by GL Chapple
Either way, I’d rather be known as a ball-breaker than the victim.
Nate hadn’t left my side the whole weekend. I’d spent the last two nights sleeping with him and tonight my bed felt empty and cold. I couldn’t believe that it had only been a few weeks, but already he was a huge part of my life.
He knew more about me than anyone else I’d ever been with. I’d felt more comfortable with him in these few weeks than I had the entire year I’d been with Richard, though with hindsight that was clear why.
Nate was able to see me, past the business woman, past the crazy, emotional woman I seemed to have become in the last few weeks and actually see the real me.
I’d spent years carefully constructing walls around myself and keeping people at arm’s length and he’d snuck in under them without me even realising; maybe it was because of the timing, with everything that was going on; maybe I had been distracted lately; perhaps I was finally realising how lonely and hard it was to try and do everything alone.
I lay back in bed and thought about our weekend. I’d brought home his tee shirt to wear and could smell his aftershave on it. I closed my eyes and thought about him, how he’d held me as I’d cried.
I’d been able to feel the tension and rage in him but he’d made sure I was Ok first before he’d gone downstairs, I guessed to get rid of his aggression in his gym.
I thought about how he always put me first no matter what, how attentive he was, so thoughtful and caring. Then on the flip side, he could be demanding; he was strong and forceful. I couldn’t envisage that he could ever be made to do anything that he didn’t want to do.
No matter what I tried to tell myself I couldn’t imagine my life now without him in it. I was falling, hard and fast, but instead of feeling scared I felt happy, light and content.
I was finally able to revel in the happiness that he made me feel. I wasn’t held back by fear and secrets and I didn’t need to keep him at a distance. I’d never let anyone in because I was never able to trust - not completely, I always held back, I never wanted to give anyone the power to hurt me.
Nate was changing that, slowly but surely he was gaining my trust, and it felt good to know that someone had my back.
I’d been awake since 5am thinking about those damn letters. I’d decided, since there hadn’t been one for nearly two months that I would wait and see if there were anymore before making any rash decisions.
I got up and went in early in order to leave early. I’d not visited the refuge all weekend, so I was going to call there before going home.
There was a loud knock at my door and I jumped. I’d been so engrossed that it startled me. I was surprised to see that it was almost 10am.
“Come in,” I yelled, wondering why Anna hadn’t phoned through. The door opened and Byron was standing in front of me. He tilted his head in acknowledgment before walking in and closing the door. He sat in the leather chair in front of me, looking regretful and I felt my shoulders slump and I leaned back in my chair.
“Another one, the same?” I asked knowing from the look on his face that there had been another letter.
“Yes ma’am, your father confirmed it a little while ago.”
I put my elbows on the desk and rubbed my eyes. The announcement that I would be taking over as CEO had been made three days before. I’d been warned that this could mean that another letter would arrive, but I’d hoped -naively I guess - that they had stopped and it would all go away. I couldn’t, for the life of me, work out his motivation for doing this, if it was Jason as I suspected.
Byron interrupted my thoughts “You’ve had a chance to look at the letters, Ms Nicholls. Do you have any idea as to who could be sending them?”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, trying to decide in a split second if I should tell him or not. I looked at him uneasily. I wanted to be able to trust him; he was supposed to be here to help me, but I didn’t feel that I could yet.
Besides that, he would want to know my reasons for suspecting Jason and I wasn’t ready to share those, it had been difficult enough talking to Nate and Maddie.
“I don’t need reasons or proof. We don’t need to go into detail if you don’t want to, but if you have any possibilities; it is in your best interests to share them.”
I still felt torn, I certainly didn’t want him going back to my father and worrying him.
“Is this between us Byron? Do you need to report back to my father?”
He looked me squarely in the eye “Your father advised me that since you are now privy to all information, I will be working directly for you and not him, Ms Nicholls.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“He did request that I report back to him, however…” He let his words hang there and I realised what he was saying.
“Unless of course, as your employer; I ask you to keep some things confidential?” I finished and he smiled at me.
“I think I have an idea who it could be, I’m not certain and I’m not sure how we’d be able to prove it.”
“As I said, let’s not worry about proving things for the moment. If you have a possible suspect, please let me know. I’ll do the rest.”
I swallowed, feeling agitated “His name is Jason. Jason Peterson.”
I gave him the meagre details I remembered and he nodded, committing it all to memory.
“Could you tell me the reason you think it could be this man?” he asked.
Flustered I turned away. “I’d rather not, could you just find out the details on him first? It might not even be him.”
He nodded and turned to leave “If you tell me it’s confidential, I’ll respect that Ms Nicholls” and before I had chance to respond he walked out and closed the door.
I spent a few hours at the refuge before driving home to get an early night. Nate had checked in with me, sending a text asking about my day which made me smile. I responded that I was going to have a bath and an early night. I filled the bath full of bubbles and sent him a photo with the caption, “Wish you were here?”
He replied within minutes “Damn right!”
I laughed. I knew he was at work or it was likely he’d have turned up. I put his tee shirt back on after my bath, comforted by the smell of him and snuggled up in bed. I must have fallen asleep within minutes.
The next day was hectic, I had a meeting booked in at 9.30am and I knew it was going to be tough. I got into the office for 7am so that I could prepare. After sending a quick text to Nate to wish him good morning, I turned my phone to silent and put it in my drawer.
Anna called me just a few minutes before 9.30am to advise me that the clients were there. I asked her to show them into the meeting room and to arrange for them to have drinks, left it a few minutes for them to settle, then went in, knowing this was going to be a tough negotiation.
They were looking to reduce their costs by changing the terms of their agreement with us, and I wasn’t happy to see our profits reduce just for theirs to be boosted. We exchanged pleasantries before I turned to their Head of Operations, Hugh.
“Tell me in 100 words or fewer, what exactly you hope to get out of today.”
He looked stunned for a moment and then began to waffle about our existing, positive, working relationship and how going forward he wanted to implement some changes.
I cut him off sharply, “Really Hugh, you have 100 words and you want to feed me bullshit and buzz words?”
I raised my eyebrows at him, and he stuttered, his eyes flicking to and fro as he struggled to think on his feet.
“Let me tell you what I think you want, shall I Hugh? help you out a little…”
He looked uncomfortable as he sat watching me as I prowled back and forth in front of the table.
“I’m astounded you gentlemen have the audacity to come into my office, with the intention of screwing over my hard-working team because you’re looking for a bigger profit. You don’t get to the top by cutting corners Hugh. It comes from hard work, dedication and a g
ood team. My guys work hard, I’m not going to have them screwed over because your company is getting greedy. You want a bigger slice of the pie, you work for it. I’m not going to allow you to renegotiate the charges or the guaranteed shipments. Those are things that have been arranged and promised.”
I paused and looked at him. “Going forward,” I said sarcastically, “I’m prepared to discuss new terms for future endeavours, but” - I looked at him pointedly - “they will be mutually beneficial or you can look elsewhere. I feel it might be prudent for you gentlemen to go away and think about our positive, working relationship and what exactly it means to you.”
I fixed each of the men around the table with a long stare, challenging them to disagree with me and they looked awkward, clearly ill at ease, before Hugh cleared his throat.
“I don’t think there’s any need to be hasty here. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that suits both of our companies.” He flashed me a sickly smile and I took my seat.
The meeting lasted most of the day and by the time it had finished, I was tired and hungry but satisfied. I’d made my position clear from the outset and hadn’t needed to concede on any of the main issues. To be honest, I was surprised. I’d expected them to push back harder than they had, but my speech had obviously had the desired effect.
In a perverse way it felt good to know I could still pull out my inner bitch when I needed her, since I’d been such an emotional basket-case lately. The welfare of my employees was something I was passionate about, it wasn’t just about the company having a healthy profit, I knew these people, I knew their families and their lives, anything that could jeopardise that was going to feel my wrath.
I bid a cheery goodbye to Anna and walked down to my car, looking forward to a session with Paul.
He was busy when I got there so I gave Maddie a quick call. She told me that she was working overtime this week so we wouldn’t get to catch up, but she’d call over Monday evening. We had the wedding that weekend anyway. I caught up on the gossip about her and Christian, though she seemed a little subdued. I tried to get her to open up, but she deflected.
“You sound pumped,” she exclaimed and I laughed.
“Yeah, a good day at the office.”
“That means you got to be a bitch!” she squealed with delight and I laughed again, agreeing with her. I filled her in on my meeting and we laughed hysterically as I recited my rant at the start of the meeting.
Paul had come over and was sitting next to me so I told her I’d catch up with her on Monday. We ended the call and Paul looked at me with pride.
“Glad to have you back with us.”
I pulled a face trying to work out what he meant and he chuckled. His dimples showing as his lips turned up in amusement.
“My ballbreaker, take no nonsense Lena is back in the building. We lost you for a while there girl.”
I grunted at him but inside I was basking in his praise.
“So I guess I don’t need to check everything is Ok then?”
We normally had a catch-up before our session but I felt that lately they’d been counselling sessions more than friendly catch-ups. I debated whether or not to say anything to him; his opinion meant a lot to me; he knew me as well as Maddie did - better in some respects.
He could see my hesitation and pulled a face, prompting me to speak, “I’ve seen the letters, I think I know who they might be from…”
He looked taken aback. “Really? I didn’t expect it to be that easy.”
I shrugged my shoulders, not quite able to meet his eye. He saw through me just as Nate had.
“Who is it?” he asked and I tried to muster the courage to speak.
“I think it’s the guy, Paul” I said softly.
I didn’t need to explain he knew straight away. He reached out and held my hand silently, comforting me before he spoke again.
“Why would you think that? Maybe it’s a good thing?” I lifted my head to look at him, feeling hurt and confused.
“What?” I squeaked out and he gave my hand a squeeze.
“Lena, you can’t keep running, I’ve been telling you this for years. Maybe you needed this push to deal with it. If you deal with it rather than burying it you can put it behind you and actually move on.”
“I have moved on” I snapped at him, feeling defensive.
“You’ve ignored it Lena. That’s not the same thing.” I ground my teeth as he spoke.
“I can understand your fear.” I scoffed at him, unfairly so, but he carried on, “You’re scared - that’s natural - but you’re strong Lena, one of the bravest, toughest women I’ve ever met. You think you were this broken fragile girl and you don’t want to revert back, but girl that was never you. Being emotional, crying, hurting, asking for help – none of that makes you weak Lena. You were damaged when you came here - that’s not the same thing. Every day you were getting up and going to work, forcing yourself to do things you weren’t comfortable with. You’ve worked bloody hard to get where you are and that’s down to your sheer determination, strength and the amazing person you are Lena.”
I wiped away a stray tear that rolled down my cheek, swallowing hard as I listened to him.
“You can do this; you can deal with this. You need to decide how you want to proceed. That’s your decision. But deal with it girl. Don’t run away any more. You’ve got back up with Nate or me if you want it. The thing with fear, Lena, is that it can cripple you. It holds you hostage and stops you reacting, it stops you living, forcing you into survival mode. Don’t let fear define you, you’re stronger than that. Decide now what fear is to you, you define it - Forget everything and run or face everything and rise.”
I sat there, trying to take in his words, his definitions of fear going around in my head.
“I’ve just heard you giving hell to someone on the phone, you’re a tough cookie. When it’s someone else’s arse on the line you pull out your inner bitch, she’s there to fight for you too Lena, use her.” He pulled me up to stand.
“I’m not going to keep on at you. Just think it over, if you need to talk or kick some arse I’m here. You only ever have to call me, and I’ll be there.” He looked at me for a moment, allowing his words to sink in before standing up.
“Enough talk, it’s time to really kick some arse. He winked at me and pushed me towards the mats.
My mind was in turmoil at his words but he didn’t give me time to dwell on them.
“Do your thinking in your own time or you’re gonna be hitting the mat,” he teased me gently, pulling me from my thoughts.
He didn’t give me a chance to catch my breath let alone stop and think; distraction techniques in full effect.
I was exhausted and aching all over by the time we finished and I was grateful.
I drove home in silence, trying to make sense of my own thoughts and Paul’s words, the same sentence going around and around in my mind on a continuous loop.
“Forget everything and run or face everything and rise.”
Once home, I took a quick shower before crawling into bed, my hair still damp. I sent a quick message to Nate and fell asleep again in his tee shirt.
Lena
Nate had arranged to pick me up at 11am to attend the wedding. Apparently his Gramps had agreed to come on the condition that I gave him the first dance.
I felt nervous at the thought of meeting Nate’s family. I knew that he didn’t get on with his brother, but his grandfather clearly meant a lot to him and, regardless of the circumstances with his brother I wanted them both to like me.
I’d curled my hair and pinned it up on top of my head with loose tendrils hanging down. It looked casual as if it had been clipped up haphazardly, but had actually taken me 45 minutes to perfect. My make-up was light, but I’d made more of an effort than usual, defining my eyes and lips. I’d teamed the silver dress with kitten heels and a shrug, which hung loosely over my shoulders, as I waited in the kitchen for him to come and pick me up.
My doorbell buzzed and I jumped up, picking up my bag and slipping my shoes on.
Nate looked delicious; there was no other way to describe him as I dragged my eyes over his body, I realised belatedly, that I was running my tongue between my lips.
His dark hair looked unruly as it spiked up, curling over slightly at his collar. He wore a fitted grey suit, a grey waistcoat underneath, with a crisp white shirt. His top button was open, exposing his neck and he wore no tie.
He smirked at me as I looked him over and I fought the urge to push him up against the doorframe and tear his shirt open. He looked smug as if he could read my mind, taunting me with his eyes. What is it about him that made me think crazy thoughts?
“Ready, Princess?” he asked innocently, the look on his face telling me that his thoughts were far from pure.
I pulled the door shut behind me and walked with him to the car. I was disappointed to see that his grandfather wasn’t there. I turned to him and he anticipated what I was about to ask.
“Picking him up on the way sweetheart. We’re swinging right by there.”
I climbed into the car and he pulled away.
The music played softly in the background, Nate seemed a little distracted until I asked him about his grandfather, when he relaxed slightly. We reached the sheltered housing accommodation and he jumped out, leaving the engine running.
I sat waiting and he appeared within a few moments, a surprisingly sprightly, older man walking beside him. He spotted me sitting in the passenger seat and gave me a cheery wave. He slid into the back of the car and poked his head through the gap in the front seats.
“Wonderful to meet you, Lena; a beautiful girl with a beautiful name.”
I smiled widely at him. “And you…” I faltered, suddenly realising that Nate had never told me his name, only ever referring to him as Gramps or Grandfather.
He chuckled softly reminding me of Nate and patted my shoulder.
“Call me Gramps, lovely lady! keep me in my place, if I were 30 years younger…”