Forgetting Him

by Anna Belle

  "Honestly, I don't know. I'm not sure what happened back there." Max said as he looked back at William.

  "You know that Nathan spent a few years in Texas right? He had a big contract out there, some kind of marketing position for an oil firm. Through a few higher ups in his company, he managed to meet Mr. O'Conner. O'Conner offered him a much higher position in his company and Nathan took it wholeheartedly, you know he loves his money." Max said with a laugh.

  "So, why is he back in New York?" William asked, not entirely sure why someone would leave such a high paying job to go to a place where he didn't even know anyone.

  "I'm not really sure." Max said, "You'll have to find out from Nathan himself." He added.

  William knew already the reason behind Nathan's sudden departure but he didn't want to talk about it.

  "Maybe he was just sick of the place." William say jokingly.

  "Who knows?" Max said with a laugh, glad that he didn't have to go through such an awkward conversation with William.

  "I suggest that we take another look at this and prepare everything we need for Nathan."

  "Agreed, but you'll have to be the one that get's him to take the contract. If he doesn't take it from you then I don't know what else we can do." Max said as he slipped his hands in his pockets.

  "I'll get him to come. We can't miss an opportunity like this just because he has some personal issues in Texas," William said as he grabbed the papers again.

  Chapter 3

  Bruce and Marie walked onto a large terrace which was located right above a bed of roses. While the terrace was large, there was only one table that has been specifically moved to overlook the breathtaking view of the roses underneath.

  As they walked in, everyone in the restaurant observed them. Him, tall and handsome, almost as if he's been created specifically for her; short, long dark hair, inviting green eyes, and red rosy lips.

  "Good evening Ms. O'Conner, sir ..." The waiter greeted them.

  "Good evening." She replied with a small smile.

  Amongst the guests at the restaurant where those that believed that she shouldn't be there, amongst them were people that knew about her past, but Marie paid no attention to their jealous comments and uninviting glares.

  Her father has never been the one to take part in such lavish dinners, nor for the parties that his workers would organize. He was only interested in the gatherings and parties that he organized for his family. Those parties he would organize only once per year, near the end of fall when the farm work would be slowing down.

  Marie didn't mind any type of party really, be it a high class or low class party; she went where she was invited and where she felt like she belonged. This was especially so with the employees of her company, where she enjoyed their simple company, where she understood their hard labor since she worked with them when she was younger and where she could share in their joys of a year's hard work well done.

  Their spots at the table awaited them as they sat down and poured out red wine. They let the conversation flow, but focused primarily on work and how the company will survive and grow. They were both hopeful that the new company from New York would help get them out of the hole that they were in.

  "None eats here." Bruce announced suddenly.

  "Why?" Marie asked, surprised.

  "Because everyone is looking at you." He said with a smile. "Did I tell you how beautiful you look?"

  "I think you did." she said while she jokingly made a thinking face. "Let's go dance and let these people get back to their food." She said with a smile as she grabbed his hand and took him near the lounge, where the bar was serving drinks and the music played in the background.

  Within a few steps of the bar, they danced together to a soft playing melody in the background.

  "Love and roses." Bruce whispered in her ear as he tried to make it sound like the melody.

  "Is there anything better?"

  "Yea, there is." He said as he looked her in the eyes and stopped dancing.

  His hand slid from her waist to her shoulder and neck. Softly with his fingers, he moved a few strands of hair from her face behind her neck. She froze completely. She didn't know what he would do next.

  When she noticed that he was moving his head in her direction as if to kiss her, she moved her head quickly to avoid it.

  "Not the time." She whispered softly.

  She saw his face lose all color, she felt how his fingers trembled on her cheek, but she didn't feel anything, anything except the fear that she would do something wrong. Because of that, she avoided the kiss, angry at herself that she would even allow it to come that far.

  At that moment, Marie felt like a doll, without any feeling or any emotion. Her soul was empty and she, still shaken, wondered how she would ever feel anything for another man again.

  "Will there ever be a time?" He asked, attempting to hide his disappointment.

  She didn't answer him back. She took the time to look into his black eyes, which swallowed her with their look, before returning back to the table where they were seated.

  A few moments later, Bruce and Marie left the restaurant. He drove her home, not once mentioning what happened earlier.

  Marie was thankful for that, because she still wasn't ready to talk about all the things that were running through her mind. Her thoughts swirled around everything, but not love, love wasn't part of it.

  As she entered the house, Lola told her that her father was already in bed, meaning that the talk they were supposed to have must be left until tomorrow.

  "Why are you still up?" Asked Marie.

  "I was waiting for you ... Hoping that I would see you come in all happy." Lola answered as she took her reading glasses of and lowered the book that she was reading.

  "I had a fun time with Bruce." Marie answered back quickly.

  Lola just nodded her head.

  "Well, wouldn't it be weird if I fell in love with him from our first date?" Marie started to defend herself but realized that Lola was truly interested to see if Bruce would make her happy.

  "Yes, it would be." Lola answered back, though she didn't truly feel that way.

  She saw then that something strange was happening with the young woman that she raised, but she didn't want to hurt her more by dwelling on the subject. She also didn't want to remind her how quickly she fell for that young man that her father hired from the oil company. Before she even knew his name, she had that star struck gaze and twinkle in her eyes every time she looked at him.

  "Let's go sleep." Lola said as she got up and walked down the hall towards her bedroom.

  "Good night!" Marie yelled out as she dragged herself upstairs, her mind still in a chaos disarray of thoughts.

  Chapter 4

  Nathan pressed his fingers against his eyelids, which ached from over exhaustion. He closed his eyes again and tried to make them a bit better by massaging them with his fingers in slow and deliberate circles.

  His treatment was working as he felt a bit better. He grabbed a box of cigarettes from his desk and lit one up. His gaze stopped on an open window from which he felt the spring breeze. From where he was sitting, he could make out a small part of the dark, star filled, sky.

  He laid into his sofa, resting his head on the back as he began thinking about the same sky which he's seen from so many different windows and terraces.

  His thoughts began to drift. But, he had control, some things he just didn't want to be reminded of.

  The sound of a car stopping in front of his house awoke him from his dream. He got up, looked through the window and recognized the car that belonged to his boss, William.

  "This is probably some bad news." He said to himself as he looked towards the clock on the wall to check the time.

  It was 8pm, he threw out his cigarette and walked out of his office to greet William and see why he would venture out to see him so late in the evening.

  "Help me with these papers." William said as soon as he saw him on the rea
r view mirror.

  His hands were filled with some papers, in which there were also some kind of tables, drawings, plans and projects. Nathan looked confused as he looked down at the stack of papers in his hands. The dim light on his porch just wasn't enough for Nathan to read anything, he could just tell what type of documents he was holding.

  "What is this?" He asked William.

  "You'll see." William answered.

  Together, they entered the house and both sat down in the living room. While Nathan poured out some drinks for them, William was neatly organizing his papers on the empty coffee table.

  The room was brightly lit and Nathan could now tell right away what papers he was looking at.

  "I thought all of this was already forgotten." He said as he gave William his drink.

  He sat down in the free sofa, which was located directly across the one from where William was sitting.

  "Yesterday I had another talk with O'Conner." He began to explain. "His offer was become very attractive for us now. Max and I have been going over these papers since early yesterday. We finally managed to finish them all and we both agree that we need to take serious action, of course that's after we look into their infrastructure, machinery and accounting, in person."

  "And Ms. O'Conner, she's agreed to sell some of her shares?" Nathan asked, not attempting to mask the irony in his voice. " Only four years ago she would never agree to it."

  "She did actually, since without her none of this would be possible." William said as he grabbed one of the papers with her signature and slid it over to him.

  "Really!?" Nathan couldn't believe what he was looking at. "Is Marie not ..." He started to say as he looked at the slight curves she made in the first letters of her first and last name. "That's how she signed her name before too." He thought to himself.

  "She didn't get married."

  "For so many years I thought she did." He still couldn't believe it. "I left two weeks before her wedding to Michael and I thought that ..." He shook his head. "I can't believe it." He said with a smile.

  "Well, there's only one way to find out why she didn't." William said as he took a sip of his drink and laid back into the sofa. "You have to go to Texas."

  "So that's why you're here."

  "You're the best and most knowledgeable man for this job."

  "When did you plan for me to go?" He asked, still unsure if he wanted to take the job.

  "By the end of this week, latest."

  "Not wasting any time."

  "We don't have any time to be wasting. You'll take the contract?" William asked, sure of himself that Nathan will take the job, how couldn't he, he had to find out why Marie didn't get married to Michael.

  "I don't know." Nathan said as he sat back in his sofa and remembered how beautiful Marie was when he left.

  "You haven't been in Texas in a while. You can think of this as a vacation, a month long vacation. Let's be honest, the work won't be a problem for you." William still pressed him.

  "The way you make it sound it sounds incredible, but I know that that's not really the case."

  "Ok, I'll admit, it's not all easy and nice, but ..."

  "I'll take it, but of course I'll need a substantial payment for the job."

  "We can plan everything out." He hurried to tell him. "I already talked about that with Max. You'll be very happy with what you'll receive."

  "Now we're talking."

  "You have three days to look over all the papers." William said, getting straight to business.

  "Three days? Didn't you say I was leaving at the end of the week?"

  "You're leaving Thursday."

  "I assume that you have my plane ticket ready for Austin?" Nathan asked jokingly.

  "The card has been booked, a penthouse in the city has been rented, in other words, everything is prepared."

  "And what would happened if I didn't agree?"

  "I would persuade you somehow." William said with a smile as he looked down at the papers.

  "Now, what really matters ..."

  Nathan began to drift out of what William was saying. His mind drifted back to Texas, where he met her. For the first time in four years, his mind began to drift there where he promised himself he would never be.

  The memories began flooding back to him, and he didn't even try to stop them. He felt as his body craved to see her again; every second that passed, that craving got more intense.

  Even if a hundred years passed, he believed that he would still love her. Even if she made him fall for her, made him love her so deeply before admitting to him that she was engaged with Michael and that their wedding would happen in a couple of months.

  When she told him that, she left cold heartedly, leaving him alone and confused. Constantly, he thought what happened between them, how could it end so quickly and harshly. For a long time, he couldn't even believe what she said was true, that is until he saw the preparations for their wedding starting up.

  That's when he decided to go to New York and try to forget about everything. He left with the thought that the story between them two hasn't finished, even if she was getting married. She avoided him the last few days he had in Texas, so much so that he didn't even get to tell her goodbye. He wanted to see her, he wanted to tell her what he felt before he left but she refused to see him.

  He asked himself again what could have happened to end the marriage. He thought that maybe they did get married but they got divorced. Her husband never seemed like a good man anyway. Maybe she understood with time who he really was. He really wanted to know what happened.

  Nathan sat back in his chair with his thoughts still swirling around Marie. He hoped that this trip would help him heal his broken heart and maybe he won't come back with more sorrow than last time.

  Chapter 5

  O'Conner was thinking about the talk that he just had with William. He sounded very excited about the up and coming partnership that they would be involved in and he believed that both of them would come out of it happy.

  His plan was that by the New Year, the company would expand farming production, their employees and, ultimately, their outcome and profits.

  He found himself in his office, standing next an open window and thinking about the days he had ahead of him.

  He turned as he realized that he had to tell his daughter about this. Marie worried him. To be honest, he worried more about the type of life that she lived recently than about her position with giving up half of the company.

  He could tell that she was depressed and lonely; any change to her life would be welcome. He was happy when he heard that she went out with Bruce. He hoped that love would somehow find its way back to her young heart.

  Marie, she would always go from one end to another. For a long time she was obsessed with anything that began with the letter "N", for it reminded her of Nathan and the bond that they shared.

  But, after the love faded away, she began to hate the letter and any word that began with it. She never knew how to find a middle ground, a look of concern flashed on O'Conner's face, realizing that she would have more to say about the sale once she found out that it was Nathan's company that was purchasing the majority of the shares. For a long time she acted like a child, and sometimes, he couldn't even recognize her.

  As he exited his home office, he noticed Lola in the hallway.

  "Where is Marie?" He asked her.

  "On her balcony." She answered without even stopping for a second.

  O'Conner slowly walked to the doors of his daughter's balcony and looked at her. She sat in a large chair, leaning back with her feet on a small stool. She wore a long, dark dress which contrasted strangely against her skin. On her knees, she kept some magazines but she didn't read them, as she gazed into the distance. Her black hair, messy and long, covered a part of her rosy cheeks.

  She looked so beautiful to him, just like the little girl that he remembered, not a grown woman who has recently reached her twenty eight birthday.

&n
bsp; "Marie." he finally stepped on the terrace. " I've just been wondering who the lucky guy will be that get's to be loved by such a beautiful woman such as you." He said with a warm smile.

  "I'm still thinking who the lucky man will be as well." She answered jokingly. "But there's just so many of them." She added with a sarcastic huff.

  "Well if you only wanted to open up those pretty little eyes of yours and look around you, you'll notice that there really is a lot of them." He answered seriously as he pulled a chair closer to her.

  "No, no, we won't talk about that because I know you'll use your puppy dog eyes and cute smiles to persuade me into thinking that it's not true," he added.

  "That's exactly what I planned to do." She turned around towards him, a small smile showing on her red lips.

  "I don't know what to tell you." He said with a smile. "Marie, I came to tell you about the news I received from New York. Their agent will come inspect our machines and infrastructure, so he'll be here for about a month."

  "When?"

  "I think it'll be around Friday in the morning. He'll come straight to the head office."

  "Ok, well we'll be there."

  "I'll ask you nicely that you stay close to that man and try and help him with anything he needs."

  "Of course." She agreed immediately.

  "I really think that this won't be as bad as you thought it would be." He said, hoping that she would tell him once again that she will support him no matter what.

  "Maybe I overreacted a bit." She said with a sly smile.

  "A bit." He showed with fingers.

  They both laughed in unison.

  Chapter 6

  William drove Nathan to the airport. The booked the cards, gave the attendants his baggage and decided to go to a nearby cafe and have some tea; since his flight wouldn't be for another hour.

  "You never told me anything about Marie." William asked out of nowhere.

  "I don't know much about her myself." He answered, a bit shook at the sudden question. "She's weird, hot headed, and confident." He tried to describe her as the image of her smiling face appeared in his mind. "Sometimes she's childish and unpredictable."