“It’s a huge commission,” she stresses. “Not to mention, one of the jobs that will help further your career here at Harrington Planners. Sometimes you just have to set aside your family plans for the sake of what’s important.”
I say nothing, but instead sit back down and look at the contents of my desk, seeing none of it really. Cassandra isn’t going to relent on this one. I know her well enough to realize that.
I sigh and slowly look up at her tall height standing in front of my desk, and I nod. “OK,” I say. “I’ll change my plans with my mother—I won’t let you down.” I swallow a lump down my throat, one made up of disappointment and regret and even a little anger.
“Perfect,” she says with delight and a bright white smile. She turns on her six-inch black heels and goes toward the door. Then she stops before stepping out into the hall and says to me with long red nails curled around the doorframe, “You’re going to go places in this business, Sienna. You’re everything an exceptional employee should be, and I’m glad to have you—oh, and you’ll be pleased to know that you’ll have a new assistant starting tomorrow.”
“Great, thanks,” I tell her with a forced smile, and she saunters away, the sound of her expensive heels tapping against the floor as she makes her way down the hall.
I let out another sigh, longer and filled with more emotion than before, slumping against my chair. My mom is smiling back at me from a pretty silver frame next to my flat-screen monitor. She’s going to be so disappointed.
Looking away from her photo, I prop my elbows on the desk and rest my head in my hands dejectedly. And I think of Luke—I always think of Luke, even though I try so hard to forget him. I’ve never forgotten the things I learned just being around him, just by knowing him. I thought that maybe once I came back home, the dream I lived when I was there with him in Hawaii would fade as time passed. I thought I’d simply go back to living my life the way I’ve always lived it, that I was too comfortable in my ways to risk changing any part of the life I’ve grown to trust. But nothing has faded. Nothing has been forgotten. And in my heart I know it never will.
I look at the five-by-seven of my mom again, the woman who gave up everything for me.
“For the sake of what’s important,” I say aloud to myself.
Smiling at my mother once more, I get up from my desk and leave my office, heading for Cassandra’s at the other end of the hall.
“Congrats on the Bahamas job,” I hear someone say, but I don’t pay attention enough to know which of Cassandra’s many employees it came from.
Weaving my way past offices and then the break room, I make it to the tall frosted-glass double doors to Cassandra’s office. They’re wide open and Cassandra is inside talking to a man in a suit.
When he notices me standing at the entrance, he wraps up their conversation and tells her he’ll see her tomorrow.
“Come on in, Sienna,” Cassandra says with the wave of her hand just as the man is walking past me.
I step inside with a nervous ball in the pit of my stomach.
She sits down behind her engulfing desk. Then she picks up a folder and holds it out to me.
“Here are some of the details of the job,” she says. “The rest I’m emailing over to you now.”
I don’t take the folder.
“Miss Harrington,” I say calmly, “I … well, I just wanted to say that I will do the job in the Bahamas if you have no one else to fill in for me, but after that I will be resigning. I’m here to give you my two weeks’ notice.”
The smile drops from her face and she sets the folder back on the desk.
“What do you mean?” she asks, confused. “You’re quitting? Why?”
I fold my hands down in front of me.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t think this is the job for me,” I say. “But I do very much appreciate your confidence in me and your willingness to give me a chance when you first hired me.”