I PLANNED MY EX'S PROPOSAL

My ex became my boss. As his subordinate, I booked his business trips, scheduled his dates, even picked out gifts for his girlfriend.

He said it with a smile. "Having an ex for a subordinate isn't bad. She knows my habits. Easy to work with." My expression didn't change.

I answered easily. "Would you consider giving me a raise, then?" He laughed. "Delphine.

If you're that strapped for cash, why didn't you ask for more back when my mother wrote you that check?" I thought about that check his mother had handed me all those years ago.

A hundred thousand dollars. She said that was all I was worth. Chapter 1 At first I had no idea the company was Adrian's.

After we broke up, I never followed anything about him again, but I'd always assumed he would go home and take over the family business.

It never occurred to me that he'd start something of his own. The interview with HR went well, and not long after, she called to say the owner wanted to interview me himself.

It wasn't until I walked in that I found out the owner was Adrian. He sat behind his desk, flipped through my résumé, and asked a few flat, unremarkable questions.

I answered every one. Back and forth, all business. I interviewed that day and got the offer the same day. I blanked for a few seconds. Adrian looked up at me. "What is it? Does Ms.

Sandoval have reservations about the offer?" He was the one I'd wronged, all those years ago.

If the injured party didn't mind, what reservations could the guilty party possibly have? So I signed the paperwork, and that same afternoon I was on a business trip with him.

There was no scene of old lovers meeting again, no flushed faces, no red eyes. He was the boss. I was an employee. Nothing more.

Adrian had somewhere to be that day and needed to leave early. At four, right on time, I knocked on his office door. "Mr.

Wentworth, the flowers and the gift are already in the car." "The restaurant is booked out for tonight, and I've gone over the whole sequence with their manager." "Ms.

Norwood lands at five twenty. You should probably head out now." Adrian shut down his computer and stood. "No problems with the ring?" "I'll take it to the restaurant myself.

There won't be any problems." "Good." The second Adrian was gone, the mood in the office lifted, everyone trading gossip about the proposal he was making that night. Yes.

A proposal. He and Juliette, the Norwoods' daughter, had been together almost a year. It was time for the next step. I'd met Ms. Norwood a few times. Beautiful, full of fire.

Standing next to Adrian, who ran a little cold, she brought the energy and he held the calm, and they suited each other.

The two families matched, and the marriage made sense for both sides. Beyond that, Adrian and Juliette genuinely wanted each other, and they were good together.

My coworkers all told me to grab the chance and get them a few pictures from the scene. A romance between rich, goodlooking people always makes everyone especially curious.

And Adrian wasn't an approachable boss. He had a heavy presence and didn't smile much. Which made his love life that much more gossipworthy. Did he smile gently?

Did he play boring little games with his girlfriend? Did he sulk and get jealous like a kid? Chapter 2 Those pictures were genuinely hard to imagine.

I turned down the photo request, saying that for the sake of my own job I couldn't go leaking the boss's private life.

But I would watch closely, so that when I told them about it the next day they'd feel like they'd been standing there.

The restaurant was the one that had blown up on social media recently. Supposedly it was where Adrian and Juliette had met for the first time.

I handed the ring to the chef, who set it carefully on top of the cake. The restaurant manager stood beside me and let out a low whistle. "That ring wasn't cheap, was it?" "Mm.

The stone alone is worth three point two million dollars." A rare pink. It suited Juliette's coloring. The manager and I ran through the sequence one last time.

Juliette liked a big occasion, something with some production to it, but she didn't want a roomful of people watching.

I'd given Adrian three options for the proposal, and this was the one we'd finally settled on. "Guests are here." A voice came through the manager's earpiece. "Okay.

I'll be right out." "Thank you for all of this, Rory," I said quickly. "If anything comes up, call me." Luckily the restaurant was professional, and Adrian and Juliette weren't difficult guests.

When dinner was over, the music came up right on cue. The manager wheeled the cake out, beaming. Juliette had clearly seen it coming.

There was surprise on her face, but mostly delight. Adrian took the ring off the cake and went down on one knee. He slid it slowly onto the ring finger of her left hand.

A scattering of cheers went up around the room, the servers applauding the two of them finally getting their happy ending.

I stood in the service corridor with the door almost shut, open just a crack. They were so happy. I couldn't help the sigh. It was past midnight by the time I got home.

I'd been working brutal hours the week before and hadn't gotten around to cleaning. The place was a mess. I threw myself onto the couch. Everything around me was quiet.

I'd lived like this for years. I was used to it, and it didn't feel lonely. Only tonight, for whatever reason, something in me gave way.

I lay there for half an hour, then got up to wash my face, and found out my period had started. So the inexplicable low had a reason after all.

I calmly wiped the tears off my face, showered, and set an alarm. Then I slept hard. At three in the morning, violent pain woke me.

It felt like every organ in my abdomen had been wrung together. I couldn't straighten up.

I managed to grope for my phone and call 911, and went into the ER in the middle of the night. Appendicitis. Already perforated. Surgery, immediately.

I held myself together long enough to sign the consent form, and then they wheeled me into the OR.

When it was over and my head cleared a little, it was exactly eight thirty in the morning.

I picked up my phone, asked my supervisor for leave, handed off everything urgent, and hired an aide to sit with me. Then I went under again. It was noon when I woke up.

There were several coworkers around the bed, using their lunch break to visit. The aide explained quickly, "Your phone rang a few times while you were asleep.

I was afraid it might be something important, so I answered it for you." I nodded, and thanked everyone for coming. "Mr. Wentworth actually asked after you himself.

Said you've been working hard lately.

He's approved two weeks off for you, paid, so you can rest up." Chapter 3 "I heard the first thing you did when you woke up was call in for leave and hand off your work?

God, how much is Mr.

Wentworth paying you that you'd work yourself to death like that?" I laughed, helpless. "If I hadn't called in, the next thing would've been the police at my door checking whether I was dead." I didn't have anyone listed as an emergency contact.

If the company couldn't reach me, a wellness check really would be the only option left. "You get some rest. My guess is Mr.

Wentworth and the rest of them will come by this afternoon or tomorrow morning." "Right, it's a company tradition. Mr.

Wentworth never cracks a smile, but when it comes to looking after people who are sick, he does it properly." "They'll give you an envelope, too.

It's just an appendix, so, five hundred, I'd guess." "Not much, but free money's free money." The lunch hour went by fast, and the crowded room went quiet.

I pressed my lips together. They were dry. The aide wet a swab and dabbed at them for me. Adrian came the next morning.

I was hunched over at the time, working my way along the handrail in the hospital corridor like some slow, inching worm.

The doctor said the surgery had gone well and I should get up and move as soon as possible. I always follow doctor's orders.

I still hurt, but I got up anyway, grimacing the whole way. A few steps in, I looked up and saw a handful of the company's executives, Adrian at the front. It was an appendectomy.

Did a getwell visit really need that kind of turnout? "How's the recovery going?" There was a gentleness in his voice that I rarely heard. For a second I was disoriented.

Then I caught up: this was just the tone a boss uses with an employee who's been in the hospital. "Thank you for asking, Mr. Wentworth.

The doctor says it's going well." We traded a few more pleasantries, and then the chief of staff handed me an envelope and winked. She's my direct supervisor. I knew that look.

Something good. I pinched the envelope, testing the thickness. Mm. Something good, all right. "Get your rest. We won't keep you." "Don't rush back to work.

Your health comes first." "If two weeks isn't enough, tell us and we'll arrange it." I thanked them, and I meant it.

The reason I took this job really had very little to do with Adrian. I'd been drawn in by the money and by the way this company treats people.

They pay what they should, and when something happens to you, they actually take care of you.

By the same token, I believed Adrian had made me the offer not because I was one of his exes. Only because I'm genuinely good at the work.

A short romance when you're young, however deep it cuts, gets worn beyond recognition by the years. Regret takes energy, and so does holding a grudge.

For the people we were now, spending that energy wasn't worth it. I kept the aide three days, and once I could manage on my own I stopped paying for one.

After all these years of working, I had some savings. Sometimes I just didn't know what they were for. Real estate in this city is too expensive.

On what I make, a lifetime of hard work would get me an ordinary onebedroom. I wasn't getting married, wasn't having kids.

Dumping every cent I had into a down payment seemed unnecessary. But if I wasn't buying, what was I saving for?

I'm not into food, not into going out, not into luxury, and there's no person or thing I'm particularly interested in. So what was the point of being alive? I let out a small sigh.

You shouldn't have too much time on your hands. The moment you do, you start thinking about how useless your life is. Chapter 4 On the fifth day, the doctor finally let me go home.

I got back and called a cleaning service. There was still ceramic all over the floor by the bed. The night my appendix went, I'd fallen out of bed and knocked my mug over.

The cleaner gathered up the shards and dumped every one of them in the trash. I watched that pile go in, a little sorry, a little relieved.

Adrian had made that mug with his own hands. Back then I was poor, and most of what I owned had been bought for me by Adrian.

After I took his mother's check, I couldn't bring myself to take anything else of his. I left with the mug and nothing else.

It wasn't that I'd spent all these years unable to let go. You use something long enough, you get used to it. It wasn't a big deal, either. I'd just get a new mug.

The two paid weeks went by in a blink. My first day back, everyone said I'd gotten thin and needed to be fed, immediately. Within minutes my desk was buried in snacks.

Adrian came off the elevator, saw me, and his step hitched for a second. He gave a small nod. "Recovered?" Very polite concern. I smiled. "Thank you for asking, Mr. Wentworth.

I'm doing well." Once he was in his office, a coworker sidled over and dropped her voice. "You've been out, so you haven't heard. Mr.

Wentworth apparently had a fight with his fiancée." "He just proposed. What's there to fight about?" "Who knows." She shrugged. "Ms. Norwood came in yesterday.

No idea what they said to each other, but she left furious." I didn't say anything. Mostly because I didn't know what to say. No right to, and no ground to stand on.

So I sighed along with everyone else. Two weeks out. The urgent things had been parceled out to other people, but plenty had piled up anyway.

All morning my feet barely touched the floor. The elevator chimed. A figure swept past my desk, then stopped short and came back.

A hesitant voice. "Delphine Sandoval?" I looked up with the smile already on my face out of habit, and the moment I saw who it was, it froze there.

I'd met Adrian's mother exactly once.

All these years later, I still knew her on sight. "So it is you." She looked me up and down, and something dawned across her face. "I couldn't understand why Adrian suddenly changed his mind about getting married.

It's because of you." Back then, Adrian's mother said I was a bad influence on him, and I couldn't argue with a single word of it