The Way to Never (The Never Trilogy Book 2), page 7
“No you didn’t,” she said, and then she spoke to Dorothy. “She didn’t mean it.”
“You don’t even know what I said to her.”
“It doesn’t matter. I was the one who told her not to bother you for the day, so I’m ready to take any punishment you issue her with.”
“You’re such a bitch,” I said, and she chuckled.
“Agreed. And I’m also the best friend that knows that you have a meeting in a few minutes that you’re in no way prepared for.”
“Leave me alone,” I groaned, but she ignored me.
“Let this serve as a heads up – I’m coming in.” She hung up the phone and a few seconds later, walked in to see me looking exhausted and slouching dejectedly against the chair. She immediately hurried over.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed and softly placed her hand against my cheek. “What is wrong with you? Are you okay?”
I pushed her hand away and straightened. “I’m fine,” I said, and started to return to the computer but she pushed it away from me.
“Carlie!” I said but she didn’t listen. Instead she picked the laptop up and took a few steps away from me. “Carlie, stop it, I haven’t saved my work.”
She looked down at the screen and clicked save. “There,” she said, and she closed the lid.
“What do you want?” I complained.
“You have a meeting soon and see how exhausted you look. Have you even eaten?”
She walked over to the sitting area by a corner of the room and placed the laptop on the coffee table.
“I had breakfast. I’ll eat after the meeting.”
She straightened, walked back over to me and picked up my phone to call Dorothy.
“Dorothy, could you quickly get a sandwich for your boss?”
She listened for a few seconds. “No that’s too heavy. She’ll have dinner soon.” She listened for a few more seconds. “Okay, thank you.”
She replaced the receiver and turned to me. “Are you alright?”
“Carlie, I don’t know what you’re fussing about.”
“Do you want to change?”
I frowned at her. “Why do you want this to be a big deal?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and she took a seat. “I just want you to be okay.”
“Why does everyone think I’m not? What is going on?”
“Lenora, I’ve never met the guy before, but from what I’ve heard from Elisa, the whole story with both of you was pretty serious.”
“That was thirteen years ago. An entire lifetime ago, I don’t get why it’s an issue.”
“Elisa and I have a theory.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I immediately responded, but she went on anyway.
“We think it’s because you know that his contract here will be ending soon, that you agreed to the documentary.”
I just stared at her, irritated.
“Are we right?”
“Why are the both of you so nosy? And how does that even have anything to do with him? He’s not a producer.”
She scoffed. “That would have been a valid argument yesterday, but now it’s void. He is your producer.”
“I feel like I keep repeating myself. Why does everyone seem to forget that I’m in a relationship?”
“It’s easy to forget that you are. You barely talk about him.”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve always been like this with relationships.”
“Yeah, and they’ve all ended.”
“Well this one isn’t going to. We’re engaged,” I blurted out, and instantly regretted it.
Her eyes widened slowly. “What?”
“Go away Carlie.”
“What did you just say? Are you lying to me?”
It wasn’t hard to pull off a straight face. I wasn’t in the mood to accommodate any happy emotions. “I’m not,” I said, and her mouth hung open.
“When?”
“He proposed before the premiere.”
“And you kept it from us?” She gazed at my hands and frowned when she didn’t see any ring on my finger.
“Did he give you a ring? Wait, first of all, did you say yes?”
I sighed. “Yes he did give me a ring and, I haven’t given him a response yet.”
Concern replaced the brief excitement that had been on her face. “Are you going to say yes?”
“Of course I will,” I said, but she knew as much as I did that I didn’t believe it. Thankfully, she understood me well enough to drop the topic.
“Anyway,” she said, back to her usual chirpy self. “I brought Maxwell with me to do your hair.”
“Carlie!”
“Lenora, this doesn’t mean anything okay? Let’s agree that it doesn’t mean that you want anything from him. I just want you to feel and look the best that you possibly can for this meeting.”
“Why?”
“Because he broke your heart!” she said, her voice slightly raised. “I knew what you went through back then Lenora. You still hadn’t healed from your mom, and then he came and I thought that it would be a good thing. But instead he made it worse. I don’t want to remind you of all this, and I don’t know him, but you’re my best friend and by hurting you he hurt the both of us. I had to deal with your hellish mood swings for months.”
A small smile escaped me.
She continued. “I know this is not going to solve anything, but it’s my way of revenge. You can’t do it with money because he’s rich too, so the–”
“Wait, how do you know that?”
“I Googled him of course. Like you haven’t.”
“I really haven’t.”
“Hmm hmm,” she mocked, and it reminded me of Wendy. “We’ll go with that.” She dramatically leaned closer to me as if we weren’t the only ones in the room. “I heard he’s worth almost seventy. He gets about ten annually from CNN but then he’s a silent partner in this real estate company he owns with his brother.”
“Really?” I said sarcastically, and she slapped my arm. I laughed at how dramatically she was presenting the whole information. Of course I knew the asshole was rich, and yes, it bummed me that I wouldn’t be able to lord my success over him. But nevertheless I was happy for him. He’d always known what he wanted.
“And his brother’s still single, but I’m not sure if he’s his older brother or–”
“He’s older. Nathan’s the youngest.”
“Really? How many brothers does he have?”
“Three. The two oldest ones are married.”
She fought to control her smile, and I realized what she was doing.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “He told me about them back in school.”
“They were married then?”
“Get out of my office.”
She laughed and reached out to answer the phone when it began ringing. She told Dorothy to come in as well as her assistant Maxwell.
“Thanks Dorothy,” I said when she placed the takeout bag on my desk, and she smiled in response. Maxwell greeted me and then handed over a huge, shiny red box to Carlie. They both left after.
Carlie’s pointless chatter had surprisingly lightened my mood so with a brief glance at my phone to confirm that I still had some time left, I brought out the sandwich and began eating.
When I was done a few minutes later, Carlie put down our last month’s catalogue that she had been flipping through, and came over to stand by me.
“So, how do want your hair?” she asked.
I leaned away from her. “Noooo!” I said. “Nothing with hair. It’ll be too obvious.”
She frowned at me. “But it looks terrible.”
“No it doesn’t. Plus it’s the end of a long day, I’m not supposed to look perfect.”
“Fine,” she said, and started retouching my makeup. However she did it too quickly so when I saw that we still had about fifteen minutes left until five, I allowed her to start with my hair. All I let her do was add really light waves and then brush it all out. It was about five minutes to five when she finally stepped away from me, and almost immediately, the phone rang. My heart was pounding as I picked it up.
“Mr. Roque is here,” Dorothy said.
“But it’s not yet five,” I automatically responded.
“Uh …” she sounded confused.
“Show him in,” I said, and Carlie immediately locked the makeup box and slid it beneath my table. I straightened my shoulders as well as my blouse, and was about to slip my feet into my shoes, when the knock sounded at the door. I left the shoes alone, and turned towards the iMac on my table. I grabbed the mouse and started clicking. My hands were trembling.
“You’re trying too hard,” Carlie said to me before she answered the knock.
“Come in,” she said, and the door opened.
Nathan
The first thing I noticed in Nora’s office was the blood red sofa by the corner, because of how much it contrasted with the white of the entire room. I’d never paid more attention to closing a door in my life the way I did with Nora’s because I wanted to hold onto every sane second that I still had before I finally had to turn and meet her eyes.
“Nathan,” I heard someone call out. It wasn’t her. I turned to see a cute, curvy, brown-skinned girl walking towards me. She had the sides of her head shaved off but the hair in the middle wrapped into a full bun. She held out her hand before she reached me.
“Carlie?” I asked as I accepted the handshake.
She gave me a beautiful smile. “Yes. I’m Carleah Williams.”
“It’s great to finally meet you.”
“It’s great to finally meet you too. Well, I’ll leave you both to it,” she said, and she walked away, her heels clicking against the granite floor.
I turned to Nora and kept a neutral smile on my face as I walked towards her. She rose to her feet when I’d almost reached the table and motioned to the seat in front of it. With a nod, I sat down and faced her, but she refused to meet my eyes.
“How have you been?” I asked.
“I’ve been good.” She replied, and immediately dove straight into the meeting. It was clear from her tone that she was not interested in any initial small talk with me but I did notice a slight quiver in her voice as she spoke. She started mentioning something about the phone call but I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. All that was going through my head was that I was finally face to face with the woman that owned my heart.
She’d been a beautiful girl back in the academy, but right now I had no words to explain how gorgeous and utterly breath-taking a woman she’d turned into.
The late evening sun that was shining through the glass windows and into the room, cast an incandescent glow around her that made it look like her hair was literally ablaze. Luckily, I caught the end of what she had just said enough to know that it required my agreement so I nodded absently and let my eyes come to rest on her lips.
I couldn’t help but remember what it had felt like to kiss her, but before I could delve anymore into the memory, she called out my name.
“Mr. Roque?”
I slowly lifted my eyes off her lips and brought them to rest on her beautiful grey eyes.
“Do you agree with me?” she asked.
“Agree with you on what?”
She frowned, and just like that, I saw the girl that had broken a tray on my back for bumping into her. An automatic smile rose to my lips so I briefly looked away so that I could control it. My heart was pounding violently within my chest.
“Mr. Roque, I would appreciate it if you paid attention to this meeting,” she said.
“I am paying attention,” I said.
Her eyes briefly met mine. “Well, as I was saying, I had a meeting with Stacy yesterday and she assured me that when you arrived any changes to the plan would be communicated.”
“Currently there are no changes. However, she did tell me that she wasn’t able to obtain your full cooperation yesterday.”
“Yesterday was an extremely busy day for me, and like I discussed with Mr. Stern, there will be days where I won’t be able to offer my full cooperation. They are unfortunately unavoidable.”
“Well, we have to find a way to work around that so that we can ensure that it doesn’t cost any grievous delays to either party.”
“Okay,” she said. “I hear from Harold that this would be a temporary arrangement?”
Her mention of that for whatever reason stung a little, but I didn’t dwell on it. “Yes,” I replied. “It’ll only be until he gets back which should be very soon. My show will be wrapping up for the season by this weekend so I will be able to join you fully by the start of next week. However, if you do require my attention before then, be rest assured that I’m fully at your disposal.” I refused to think any further into what other meaning those words held.
“Okay. That’s fine then,” she said, and once again, briefly met my gaze.
Lenora
I was the first to rise because I wanted the meeting to be over. From the moment he had walked in, I hadn’t been able to take a full breath. I tried to appear as confident as I could by forcing myself to meet his gaze, but each time I worked up the courage to, I could barely last for more than a second.
Thirteen years I had waited for this, and I didn’t want it to end, but I was already beginning to feel dizzy so before it all went to hell, I needed him to leave.
“Nora,” he said, in the familiar quiet tone that I’d dreamed about more times than I could ever remember. I couldn’t help myself then. I turned to him and looked directly into his blue eyes.
My heart stuttered, and as I stared, I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes. There was so much that I wanted to ask him, so much that I wanted to talk to him about, but it pained me so much that I might never be able to.
I didn’t look away even when I knew that he could see the tears in my eyes. He kept his gaze on me until I felt his hand come to rest on mine. My lips parted in a small gasp at the shock that shot through my body at his touch. I slowly looked down to see his hand against mine and then back up to meet his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but just then there was a knock on the door.
I quickly withdrew my hand away from his, just as the door swung open and to my surprise, Damian walked in.
Nathan
Her boyfriend’s entrance saved me. If he had come in just a second later, I would have said something that would have blown all the way to hell, the promise that I’d made to myself earlier, not to make this in any way difficult for her. I still didn’t know what I would have said, but as I turned around to meet the confused expression of Damian Bach, I was glad that I would never get to find out.
I turned back to Nora to give her a brief nod, and then made my way towards the door. I stopped to accept the hand that Damian held out for a handshake.
“You’re Nathan Roque,” he said, surprise in his eyes. I forced a small smile.
“Yes I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“No, the pleasure’s all mine. You interviewed our Gallery’s Director a few years ago.”
“Mathew Lawrence. Yes I did. Hope he’s doing well?”
“He is. I’ll tell him I ran into you. We’ve admired your work for a long time.”
“Thank you, it was really nice meeting you but I have to get going.”
“Of course.” He replied. “Have a nice evening.”
“You too,” I said, and made my way out of that damn office.
No thoughts came to me as I headed towards the elevator. A dead calm settled over me and held the thoughts at bay as I left the building, and headed towards my car. However, when I got in, I couldn’t move. I just sat there and thought about the meeting I’d just had with Nora.
I didn’t have a plan. I accepted the contract here in New York a year ago because I’d seen it as an avenue to prompt some kind of meeting between us. A year had gone by, and I’d just met her, and I still didn’t have a plan.
What exactly did I want out of this? Because if I didn’t know, I had absolutely no right to appear out of the blue and turn her life upside down. I’d noticed the slight moisture in her eyes when she’d finally met mine, and it had instantly turned me cold.
She was happy, she was successful, and she had a man who loved her. What the hell was I doing here?
I pulled out my phone from my pocket and called Stacy. She picked up straight away.
“Are you still in the office?” I asked.
“Yes I am,” she replied. “But I was just about to leave.”
“Oh, okay. Can you wait a bit for me? I want to discuss something about Miss Baker’s project. Or would you rather we talked over the phone?”
“No, I’ll wait. It’s fine. How soon will you be here?”
“I’m in Tribeca now so I’ll be there in about thirty minutes?”
“Okay. See you soon.”
« CHAPTER 4 »
Damian
Lenora seemed ill. I didn’t notice it at first but the more I watched her as she got her things together so that we could leave, the more I realized how sluggish her movements were and how dull her eyes looked. It couldn’t be that she was tired because she’d overworked herself almost every day since I’d met her, and yet she’d never looked this lifeless.
“Lenora, are you alright?” I asked.
She barely spared me a glance and didn’t even bother responding with words. She just nodded and went back to whatever she was doing on her computer. Ever since I’d proposed to her she’d become distant.
I still didn’t think it was a mistake, even though more than a week had passed and I’d still not gotten a response from her. Lenora, I believed, was someone who was driven to act not by emotions, but by facts and expected outcomes. It did bother me though that she needed so long to make up her mind. But as long as she hadn’t said no, I didn’t see what there was to be worried about.
She eventually stood up and I helped her with her laptop.
“Are you still up for dinner tonight?”
She considered this as we waited and then stepped into the elevator.
“Where?”
“Puffy’s Tavern.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. I’m really tired. How’s your project coming along?”
