healing-hearts (6 page)

When they paused, Jason sat for a moment in silence, weighing the feasibility of the event his staff had designed.

“Once again you all have shown me why I keep you around.” Jason smiled. “So, which one of you is trying to put me out of a job?”

Jason laughed as he watched ten index fingers point at each other around the room.

“I’m going to assume, Carlos and Cassandra, that the two of you have all ready reserved and booked everything.”

“Your assumption is correct, sir,” Carlos confirmed.

“Good. Then the only thing you all left me is
my
job. I’ll call Mr. Jordan and see if he’s available Monday for a meeting. Then float the idea by him and show him the ad boards; see if he agrees. If so, then we press forward.” Jason rose off the edge of his desk. “If not, it’s literally back to the drawing board.”

His staff murmured affirmatively and started to head out.

“One more thing. Cassandra, Carlos and Clarence, I’ll have my ideas for the ballroom setup and publicity with you all by tomorrow. We can see what can be incorporated into what you all already have. Keep me posted.”

“We’ll do, Mr. Richardson.” Clarence made his way out of the office with the other two.

Jason rounded his desk as his phone rang. He answered it. “Richardson.”

“Mr. Richardson, there’s a Dr. Hudson who needs to speak with you.”

Jason felt butterflies in his stomach when he heard his doctor’s name or voice.

“Put him through, Jeannie.”

There was a soft click as the two lines were connected.

“Dr. Hudson, something up with my test?” Jason asked hesitant.

“No, everything is still fine with your results. How is your first day back going?”

“Okay, no problems. What’s up? I didn’t expect you to be calling me this soon to check-up on me.”

Jason could hear Dr. Hudson’s chuckle through the phone.

“I’m not checking up. I just forgot to tell you this morning that I made an appointment for you at Healthy Fit.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, by your response I can see it was not high on your priority list.”

“You can say that again.”

“Well, then I guess I made the right decision in making it.” Dr. Hudson was confident. “After this one it will be up to you to make the second one or any others you see fit to make. But, I am making this first one mandatory.”

“Great.” Jason was apathetic. His mind wouldn’t even allow him to fake excitement.

“Remember how important it is for you to really look at making some changes to your life, Jason.”

“Yeah, so people keep telling me. Talk to you later, doc.”

“Knock, knock.”

Yasmine looked up from her desk to see Leigh leaning against the doorjamb. She gave her friend a halfhearted smile and waved her in.

“So, what’s up?” Leigh asked as she took the seat next to Yasmine’s desk.

Yasmine didn’t even try to pretend she didn’t know what Leigh was talking about. She had slept horribly last night, obsessing about the twins, and she was sure that’s exactly how she looked. “Have you ever wanted something that you couldn’t have?”

“Yeah, a Mercedes Benz fully loaded.” Leigh gave her a playful wink.

Yasmine laughed, despite how she was feeling inside. Times like this always reminded her why Leigh was her best friend, because even when she was sad or worried about something Leigh was always there to lighten her burden.

“That wasn’t quite what I was talking about.”

“Oh, you mean like in the first grade, I wanted a bright pink and yellow banana seat bike, but my dad said I was too small.”

“That’s a bit closer. Except instead of it being a bike, it’s a child.” Yasmine’s voice faded.

Leigh sat quietly for a moment.

Yasmine could see the confused questions play across her features. She watched Leigh’s gaze drop to her stomach before returning to her face.

Yasmine quickly clarified. “No—I’m not pregnant.”

Leigh placed a hand on her chest. “Phew, for a moment there I thought you had secretly gotten artificially inseminated.”

“Maybe I should have, it may have been easier to get approval for it.”

Yasmine knew she was in a funk, but she just couldn’t shake it. She wanted the twins.

“So, what were you trying to get authorization to do?” Leigh questioned.

Yasmine paused, not sure how she was going to verbalize to her friend what she wanted without crying like she had done most of the night, until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

She took a deep breath and plunged forward. “I called a lawyer yesterday about adopting a set of twins from the orphanage.”

“Wow!”

Yasmine looked down toward her desk; she felt guilt about not being honest with her best friend about what she had planned to do.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I guess I was just afraid you might try to talk me out of it.”

“Yasmine, I’m your best friend and I’ve never judged you. If you’d have told me I would have just offered you my support.”

Leigh’s saying that just made her feel guiltier.

“So, what did the lawyers say?”

Yasmine regained eye contact with her friend. “They basically said it was next to impossible for a single woman to adopt two children.”

“What are you going to do?”

“There’s nothing I can do. I probably could try, but the lawyer said I would be wasting my time and money.”

“You’re just going to give up?”

Yasmine looked intently at her friend; it sounded as if she was disappointed in her.

“I have no other choice,” Yasmine alleged categorically.

“The lawyer said it was hard for a single woman...”

Yasmine caught the twinkle in her friend’s eye. “And?”

“Get married.”

And there’s the tongue in cheek Leigh to bring me out of my funk.
Yasmine had no doubt her friend was joking. Leigh had been there through her divorce and she knew her thoughts on remarrying.

They both began to laugh.

“Better yet, why don’t I offer the option to the next guy that comes walking into my office?” Yasmine declared.

“If I agree, does it mean I don’t have to come back?”

Yasmine and Leigh sat dumbstruck by the sound of a male voice coming from the doorway, one Yasmine recognized.

At the sight of the good-looking honey tanned white man, Leigh recovered quickly.

Standing up and walking toward the door, Leigh held out her hand to the man while giving him one of her smiles and introducing herself. “Hello, I’m Leigh Clark. Welcome to Healthy Fit, can I assist you with something?”

Yasmine watched from her desk as the man looked past Leigh and directed his gaze at her. For a moment, Yasmine wondered how much of the conversation he had overheard.

Moving his gaze back to Leigh, he took her hand. “I’m Jason Richardson and I believe I have an appointment with Ms. Sousa.”

“Oh, lucky her.” Leigh turned back to Yasmine and lifted an eyebrow in her direction. “I’ll just leave the two of you to your
appointment
.”

Yasmine rose from her desk with her hand out toward him. “Mr. Richardson...I didn’t think you would show up.”

As he approached her, she glanced at his appearance. Jason Richardson was dressed in full business apparel. He wore a navy blue suit with a soft gray tie striped with navy blue over what she could only assume was a perfectly starched white shirt. By his style of dress, she figured he had returned to work since his heart attack. She was curious about how long the doctor actually gotten him to stay out of work.

Fleetingly, she thought about the difference in their worlds as she smoothed her free hand down the front of her khaki slacks.

He stepped up to her desk and grasped her hands in his.

Soft met strong
.

“Well, to be honest I wouldn’t have come if my doctor hadn’t insisted.”

“I figured that was it when Dr. Hudson called me the other day and made the appointment. He rarely does that. Most of the time the patients do it themselves.”

“I wouldn’t have...” He paused briefly. “Let’s get on with this if you don’t mind.”

Yes, sir. I say, someone is used to be in charge.

“Have a seat, please.” Yasmine gestured toward the chair on the side of her desk Leigh had vacated moments before. She handed him a clipboard. “I’m going to need you to fill the top sheet out for me. It’s just a basic questionnaire about your eating, exercise, and stress level.”

She watched the subtle lift of his left eyebrow before he took a pen out of his inside jacket pocket and began to write.

Oh, great, this is going to be fun,
Yasmine thought to herself as she walked the few steps to her filing cabinet and took out his file she had assembled after Dr. Hudson’s call.

Heading back to her desk, she slowed her pace and took a quick moment to watch him unobserved. She could tell that he took pride in how he looked, from the neat taper of his haircut to the polish of his shoes. She glanced at his hands while he was writing—man hands, nothing small or weak about them. She could see the large veins under his skin. Her body began to pulse and throb between her legs. She squeezed her thighs together and it intensified the feeling.

The blunt, jagged style of his nails drew her attention, they showed evidence that he nibbled on them when he was under stress or in deep concentration. It didn’t take away from his appeal. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The small quirk made her think he was more human and less working machine than she initially expected.

She observed him placing an illegible signature at the bottom of the page and pondered whether he had ever thought about being a doctor. Shaking her head, she returned to her seat.

Jason handed her the clipboard. “So, what does all that information say about me?”

Yasmine took a moment to analyze the completed sheets. “I’m glad to see you no longer smoke. How long has it been since you quit?”

“Three years—I kept running out of time to incorporate a smoke break into my schedule.”

Yasmine returned her gaze to the papers. “You don’t eat enough. Your work out schedule looks good. What activities do you do for an hour daily?”

“I swim and once a week I run.”

He settled his fame more comfortably in the chair, Yasmine noticed he was beginning to appear less uptight. Catching a glimpse of the movement of his mouth while he spoke, the slight dimple in his chin caught her attention. She had to admit it was very sexy. She wondered if he ever smiled.

Yasmine jotted down the information. “Your exercise schedule is great, but I have to tell you that if you don’t start eating more often your body is going to start living off your muscle and you don’t want that to happen.”

“Okay so three squares a day. Got it.”

“I’m talking about a meal plan that is right for you.” Yasmine reached over to the handouts on her desk and grabbed a nutritional food guide.

“Eating once a day is my meal plan. Usually don’t have time to eat before dinner; because of work, and if I do it’s a quick power lunch. Where there’s a lot more business being discussed than food being eaten.”

Yasmine shook her head. “Mr. Richardson, I know you have a busy schedule and I can’t begin to understand the complications of your day. But, that’s no excuse for not taking care of yourself.”

Yasmine placed the guide open on the desk and a blank meal plan sheet next to it so they both could have a view. “Okay, Mr. Richardson, by using this guide I’m going to help you plan meals that you could accomplish without any major interruptions to your day.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you I would promise to drive through a fast food restaurant on my way to work and grab breakfast?”

“Negative.” Yasmine couldn’t help smiling at Jason’s attempt at avoiding designing a meal plan. “Now, these are things you can buy when you’re grocery shopping that you can make quickly or grab on your way out the door. They are better for you than a breakfast sandwich at a quick bite place.”

“I don’t buy groceries.”

“What do you mean—you don’t go shopping for food? What do you use your refrigerator for, a filing cabinet?”

“Very funny.” The corners of his mouth lifted slightly almost smiling. “No, I have a lady who comes in once a week to do light cleaning and pick up things from the store for me.”

“Do I want to ask what you have her buy?” Yasmine asked, hesitant.

“Micro meals.” His green eyes held a sparkle as they lit with humor.