Brandon (Members From Money Book 19)

by Katie Dowe

  “Fred! Why didn’t you wait inside?” asked Nicole, startled.

  “I don’t have my keys,” replied Fred, his words and demeanor stiff and formal.

  Nicole bit back a frustrated sigh. Fred could be impossible when he was in that mood.

  “Well, come on, then. You know, Annette would’ve buzzed you in if you’d tried. She knows you, remember? We met her for drinks once.”

  “I didn’t feel like buzzing a stranger to get into my girlfriend’s apartment.”

  Fred sounded even more distant now.

  “Fred, you have a key to my place. Why didn’t you bring it, if you were coming over here?”

  Fred turned around, and his eyes were so sharp that she felt like she was being skewered at its point.

  “Because I was supposed to meet you at Joe’s for dinner and your key is on the other key ring.”

  Shit, thought Nicole, as she unlocked the door and started climbing up the stairs.

  “Ah, the perils of too many key rings,” quipped Nicole, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I don’t see the funny side of this, frankly,” said Fred tersely.

  Nicole was at a loss. There didn’t seem to be any way she could salvage anything that evening.

  “I’m sorry, Fred. I just lost track of time. I didn’t mean to make you wait.”

  Nicole stuck the key in the lock and twisted it viciously.

  Fred seemed to be giving her the silent treatment. Well, it suited her just fine, really. She didn’t have the energy for more conversation.

  It had been a horrible day at work. Derek the Dinosaur had come up with the campaign, of course, and had had her running around doing production, because the person whose job it was hadn’t turned up. Nicole had no background in production. She didn’t have a personal rapport with vendors, which was necessary for somebody who needed to get the best rates.

  Anderson had then yelled at her, in front of the whole office, for not doing well enough. She’d had to stay late and try and do what was actually her job, at the end of all of that.

  The last thing she needed was to go head to head with Fred.

  “I was going to order pizza. Are you staying?”

  Fred just looked at her, long and steady.

  “I think I’d better be going,” he said, and Nicole felt her heart chill a bit.

  “Fred, I know things have been a bit difficult, but it’s this campaign. I’ll make it up to you when it’s all done. It won’t be long now. Just a couple of weeks.”

  But as Nicole said the words, she wondered how honest she was being. She wasn’t sure, really, if she wanted to make it up to Fred – if she wanted to be with him at all.

  She knew that she was heading into dangerous territory with Max. They were getting closer and closer, and neither of them made as if they noticed it. But she knew it mattered. The way they studiously ignored how much time they spent together when they didn’t have to, how meetings stretched to dinner, how they just talked… It was always there, though. The way they avoided it, the words they didn’t say, seemed to hang so heavy in the air.

  It was crazy to think of breaking up with Fred just because she had found a connection with somebody, Nicole chided herself as she watched Fred soften, just a bit. Fred was a good man. It was just a rough patch. You didn’t throw away something that she and Fred had just because of a few odd feelings.

  It was just a crush, Nicole reassured herself. That happened. If she told Fred, he would probably laugh about it.

  In about a decade or so.

  “I know, babe. But I’m tired, and so are you. I really want to hit the sack. We’ll work it out once your campaign is closed. Everything will be different then – back to same old. I’m really looking forward to that.”

  Nicole let Fred pull her into his arms and kiss her, long and sweet, and she found warmth there. But lately, she’d been dreaming of fire, not warmth.

  She found no fire in Fred’s arms.

  *****

  On the day of the launch, Nicole was up at the crack of dawn. She made sure that she had her entire collection of makeup, especially concealers, with her as she left the house.

  Her day was so full that she wished there were at least ten more hours in it. She’d been reviewing every single detail since five in the morning, and now, at seven, she was already on her way to the five star hotel where the launch was officially happening.

  Nicole didn’t agree with the choice of venue, but what did she have to do with it? All she could do was follow orders. She had a bad feeling that the kind of people who would come to a soft launch at a place like that particular hotel would not appreciate the ale at all.

  Still, she would do everything she could. As she gratefully handed her car keys to the valet and stood at the entrance, she saw a familiar silhouette ahead of her.

  “Max,” said Nicole, and he turned around, that smile in place.

  But Nicole could see the worry at the edges of it.

  “I should’ve known you’d be here before any reasonable person would consider going to work,” said Max with a smile.

  “I could say the same for you,” said Nicole, as their bags were put through security and they walked into the lobby. When Max looked around, the unease on his face intensified.

  “I’m sure it’ll go fine, Max. We’ve taken care of all the details, and every single detail has gone through you.”

  A shadow of a doubt flickered over his face.

  “Yes, I know that. I do know,” said Max,

  But he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was missing something. He had been too distracted by Nicole. His focus had been on spending time with her.

  He’d made himself forget the fact that Nicole was a woman with a boyfriend, one to whom she seemed very faithful and loyal. Even if he could feel the connection between them, Nicole hadn’t given him even the slightest opening to act on it. He had a feeling she wouldn’t.

  So he had let his focus slip, all for nothing, and now he had a feeling that something was about to go wrong. Max had learned not to ignore those feelings, but now he was helpless. Everything had been done.

  He had to hope that everything was going to be fine.

  Otherwise…

  Well, he didn’t want to entertain any negative thoughts. He had enough of the Irish in him to be a bit superstitious.

  Besides, he could deal with obstacles. No obstacle had ever stopped him.

  “Nicole, can you honestly tell me how you feel about all of this?”

  Nicole turned to him warily.

  “I think every detail has been meticulously planned and the schedule will have absolutely no problem. I’ve dealt with every practical aspect of it personally, Max. None of that will go wrong. There will be no glitches.”

  But Max noticed what Nicole wasn’t saying.

  “I know that you have executed every detail perfectly. What do you think of the campaign itself? I know you usually have strong opinions, but you never told me what you thought.”

  Nicole turned to get her bag and opened it, checking through for nothing – she just needed something to do with her hands.

  “I’m sure it’s perfectly well thought out if you approved it, Max. You know best what works for your brand, at the end of the day. You have to trust your own judgment.”

  Max’s eyes sharpened.

  “Is that a vote of confidence or a warning?”

  Nicole laughed, but the sound was forced and tinny.

  “Warning of what? Don’t be silly, Max. I’m sure it’s all going to go great! Come on, let’s go over the schedule once more now that we’re both here. I’ll run to the kitchen and make sure that prepping is going well, after that, and I’ll do another round of media calls. I’ll get somebody to do guest check-ins, too. It’s all going to go well,” assured Nicole, and the worry slowly faded from Max’s face.

  It didn’t occur to him until later that Nicole had cleverly avoided answering the very pointed question he had, perhaps unf
airly, put to her. But now he couldn’t ask. He was drowning in details, and Nicole was nearly a blur, running around and doing twenty things at a time.

  He had to leave for a lunchtime meeting. Now he would only be back in the evening for the launch.

  Nothing would go wrong, he reassured himself, but it didn’t work nearly as well as it did when Nicole did the reassuring.

  When he came back, he found that everything was prepared, and it had all been done meticulously. And yet…

  He didn’t feel that it was right. Despite, the elegant décor, despite the attention to detail, the wonderfully precise showcasing of kegs and bottles, the theme of a spring meadow that Nicole had executed to perfection, he didn’t feel that it was all right.

  Then he caught sight of Nicole, and all thought ceased in him.

  She looked like a wild fairy in a spring meadow. Everything seemed to come alive around him. She should be wearing a circlet of wild flowers, he thought, and didn’t dismiss the thought as fanciful. The red dress she wore made her look like a dark rose, growing wild and unrestricted. Her hair had obviously been tamed, but it had developed a mind of its own.

  She was small and potent, and in that moment, all Max wanted was to pull her into his arms and hold her, know that she was his.

  When Nicole walked to him briskly, he was a wish away from claiming her.

  Her words brought him out of his wild daydreams and into the cold reality of what was going on.

  “I’ve got decent response from bloggers and print. There will be a couple of television crews as well. They might want to do something more. The bad part is that the invites sent out to reviewers…”

  Nicole paused. Now Max did come completely out of his daydreams.

  “What about them?”

  Nicole sighed.

  “Well, one of them is a pompous ass. We are targeting pompous asses, but from what I’ve gathered, he has a bone to pick with the brand. He was specifically requested by Derek, so I didn’t check up on him. But he’ll definitely be here and he sounded a bit too gleeful to me.”

  Nicole was worried. She knew what one rogue opinion maker could do with the whole Internet in front of him. Even if the event went off without a glitch – and she knew it would, because she had planned that – she couldn’t control the reviews or the opinions that would be formed. Left to herself, she would’ve chosen three reviewers whose tastes she could gauge, not the wildcard that Derek Anderson had chosen.

  Nicole had a bad feeling about it. This had happened once before when Derek the Dinosaur tried to show everybody that he was still relevant. He waded into the online world and he blundered about, doing more damage than he thought could be possible.

  Well, she would have to deal with the fallout, of course. She’d done it before.

  But this time, it was Max. She didn’t want to have to deal with fallout with Max. Even if she didn’t find the product to her tastes, she didn’t want Max to have a failure in his hands.

  She wanted Max to be happy. It shocked her, how desperately she wanted that.

  “I’m sure Mr. Anderson has a plan for it all, Max. He chose the reviewers personally.”

  Max wasn’t convinced, but before he could press Nicole about it, Noel walked up to him.

  “Noel, I hope everything looks good to you,” said Nicole, very glad to have an excuse to look away from Max. For once, Noel had a smile on his face. Nicole had a feeling Noel didn’t particularly like her, though she had no idea why.

  “You’ve done a marvelous job of executing every detail, Nicole. After spending some time with you, I find myself wishing I’d made sure you had more input with some of the creative parts, too.”

  Nicole smiled. That was the best thing Noel could possibly have said to her.

  “Maybe next time, or so I hope. Excuse me, I see the early birds are beginning to arrive. I must go. Please, Max, make sure you circulate. Noel, could you stay close to him and cue him? Thank you!”

  Nicole walked away, taking a deep breath. It was time to play her part.

  Three hours later, Nicole’s bad feeling had become much worse.

  On the surface, it looked like everything was going fine. Everybody was making small talk, and there were no awkward encounters. The launch itself had gone quite well – Max’s little speech had gone over a treat.

  But Nicole had noticed that two reviewers with extremely popular blogs and social media presence hadn’t looked impressed with the ale. She hadn’t even known that the second had been invited. It had been a last minute decision from Derek, and she had known it was the wrong one the moment she got a minute to look him up.

  He was an expert, all right – a purist. There wasn’t a purist on earth who would enjoy the ale they were selling. Even worse, the branding hadn’t been as targeted as it should’ve been. Nicole had tentatively raised that concern, and she had been told to keep that to herself.

  Now, she wished she hadn’t kept quiet. Maybe she should’ve talked to Max about it.

  By the time the evening was over, she was too tired to even check any updates. She didn’t even remember saying goodbye to Max, she was that tired.

  But the next day, when she woke up, the bad feeling hadn’t gone away. She felt a strange reluctance to go online and check what the response had been.

  “Don’t be silly,” she chided herself, and grabbed her tablet.

  Instinct guided her. She went straight to the blog she’d been dreading, and she saw that she’d had good reason for the bad feelings.

  It was a hatchet job. There was no other way to describe it.

  Frantically, she checked if there was any way she could limit the damage. To her horror, she saw that there was nothing she could do. It was all over social media. Everybody seemed to have shared it.

  Even the reviewers she’d been fairly confident would write something favorable hadn’t posted anything, and now she knew they wouldn’t. The opinion had already been formed.

  Max’s new beer was a flop, and their campaign would be a complete bust unless they blasted enough content and marketing to drown out this noise.

  Before Nicole’s horrified eyes, the sarcastic, scathing review went viral. It was shared thousands of times.

  Nicole wanted to crawl back under the covers and close her eyes, pretend that none of this was happening.

  But a thought occurred to her to make her get out of bed quickly.

  “Max,” she whispered to herself as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

  Her concern wasn’t that of an advertising agency for a client who might have paid a hefty retainer. It was that of a woman who wanted the man she was developing feelings for – it was concern for Max, a man who had invested so much of himself in something risky, and was seeing it all fail.

  Nicole didn’t think about it – she didn’t have to. She ran a hand through her hair, grabbed her keys, got in her car and drove straight to Max’s condo.

  “Shit,” muttered Nicole as she parked. She hadn’t thought of security.

  Had to give it a go, she told herself. She tried to make herself walk confidently, and wished she’d worn something other than her oldest pair of jeans and a T-shirt that was almost as old.

  “I’m here for Max Daniels,” she told the smartly dressed, wide awake man at the door. He just smiled and opened it for her.

  But there was another hurdle to cross. She stopped at the desk, trying not to be intimidated by the smooth and very elegant and rather opulent efficiency.

  “Nicole Richards for Max Daniels,” she said, trying a smile.

  “Is Mr. Daniels expecting you?”

  The handsome, olive-skinned man smiled, but there was steel underneath that smile. It felt like trying to break into a fortress.

  “No, but it is important. Perhaps you could buzz him? I know he was out late last night, but something urgent has come up.”

  Thankfully, the man – Aaron, saw Nicole after she checked the tag – seemed to be willing to take her word.
r />   After a soft conversation that she couldn’t hear, she was escorted to a private elevator and ushered in. When the elevator stopped, she walked out into what was unmistakably Max’s home.

  At any other time, Nicole would’ve been fascinated. She would’ve wanted to look around and take in where Max lived. But now, all she could see was Max.

  Or rather, his back, because he was standing at the tall window at the other side of the room, looking out.

  “Max,” she said, not knowing what more to say.

  He turned, and Nicole saw that he had definitely read the review, and watched it being shared.

  “It… It’s…”

  Nicole felt her heart nearly break as he struggled to get the words out. She wished she could say that it was all fine, that somehow, they would fix it. But she couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “It’s a disaster,” said Max, finally.

  Nicole did the only thing she could think of to do. She walked towards him and wrapped her arms around him, stepping close to him. Her hands moved over his back soothingly.

  In that moment, she realized that he wasn’t just a client. Her heart had known it already. But she knew that he meant far more to her than she had ever meant him to.

  “How did this happen?” asked Max.

  “We’ll fix it. We’ll figure it out. Max, we’ll figure it out,” said Nicole, though she didn’t know if she believed her own words.

  Finally, she felt Max’s arms moving around her, pulling her close. She pressed herself to him, trying to give him as much comfort as she possibly could.

  “How? How did it become so bad? I know that it wasn’t to my taste or yours, but it shouldn’t have bombed so badly.”

  Nicole pulled away and cupped his face in her hands.

  “Look, I know it looks bad right now. But it is just one viral post. We’ll work on it, and we’ll push, hard. We’ll figure out a way to make this… better,” she ended, rather ineffectually.

  Max smiled, but it was a ghost of his old smile. Those eyes seemed to have lost some of their shine.

  “It’s just one product, Max,” said Nicole, desperately trying to cheer him up.