3. Leftovers

The morning light filtered through the office windows with that particular shade of gray that promised rain by afternoon. Ruby sat at her desk, fingers hovering motionless above the keyboard, her untouched coffee growing cold beside her elbow. The computer screen had long since dimmed into its screensaver, but she hadn't noticed.

Her mind was elsewhere. It had been elsewhere since last night.

The stranger's hands. The heat of his mouth on her throat. The way her body had responded before her mind could intervene as if it had been waiting years for permission to feel. She had spent so long believing she was incapable of desire and a single encounter with a man whose face she never saw had shattered that illusion.

“What is wrong with me? I should be devastated about Lorenzo. Instead, I can't stop thinking about a man I don't even know.”

Her phone buzzed. Bianca again.

Ruby stared at the name flashing across the screen. The twentieth call since midnight.

She silenced the call and turned the phone face-down. The guilt was a physical weight in her chest. Bianca didn't deserve this silence, but Ruby couldn't bring herself to respond. Because talking to Bianca meant talking about what happened and admitting that she had liked it. She had fled not because she was afraid of him, but because she was terrified of the woman she became under his touch.

How could she explain that when she couldn't even explain it to herself?

The sharp click of heels announced Jessica before her shadow fell across the cubicle.

"Well, well. Look who decided to grace us with her presence." Jessica's voice dripped with its usual venom. "I half expected you to call in sick again."

"I'm not in the mood today, Jessica."

"Oh, you're not in the mood?" Jessica leaned against the cubicle wall. "That's rich, coming from the girl whose ex-boyfriend is engaged to her sister. How does that feel, Costa?"

The words landed, but they didn't pierce as deeply as they once might have.

"I wouldn't know. Why don't you ask Noemi yourself? I'm sure she'd love an audience."

Jessica's smirk faltered, clearly thrown by the lack of tears. She recovered quickly. "You're not even worth the effort anymore. Everyone knows you're only here because you were sleeping with the CEO's son. Lorenzo's new fiancée will probably insist on firing you. Can't have the embarrassing ex lurking around, can she? They'll toss you out like the trash you are."

Ruby swallowed her response. 

"I asked you a question," Jessica snapped.

Ruby turned to her screen. "I heard you and chose not to engage."

"That's cute. Playing the professional. We all know the only reason you got this internship was because Lorenzo Morelli put in a word. Your work certainly didn't speak for itself."

The accusation found its mark. Ruby had worked hard, arrived early, stayed late, taken every unwanted assignment. She had believed her efforts would eventually drown out the whispers. She had been wrong.

She pulled up her email and began scrolling. Jessica lingered a moment longer, clearly disappointed by the lack of reaction, then pushed off the cubicle wall with a dismissive sniff. "Pathetic," she muttered, click-clacking away.

The breakup news had spread through the office like a contagion. Ruby still couldn't figure out how. She had told no one and Lorenzo certainly wasn't advertising his infidelity.

Scrolling through her inbox, she found internal job listings that caught her eye. Some were genuine opportunities, but applying required a consent form from the Executive Floor. From Lorenzo's office.

Her stomach tightened. ‘Of course. Where else would it be?’

She gathered her ID badge and made her way to the elevator. Each floor that passed felt like another rung on a ladder she was climbing toward something she couldn't yet see. The elevator chimed at the executive level and she stepped into a corridor of hushed opulence.

The receptionist, a silver-haired woman in her sixties, studied Ruby with undisguised scrutiny. "Can I help you?"

"Consent forms. Ruby Costa. Intern in communications."

After an agonizingly slow examination of her badge, the woman nodded toward imposing black doors. "Third door on the left. The Managing Director's office. You're expected."

Ruby groaned internally. ‘Just get the forms and leave. You don't have to speak to him beyond what's professional,’ she told herself.

She knocked. A voice called for her to enter. She had braced herself for Lorenzo, but she had not anticipated Noemi. She perched on the edge of Lorenzo's desk like she owned it.

"Ruby, what a lovely surprise! Came to congratulate us?"

"I'm here for consent forms. Where is the Managing Director?" Ruby kept her voice flat. She would not give them the satisfaction of emotion.

Footsteps on the balcony cut Noemi off. Lorenzo stepped inside. "Noemi, I spoke with the doctor and he scheduled…" He stopped. "Ruby." Her name came out sour. "I wondered how long before you crawled back. Let me guess… You realized no one else would hire you?"

"I'm here for consent forms. Nothing more."

Lorenzo exchanged a glance with Noemi and they laughed. "Still clinging to this internship? Everyone knows you only got hired because you were warming my bed. Without me, you're nothing."

"Was that supposed to hurt? Because coming from a man who needed my sister to feel like a man, it sounds a lot like projection." Ruby tilted her head, her voice surprisingly calm.

Lorenzo's smirk vanished. "Watch your mouth."

"I'm not here to argue with you."

Noemi slid off the desk and circled Ruby slowly. "No tearful phone calls, no desperate texts begging him to take you back. I was almost disappointed. I expected more of a fight."

"Disappointment must be familiar to you. Living with the knowledge that you had to steal a man because no one would choose you otherwise."

Noemi's eyes flashed. "I didn't steal anything. He came to me willingly. He told me everything like how boring you are in bed, how you just lie there like a corpse. He used to call me after leaving you because he needed a real woman."

Ruby smiled at her. "Is that what he told you? How interesting! Because from what I remember, the problem was never me. It was him."

Lorenzo stepped forward, his face reddening. "You lying little…"

"You couldn't make me feel anything because you're a selfish lover who never bothered to learn my body. You blamed me for your inadequacy and honestly, I almost believed you. Turns out I just needed someone who knew what he was doing."

Silence crashed through the room.

Noemi's smirk froze. "What does that mean?"

Ruby plucked the consent forms from the desk. "It means I'm done letting you define me."

"Walk out and don't come back," Lorenzo snarled. "You're finished here. I'll make sure no one in this city hires you."

"Oh, Ruby?" Noemi's voice stopped her at the door. "Is there a trash bin in the hallway?"

Ruby turned, brow furrowing. "Why?"

Noemi withdrew a small plastic stick from her purse. A pregnancy test. Two pink lines. Ruby stared at the kit for a long time. She knew what two lines meant. Noemi was pregnant. She was carrying Lorenzo's child.

"I wanted you to know Lorenzo and I are having a baby. Isn't that beautiful?"

“Congratulations, Noemi. Truly you've managed to secure a man whose loyalty expires the moment something shinier catches his eye. I hope you enjoy spending the rest of your pregnancy wondering which office he's visiting and whose bed he's warming. But I suppose that's your specialty now, isn't it?" Ruby muttered with a similar smile.

Noemi's smirk faltered.

Ruby set the consent forms down on the edge of Lorenzo's desk with deliberate care. "You know what? Keep the forms. Keep the job. Keep him." She tossed the id onto the desk, where it skidded to a stop beside the pregnancy test. "I'm done. Consider this my resignation. I'll clear out my desk by noon."

Then Ruby turned on her heel and walked out of the office. One chapter of her life had just ended and for the first time in years, she had written the final line herself.