Jillian was adamant. “He can’t live without you. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Tell him,” Jane commanded for the third time that night.

“Give up,” Celia cried. “I’m not telling him. And I’m not changing my hair color, either.”

“Then what will you do?” asked Jane.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Her friends groaned in unison.

They worked on her all weekend, advising, cajoling, prodding and instructing. They wore her down, little by little.

Jane kept pushing honesty. Jillian talked hair and wardrobe and subliminal seduction. Celia moaned and protested and begged them to let it go. They would, for a while—and then they’d start in again.

She couldn’t hold firm against them forever. And she loved that they listened to her, that they cared. They really were the best friends any woman could have.

By noon Sunday, when she got in her rental car to drive to the Reno airport, she had made a decision.

She would take Jane’s advice and tell Aaron of her love.

C elia’s course of action seemed perfectly clear to her when she was waving goodbye on that crisp, snowy Sunday in front of Jane’s wonderful old house.

First she would tell Aaron of her feelings. And depending on how he reacted, maybe she’d consider some of Jillian’s suggestions—if she wasn’t too busy nursing a broken heart while pounding the pavement looking for another job.

It was the “if” part that ruined her resolve.

Because how could she help fearing that the “if” part was reality? She would tell him she loved him. And he would tell her, very gently, because he was a kind man at heart, that he was sure she’d be happier working for someone else.

She’d lose him and her job.

All right, she was miserable now. But she was miserable and employed. She just couldn’t see the tradeoff. If she told him, she’d still be miserable. And she’d be out of work, as well.

“Oh, that’s negative.” She’d lie in bed at night, staring up at the dark ceiling, giving herself advice. “I am so negative.” She would tell herself, “Celia Louise Tuttle, you’ve got to snap out this. You’ve got to give it up, get over him—or tell him how you feel.”

Jillian called on Tuesday. “Well? Did you do it? What did he say? How did it go?”

Celia let too long a pause elapse before answering.

Jillian figured it out. “You didn’t do it.”

“I’m trying.”

“Celia. If you’re going to do it, do it.”

“I will, I will….”

“Tomorrow morning. The minute he comes in the door. Look up from your desk and say, ‘I have to speak with you privately about a personal matter.’ Get him to set a time. Have him come to your suite.”

“Oh, God.”

“Better if it’s on your turf.”

Right, Celia thought. Easier for him to get up and walk out.

“You can do it, Celia.”

“Yes. I can. I know….”

The next morning, when he called her in to go over the calendar, she was ready. She truly was. She stood from her desk and she straightened her fawn-colored skirt—brighter colors, hah! Like wearing fire-engine red and Jolly Rancher green could make him love her. She tucked her yellow legal pad under her arm, grabbed her pencil and her miniature tape recorder and crossed to the high, wide door that led to his private office.

She paused there to smooth her hair and tug on the hem of the jacket that matched the fawn-colored skirt. I’m okay, she thought. Pulled-together. Calm. Collected. Ready to do it.

She pushed open the door and there he was, right where she expected him to be, at his big glass desk in front of the wall of windows, engrossed in something on his computer screen.

She quietly turned and made sure the door was shut. Then she marched across the room and stepped between the two black leather visitors’ chairs that faced his desk, planting herself in front of him.

It took him a moment to stop punching keys and look up. His bronze-kissed dark brows drew together. “Celia?”

That was it. All he said. It was way too much. It was, Is there a problem and do we really need to address it right now?

No. They didn’t.

She sidled to the right, dropped into one of the two chairs, indicated her legal pad and chirped brightly, “Ready when you are.”

Jane called next. On Thursday, after midnight. “Did you do it?”

“Oh, Janie.”

“You didn’t.”

“I almost did.”

“But you didn’t.”

“It’s really…hard for me.”

Jane let out a long breath. “Look. I’ve been thinking….”

Celia clutched the phone as if it were a lifeline. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you’re not up for reality right now. Maybe you’re not ready to face him with the truth.” That was sounding pretty reasonable—until Jane went on. “Maybe you’re enjoying this a little, kind of reveling in your misery.”

“Jane!” That hurt. It really did. And partly because it had the sharp sting of truth.

She was getting kind of…used to being miserable. Yesterday was two weeks since V-day. Two weeks of suffering. She’d kind of gotten into a groove with it now, hadn’t she?

“Celia Louise, you are the classic middle child, you know that you are.”

“Is this a lecture coming on?”

“You are a middle child and you know how to be…ignored. Passed over. You don’t get out and make things happen like a first child. You don’t expect all good to come to you, as the baby in the family always does. You…accept being in the middle. You can easily become stuck.”

“And I’m stuck right now, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. You’re stuck in the middle, sitting at the trestle table, clutching your sad little bowl of gruel, knowing when you finish it, you’ll still be very, very hungry—and yet unwilling to get up and ask the headmaster for more.”

“My bowl of gruel?”

“Come on. You remember. Dickens. Oliver Twist. In the orphanage. We read it in Mrs. Oakley’s freshman English class.”

She remembered. “Shall we go into what happened when Oliver actually got up and asked for more?”

Jane was silent for a count of two. “Okay,” she conceded. “Bad analogy.”

“No kidding.”

“But in the end, Oliver succeeded in life. Because he was someone who could get up when he had to and ask for more.”

“Hooray for Oliver.”

Jane made a small sound in her throat—one that spoke of fading patience. “I’m merely saying, if you don’t want to tell him, fine. Maybe you should quit working for him. It wouldn’t be the end of the world for you to have to get another job. And at least that would be taking action, which I sincerely think it’s time for you to do.”

There was no getting around it. Jane had it right. “I’ll tell him. I will.”

“Good. When, exactly?”

“Tomorrow…”

Tomorrow came.

Celia went to the office tower a determined woman.

And when she got there, she learned her boss had taken off for New Jersey on a site-scouting trip with Tony Jarvis. He wasn’t due back until Sunday. He’d left her an e-mail.

TO: Celia Tuttle, clerical/PA

FROM: Aaron Bravo, CEO

SUBJECT: Trip to New Jersey

Back Sunday. Take a three-day weekend. Aaron.

And that meant, unless something came up and he really needed her, she wouldn’t see him face-to-face until Monday.

Reprieved, she thought. And felt mingled relief and despair—tinged faintly with worry. As his assistant, it was part of her job to be at his side when he traveled. Why hadn’t he wanted her presence on this trip?

She told herself not to make something of nothing. Now and then, he traveled without her. This was probably just one of those times.

She considered going home for another weekend. But she didn’t think she could bear facing Jane again until she had done what she’d sworn to do. And there were plenty of projects for her to dig into. She worked all day Friday and half a day on Saturday.