by Hannah Ford
She sat down opposite his desk. He moved to sit down as well, fixing her with a long, enigmatic look, before finally starting to talk. “Nicole, I’m going to be frank with you. I’ve spoken at length with everyone in our team about this, particularly with Remi Danvers. And we don’t feel as though you’re a good fit to work as assistant to the art director at this time.”
Nicole nodded, trying to keep the emotion from her face. “I know that people are unhappy with how things have come about between Red and—“
He put up his hand. “We’re not going there.”
“But obviously this is because I’m seeing Red. People think I’m getting preferential treatment.”
“You have to understand my position, Nicole. Red Jameson is the CEO of this company and I’m an employee. I’m his employee and I follow his directions. However, I still need to make sure my team functions effectively, and this…situation…is causing the team to become dysfunctional.”
“I’m sorry.”
“From now on, you’ll be working with me, personally,” he said.
She was stunned. “What will my duties be?”
“You’ll sit in on meetings, take notes, handle certain kinds of correspondence, call people for me and relay messages. And plenty more.”
“Like an administrative assistant,” Nicole said, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice.
He shrugged. “Your title won’t change, nor will your pay. You’ll simply be working for me instead of Remi.”
“I was doing creative work with Remi, and I really enjoyed that.”
He smiled. “I understand you enjoyed it, Nicole, but unfortunately she didn’t enjoy it quite as much as you did.”
***
Red asked Nicole to meet him for lunch in the cafeteria, which she did, even though she knew all eyes would be on them.
When she first saw her fiancé standing and waiting for her at the entrance to the lunchroom, she wanted to throw herself into his arms and cry. She felt like a little kid who’s had a terrible day at school.
“Hi,” he said, smiling at her as she walked toward him.
“Hi.” She tried to put her best, most convincing smile on in return.
“That bad?” he asked, reaching out and lightly touching her arm. Of course he could see right through her act.
She nodded but kept smiling. “Shall we?”
“But of course.”
They walked together. Luckily, it was early for lunch, so there weren’t all that many people eating yet. Still, even with the few employees in the cafeteria, there were plenty of eyes following them.
Nicole could feel it sometimes, especially as they walked past. People pretended not to notice, and then as soon as her back was to them, she felt them staring. Occasionally she turned and caught someone in the act.
It was almost humorous, except it wasn’t. Not really.
Red got them both special meals from the Italian kitchen. Chicken Marsala for him, Chicken Cacciatore for her. “You won’t be disappointed,” he told her, as they took a window seat in a somewhat secluded area of the cafeteria.
He unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap, then dug into his meal with gusto.
Nicole hardly had an appetite, but she picked at her food so as not to upset him.
“How do you feel about seeing your new home tonight?” he asked, looking up briefly from his food.
“Nervous. But mostly excited.” It was true, she was excited. Unfortunately, she’d barely thought about the good things happening since that disappointing meeting with Edward.
Red sensed her uneasiness and put his knife and fork down. “Okay. What now?”
“Don’t be annoyed with me,” she said softly.
“I’m not annoyed, I’m concerned. What’s going on?”
She told him about the meeting with Edward and he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head when she finished. “I’m sorry that the creative team is choosing to handle things this way.”
“Please don’t intervene on my behalf,” she told him.
Red grinned. “How did you know I would?”
“I know you. Or, I know how you behave when you’re challenged.”
“I won’t stand for ill treatment of the woman I love.”
Nicole smiled despite herself. “I can take care of myself. I need to prove to them that I can handle whatever they throw at me.”
“I like your attitude.” He started eating again.
“They want to run me out of the group,” she said. “Don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“But they know they can’t fire me or overtly sabotage me, so they’re going to try and freeze me out and make things miserable enough that I quit.”
Red, nodded, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. His dark eyes met hers and for a moment she didn’t care about any of the workplace drama. She only cared about him, about pleasing him, making him happy in every way.
“You’re getting some hard lessons, Nicole,” he said. “And it hurts me that I’m the cause of it.”
“You’re not doing anything wrong.” She speared a piece of chicken and thought about eating it. “I need to toughen up. And I will toughen up.”
“You’re plenty tough,” Red said. He reached across the little table and covered her hand with his.
She looked up into his eyes. “People are going to regret messing with me.”
He smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
***
The rest of the day, Nicole worked at a furious pace. Edward was throwing all kinds of things at her. He had incredibly complicated project timelines that he needed to have mapped out with Jameson International’s timeline software. She’d never used any of it before, and it was complicated and not very intuitive.
So she sat at her desk with the software manual open next to her and spent hours reading it, then trying to work on little pieces of Edward’s timelines he’d given her to update and reorganize.
He’d also tasked her with completely reorganizing their file structure on the network. The creative group had a large set of folders on the company’s intranet, and these folders had been set up years ago when the company was much smaller. As a result, it had grown cumbersome to navigate and find things.
Nothing was in order.
Remi’s folders, in particular, were disastrous. She was a virtual pack rat. There were files from five years ago full of old ad campaign material: pictures, ad copy, contracts, all sorts of things.
Nicole got a bit of a start on reorganizing the file structure, but she needed to map it out first. If she wasn’t careful, she could make things worse and lose valuable material.
Near the end of the day, Edward had three long meetings in a row, and he brought Nicole with him to each one. She had to take in depth notes on subjects and topics that were very unfamiliar to her.
It didn’t help that everyone in these meetings spoke very quickly and used jargon she wasn’t familiar with. They discussed other companies she’d never heard of. There were people conferenced in and she didn’t know who they were. Some of them had thick foreign accents and she could hardly make out a word they said.
It didn’t matter. Edward was throwing her in the deep end and betting that she’d sink. She was determined not to, determined to prove to Edward and Remi and anyone else betting against her that she was much stronger and tougher than they’d given her credit for.
Finally, mercifully, the last meeting of the day was over. Edward turned to her. “You’ll have all of the meeting minutes to me first thing tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll look them over and then we need to send them out to all of the participants, and copy upper management.”
“Absolutely,” she nodded.
He didn’t say anything else, just walked away from her. No “good job today,” no “thanks for your effort,” nothing. She’d been busting her ass for him all day and would continue to do so, and Edward wasn’t going to give her any pos
itive feedback at all.
She closed her laptop and walked back to her desk, feeling liked she’d already aged ten years. Her hands were sore from so much typing and her brain was fried from trying to learn and take in so much new information.
She called Red from her office phone and he answered promptly. “Are you ready to take the next step?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good. Let’s meet in the lobby.”
“The lobby? Everyone will be watching us.”
“So? I don’t care what everyone else does.”
Nicole got off the phone and readied herself for the next chapter of this bizarre journey. Before going down to the lobby, she went to the bathroom to freshen up, and on the way out, her cell rang.
She looked at the number. It was her parents’ home number.
“Shit.” She debated answering or not answering, finally decided to take the call. She couldn’t hide from them forever.
“Nicole?” her mother’s voice piped.
Shit. If it at least could have been her father who was on the line—Nicole could deal with him.
“Hi, mom. What’s up?”
Her mother sounded like she was chewing something. Probably eating some healthy snack. “How are you?” she asked. “How are things?”
“Fine, mom. Busy.”
“I’m sure. Yes.”
Long pause.
“Everything okay?” Nicole said.
“Your father and I have been talking about everything that’s happened since you moved to New York City. And especially, we talked about the party on Sunday and Red’s proposing to you.” More chewing, as her mother seemed to want to make this as drawn out and painful a conversation as possible.
“Okay…” Nicole said, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop.
“We’re just concerned about how fast this is all moving. Have the two of you discussed a wedding date yet?”
“Not just yet, mom. But I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve settled on something.”
Chew. Chew. Chew. It was maddening.
“Maybe you should make this a long engagement,” her mother said. “Put the wedding out two years.”
Nicole laughed softly. “That’s a little too far off, mom.”
“You two are still getting to know each other. He seems like a very nice man, but…complicated. Don’t you think?”
“I love him and he loves me.”
“I’m sure that’s how it feels right now. As if everything is so simple, cut and dry. But the fact is—“
“The fact is, it’s my life and my decisions.”
“No need to jump down my throat, Nicky. I’m being supportive.”
“This is not being supportive,” Nicole said. “You’re trying to undermine my confidence with your little digs about our relationship.”
“Now wait just a minute,” her mother said sharply. “I didn’t come on here and tell you all the comments we got from people around town, about the reporters who took pictures of our home and made fun of us. It hurt your father deeply to have our home laughed at and mocked in the news.”
“The Rag is not a news site, mom. It’s tabloid crap. Nobody cares what they say on that website. It’s all vicious gossip.”
“Maybe you don’t care. Maybe Red Jameson doesn’t care, because he courts the attention and publicity. But your father and I don’t want to be ridiculed for living a simple life.”
“I’m sorry that it happened, mom. If I’d have known, we never would have come to the house.”
“So now you’re with a man who you can’t even be seen with in public, without fear of what the news will print about you the next day. What kind of life is that, Nicole? Do you think you can be happy living this way?”
“Mom, I need to go.”
“Think about what I said. I love you, your father loves you—“
“Love you too.” She hung up and dropped her cell back in her purse, wishing it would just burst into flames. That phone had caused her more than enough grief to last a lifetime already.
As she made her way to the elevator and then the lobby, Nicole thought how amazing it was that her mom knew just what buttons to press to make her feel diminished and hopeless.
Here she had finally met the man of her dreams, and her mother couldn’t celebrate and be happy for her. She had to stir up doubt and anxiety and make everything seem as though it were a nightmare.
Wouldn’t most mothers be happy if their daughter ended up with a handsome billionaire who loved them to death?
Red was waiting for her in the lobby, next to the door to the parking garage. As she met him and they kissed briefly, she knew that all eyes were upon them.
I need to get used to this, she thought. This is going to be my life from now on. A lot of my privacy is going to be violated, and it comes with the territory.
And quickly on the heels of those thoughts, were the words of her mother, still ringing in her ears.
“What kind of life is that, Nicole?”
***
The ride to Connecticut was long. Nicole was in her own world, quieter than she normally tended to be.
Red didn’t seem to mind. He alternated between listening to music (mostly rock music) and talking on his Bluetooth. The calls were innocuous stuff; him making little decisions, telling someone how to best approach an important pitch for a big campaign, talking company strategy.
She tuned most of it out, assuming that this was just part of his typical routine.
But there was one call midway through the drive that seemed different than the rest. His voice took on a different tone. At first, he seemed to be discussing something very dull…a company in Germany. She didn’t remember the name of it. And then suddenly his manner changed and became very intense.
“Why would you say that?” Red asked, his eyes staring at the road in front of him as he talked into his headset. “No, no no. That’s not the case at all. We’re heavily leveraged in that market and we absolutely need them to be on board.” There was a long pause while he listened. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and she could see his lips press together. “No, John. No. That’s not how it is at all and you can tell them. Tell them they better not fuck with me on this one or so help me God…”
For a moment, Nicole felt afraid of him. He was so intense, so full of a dark rage and she thought that it could somehow be directed at her.
“We need this deal to go through,” he said. “It’s not a little thing, John. It’s a big thing. We’re talking millions and millions…the stock price will go into the fucking toilet otherwise…and you know what that would mean.”
The conversation seemed to downshift from there, and Red made some small talk before finally getting off the phone.
When he was done, Nicole looked over at him. “Everything all right?”
He smiled tightly. “Just the usual business bullshit.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Well, some things are shittier than others. This thing is particularly shitty.”
“You seemed angry at whoever you were talking to.”
“That’s John Peterson, our CFO. He’s involved in a pretty important deal with a company we just acquired in Germany. It’s a very complicated deal. I can’t go into the details.”
“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to.”
His shoulders were hunched and he seemed distant. “It’s just business,” he said, as if trying to convince himself.
A short while later, they arrived at Nicole’s new home.
She’d tried to prepare herself for a shock, but really nothing could prepare her for what was in store when they approached the gate of Red’s Connecticut property. She couldn’t even see his home from the gate. All she saw were rolling hills, a large lake (or maybe it was a pond, but it was a huge pond), and trees fading into the distance.
The private road was well lit by street lamps, but this time of night it was hard to tell just how big
the property really was.
At the gate there was a security booth with a young, fiercely serious man inside, sporting a military crew cut.
Red put down his window and smiled at the young man peered into the car and looked directly at Nicole with cold, green eyes. Then his eyes flicked back to her fiancé. “Good evening, Mister Jameson.”
“Evening, Dan.”
“Is everything good, sir?”
“Better than good, Dan. Thanks.”
The gate clicked and hummed as it opened electronically. The guard watched them as they drove slowly past and now they were on the private road.
Red glanced at her. “Overwhelmed?”
“Very.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. The pond was on their left now. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.” She saw a family of ducks swimming leisurely in the still water. A quaint bridge, strewn with tiny glowing white bulbs extended over the narrower portion of the pond. In the distance, a little house lay nestled close to the water’s edge.
“We’re on about seventeen and a half acres of land,” Red said. “It’s quite a lot to maintain. Over there is the caretaker’s home, and he and a small crew keep up the grounds year round. They’re good people, you’ll get to know all of them well.”
Over the crest of a tiny hill, she caught sight of a full-sized basketball court on the left, and just next to that, tennis courts. They looked beautiful, as if they’d only just been built a day or two before. “Do you play on those?” she asked.
“I do,” Red told her. “A few times a week a tennis pro comes to the house and gives me lessons or we play a set together.”
“When you say, tennis pro, do you mean like one of those club pros that they have? The ones that give lessons to little kids and beginners or…”
Red laughed. “I mean, one of the guys ranked in the top hundred in the world. I’ve had Roger Federer our here to play, John Isner, Andre Agassi. Andre’s back isn’t so good these days. Oh, Pete Sampras…”
“They give you lessons.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“A lot of them are friends. I’ve done campaigns with most of these guys. But yeah, they give me lessons and play with me. I don’t exactly provide much of a challenge, but the pay is good and afterwards they might stay and have a lovely meal.”