still ringing as I paused for a moment to try to catch my breath. I could barely hear anything around me. The blast was not so close that I was impacted by the flying debris from it, but I was close enough that my hearing had been impacted. As I looked back towards the area from which I had just fled, I was surprised by what I saw.The men who had been standing in front of me, waiting to “accept” me had taken up a position behind a short wall that ran perpendicular to the door. The door fro
JonathanI hadn’t slept at all last night. After Steve indicated that we were meeting with Vincent Lombardi at 9:00 this morning, I could not stop my brain long enough to go to sleep. Although Tilly hadn’t been gone long, I was significantly concerned for her safety. At one point, Gregory wanted to kill her, and that scared the shit out of me. Gregory was not well liked by most people. He had screwed a lot of people over the years. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would willingly work with him, unless there was a deeper motive. That deeper motive is what was most worrisome to me.The mafia was something I knew about only from the movies. I really enjoyed watching mafia movies. The Godfather, Goodfellas, Scarface, and Casino were some of my favorites, but I enjoyed any mafia movie. I also spent some time watching documentaries about the mob. However, none of that meant that I knew anything about what to expect when meeting some
I was annoyed. I didn’t want to sit here and listen to Gregory’s long-winded story. I wanted to know the truth and I wanted it now.I stood up, causing the asshole I had bitten to stand up. I rolled my eyes at him and turned my attention back to Gregory.“Look, I already know that you aren’t my father.” His eyes widened slightly at my statement. His response surprised me, and I wasn’t sure if I had revealed my knowledge of that tidbit of information too quickly. I held my breath, waiting for him to respond.He took a beer from the fridge and then turned back towards me as he opened it. “Well, one less thing I have to tell you, I guess.” He shrugged and walked back towards me. It seemed like it was way too early to be drinking beer, but I doubted that he cared.“Why did you and mom say you were my father when you weren’t? Why have my birth certificate changed?” I aske
Jonathan’s POVI was pissed. After Steve and I had left Alex and Carlo, we attempted to determine where the SUV was that had taken Tilly. Unfortunately, Pierre lost the SUV in traffic. There was an accident that occurred right in front of Pierre and he was not able to get around it fast enough to continue to follow the SUV.Now, Steve, Pierre, Alex, and I sat in my condo, trying to work out a plan, and nothing was going well at this moment. Steve’s tech guy was trying to pull down video from street cameras to see if the SUV could be tracked, but that would take some time. In the meantime, Steve was trying to get plans together for when we were able to locate Tilly.“Alex, call up Robert and see if he can offer any assistance. I don’t have a good sense of what the threat is and I want to be prepared.” Steve continued to provide orders to Alex and Pierre as I sat, feeling increasingly useless.I was frustrated to sa
“Can we please talk about something else?” I groaned as Jake went on to another story about me. “I think that the last story about me running naked through the high school is enough.” I stated, going to grab myself another beer from the fridge. “Isn’t this what families do? Tell embarrassing stories about each other in front of their significant others?” Jake laughed, taking the beer I handed him. “You should have heard the stories Amalia’s parents told me. Skinny dipping in the neighbor’s pool was one of my favorites!” “Ugh. That was so embarrassing. Ok, I am with Jonathan. Enough with the stories!” Amalia chimed in. I liked that she was on my side. I liked how she grounded Jake. He had let my dad control him for so long, that it was good to see that Jake was able to get to this place. I was glad that this was my chance with Tilly to do the same. I smiled over at her. She was talking with Emma and William, who had just come back from putting Cassie down for
JONATHAN’S POVI had been awake for some time, just laying in bed with Tilly. I could not believe that she was with me in my bed – the idea of it was still so surreal that I could barely wrap my head around it. The last week had been a struggle for me. While I should have felt overjoyed to have her back in my life, there were so many unknowns that it made it difficult to fully process what had happened, both with Tilly coming back and to Tilly. I had struggled with knowing what I should do. I knew that it should have been easy to figure out, but I had this nagging fear that Tilly would run, and I could not open my heart back up to her running away again.When I talked with Jake earlier in the week, he asked me what was holding me back from being with Tilly again. I didn’t have a good answer for his question when he asked me that, because when I was honest with myself, I knew that I wanted to be with her. But sometimes, we get in our own way and can hu