Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2)

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Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) Page 19

by Rosalind James


  “Morning,” I said as Hemi stepped to the back of the elevator and Nathan pushed the button for 43.

  “This is Heather,” Nathan said. “Your replacement. Heather, this is Hope, obviously.” He glanced at Hemi, but not even Nathan’s self-confidence was a match for the forbidding figure staring back at him.

  “Hi,” I said. I longed to ask how it was going up there, especially with the new publicity director, Jennifer Flores, but how could I ask with Hemi standing there like a very scary boulder? Or a CEO. Either one. “And this is Hemi.”

  “Hemi Te Mana,” he said with a brief glance at the redhead. “Welcome.”

  She made a noise that sounded exactly like, “Gulp.” I knew how she felt. “Hello,” she finally said, then looked worried that it was the wrong answer.

  Silence reigned until Hemi got off at 26 for reasons unknown to me. He held the door a second, looked hard at me, said, “I’ll text you,” and stalked off.

  The moment the doors closed again, Nathan was talking, of course. “I see you’re trying to be inconspicuous. It’s totally working, too. Nothing like climbing out of the limo with the CEO at eight in the morning.”

  “It’s not a limo,” I said. “It’s just a car.”

  “Right.” He eyed the world’s prettiest rose-printed pencil skirt, which I was wearing with a cropped, structured white top and nude heels. “We do a little shopping on our vacation? Somewhere other than Target? You know what we’re all dying to hear. How in the world do you do it? That is one seriously scary man, and you’re not exactly the toughest nail in the box.”

  I glanced at Heather, and Nathan said, “What, you think I haven’t already told her? This is gossip gold. So how was New Zealand? Does he get any less terrifying amongst his own kind?”

  “Wow,” was all Heather said. “He’s really—” And then she blushed worse than I ever had. “Hot,” she whispered. “Sorry.”

  “That’s OK,” I said. “He is.” And then I jumped, because Nathan was grabbing my hand.

  “Holy shit,” he said, lifting it in the air and inspecting Hemi’s ring. “One word. Email. It’s a concept. Why did I not know this? I’m surprised you can even lift your hand. The fire…it burns, and I’m not sure if it’s the glare of that rock or jealousy. The Woman Who Need Never Work Again. So tell me…why are we here, exactly?”

  “Uh…because it’s too many floors to walk?” I knew I shouldn’t have worn the ring to the office. Not that Hemi would have let me leave it off. He liked seeing it on my finger, and I knew he was still edgy about Anika, even though he hadn’t said anything. Especially since he hadn’t said anything. Another week, and I’d ask. No matter what.

  Heather was edging away as if I might have a communicable disease. Power-itis, or something. Nathan, naturally, was unfazed. “Hey,” he said. “Do you imagine that you aren’t a hot topic, or that anybody here doesn’t know where you went on vacation and who you went with?”

  “Oh, boy,” I said, “that is bad news. How would they know, though?”

  “Well, if you mean, ‘Did that evil Nathan tell everybody?’ the answer would sort of be ‘Yes.’ Not that they wouldn’t have found out anyway. Our lives are little. We must gossip.”

  “Your life is not little. You’re the son of rich, scary people yourself. And you must not.”

  “Not as rich as that. And not nearly that scary. My dad’s a total goof.” The elevator opened on 43, the Publicity Department, and Nathan held it open as Heather scurried off. “So seriously,” he said. “How did he do it? Was a violinist present? Or—ooh, I’ve got it—did we go on a helicopter ride over the mountains and end up in a vineyard on the Marlborough Sounds with a string quartet playing Pachelbel’s Canon, because the wedding march is so déclassé? Were you led by the hand to a white-clad table in a rose arbor, with champagne chilling in an ice bucket? When’s the wedding, and do I get to come? Come on. Gory details.”

  I was so not telling him that Hemi had proposed in bed. Anyway, once I started, I’d be evading like mad, and Nathan would be probing, and…no. “I’ve got to go,” I said. “First day, you know?”

  “Hope,” Nathan said, ignoring the protesting screech from an elevator held past its ascend-by date, “do you seriously think you’re going to get fired? Because I’ve got news for you. You’re not going to get fired. Welcome to your new life.”

  “Glass of wine?” I asked. “After work? And I’d much rather listen to Publicity Department gossip than have you talk about me. I’m just letting you know in advance, so I don’t have to wave my magic wand and have you killed, or whatever you imagine I could do.”

  “Can’t tonight,” he said. “I’ve got somebody new, and she likes me a whole, whole lot. See what you missed? No, you probably don’t. But anyway, I’m torn here. I want to hear the story, and yet I’m strangely terrified. Somehow, I can already feel the Maori war club splitting my skull. My head’s actually itching. Why is that?”

  “Because you’re an idiot?” I suggested.

  He gave me his cheeky grin and was gone, and I wondered if anybody in the Marketing Department would pop his prairie-dog head over the wall of my cube and complain about the boss. I suspected not.

  I was right.

  Hope

  I should have known the score from my so-called “interview,” which had happened before Hemi and I had left on vacation. Before I’d left the publicity department, clearing out my desk with a pang that was nothing but irrational, considering how mixed my experience had been there.

  I’d never been a natural at publicity the way Nathan was. It seemed to me that you had to have an inborn confidence I didn’t possess to do that job, a breezy assurance that everybody in the world would love you. Or at least you had to be able to fake it better than I’d ever been able to manage.

  Let’s face it, I was a worker bee. Being the queen was in your DNA, or it wasn’t. I thought it might be in Karen’s, but it certainly wasn’t in mine. I wasn’t a mouse, but it was going to be a long, long time before I was a lion.

  Too many animal metaphors. Time to pull it in and get realistic, which, fortunately, was my specialty.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t met my boss yet. That interview of mine had been with Henry Delacroix, Hemi’s marketing director, a lean man with a shock of white hair and a penetrating stare to rival Hemi’s own. He’d aimed it at me from across his desk and barked, “So. Copy writing, or what?”

  “Uh…” I’d said, feeling horribly self-conscious and trying not to show it, knowing I had “CEO’s Girlfriend” all but stamped on my forehead. “I don’t know much about copy writing, to be honest, though I’d give it my best shot. I’ve been doing administrative work in publicity, and I’d be happy to help out with that to start. It would probably be a good way for me to learn, and for both of us to get a feeling for how I could contribute down the road.”

  That sounded good, right? I’d thought it was pretty good for the spur of the moment.

  Henry clearly hadn’t. “Nobody wants to do administrative work. Everybody wants to write copy. If they don’t want to decide strategy, that is, after they took that class in college and all.”

  I’d done some staring of my own then. That was one advantage of sleeping with Hemi Te Mana—you got a whole lot of opportunity to study the master at work. I might not be able to manage “intimidating,” but I could just about pretend “cool.” I wasn’t desperate, either. If it doesn’t work out, I’d promised myself before this meeting, I can go somewhere else. Never mind the fight that would cause.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” I’d told Henry. “You might feel like you have to hire me, but I’m not taking the job unless it’s something I’m qualified for, and unless you’re going to be honest with me about how I’m doing. Otherwise, I’ll stay where I am, in publicity. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree, so fortunately for you, I didn’t learn marketing strategy in college. I’m not here for decoration, and I don’t have an ego. I just want a job.”

 
; He’d looked at me some more, and I’d lifted my chin and concentrated on not flinching until he’d finally said with a sigh, “Why me. Why ever me.”

  “Maybe,” I’d said in Hemi’s best silky tones, “because Hemi thought you were an honest man, and that you wouldn’t treat me differently just to suck up to him.”

  His face hadn’t changed, and the silence had stretched out some more. “That sounds good,” he’d said at last. “We’ll wait to see if you mean it.”

  “Yes,” I’d said. “We will. I’m not the boss’s idiot nephew. If I’m not working out, I expect to hear how I can improve. I can’t fix it if I don’t know. Meanwhile, here I am. Marketing assistant. Helper. Trainee. You can waste your budget, or you can put me to use.”

  Ha. I was so not a mouse. Of course, that was easier when you had the shadowy form of the CEO standing behind you, but we’ll just ignore that inconvenient truth.

  And that was all very well, except that I wasn’t actually working for Henry. When I showed up at eight at his corner office, I found that everybody else in the department already seemed to be at work, and that my spot was going to be in Digital Marketing. Working for Simon Campbell, to be exact, a somewhat twitchy guy who looked even more nervous at the sight of me. He installed me in a cubicle that was closer to a window than any marketing assistant had any right to expect and said, “We’re mainly working on the launch of the new Colors of the Earth line, but you’ll know all about that.”

  “Ah, not so much,” I said, and hurried to add, at his look of surprise, “Give me something to do, though, and I’m sure I can get up to speed.”

  “Oh. Well.” He was all but shifting from one foot to the other. “I have some web copy to proof, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. Just tell me exactly what you want me to do.” I was about to give him my I’m-a-lowly-employee speech, too, but I was opening my laptop, he saw my ring, and the conversation was pretty much over right there.

  “We’ll have a break at ten,” Simon said. “Introduce you to the team.” And bolted.

  I did my best to put aside the idea of a team coffee break to introduce a new assistant. Maybe they were friendly up here, or maybe it was something else. Well, I’d just have to show that I didn’t expect special treatment. I couldn’t expect everyone to get the memo in five minutes. I’d have to wow them with my natural charm, or, more likely, put my head down, do my job, and ignore what anybody thought until they figured it out on their own.

  The work, at least, turned out to be all right. The copy was for Hemi’s new line, and even though I hadn’t even seen the designs yet, I was enjoying learning more about it. I’d been there when he’d gotten the inspiration for it, at a restaurant table in San Francisco, talking to me, and wasn’t that a comforting thought?

  The copy was all about the land and the sea, about rock and water and sky and trees and timelessness. About New Zealand, in other words. It was a little florid for my taste, but who was I to judge?

  At ten, the entire Digital Marketing group and what looked like half of the rest of marketing crowded into the biggest conference room. A command performance, I guessed, or curiosity, or both. A tray of bagels sat virtually untouched in the center of the table as a gaggle of relentlessly stylish and undernourished women, interspersed with a few equally lean men, went straight for the black coffee and the occasional piece of fruit, except for the ones who murmured “Carbs” and passed even on the watermelon. And nobody talked to me, much as I smiled and made eye contact.

  The atmosphere was more than awkward, and even the coffee tasted bitter. I set my cup aside and dove daringly into the pile of Evil Bagels. I was starving, and I was weird anyway, so why not?

  That was why, though, I had a mouth full of cream cheese when Simon broke into the muted conversations going on around my Cone of Silence to say, “Excuse me, everybody. Announcement. As everyone knows, we have a new employee today.” He gestured to me. “Please welcome Hope Sinclair. I’m sure she’s going to be a lot of help to us, and I’m also sure that everybody here will help her in any way she needs while she’s with us.”

  While she’s with us? It was too bad cream cheese was so gluey, too, because it felt like it took me a full minute to swallow my bite. “Uh—hi,” I finally said with a wave. “It’s good to be here. Thank you for that, um, welcome.”

  A tall, striking woman named Gabrielle, an assistant manager of something or other with a daringly close-cut natural hairstyle and Nefertiti features, said, “I can’t help but ask. You don’t mind, do you? Why did you change departments? I’d have thought publicity was—Well.” She laughed, but it didn’t sound mocking, not really. “Perfect for you, right? High visibility? Helpful to the, uh, company? So why the switch?”

  “Observation post.” It was a barely audible murmur, coming from a brunette with a faint smile on her face, and I saw a few more smiles being covered by hasty sips of coffee. What, I was a spy?

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m here because I’ve always wanted to learn more about marketing. I guess you could say it’s my dream.”

  Nobody would look straight at me until the snotty brunette—Maggie, I thought—said, “And I’m sure you’ll be great at marketing.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “Why’s that?” Like I didn’t know what she meant. That I’d had something for sale, and I’d sold it.

  Gabrielle said, “Oh, don’t mind Maggie. You might think she’s PMSing, but she’s always that way, aren’t you, sweetie?” She ignored the dagger-like glance from the other woman and said, “And since I’m guessing you didn’t get that ring in a gumball machine, I’m taking it as a public announcement. Could we all stop staring at it out of the corners of our eyes and pretending we haven’t noticed? And can I see?”

  I’d known I shouldn’t have worn it. I felt like I was wearing a big scarlet letter on my chest. G for Girlfriend? S for Spy? F for Freaking Uncomfortable? And what was worse, I could swear I was starting my period.

  I’d been on the pill for the past six months, the IUD I’d tried at first having continued to give me painful, heavy periods that hadn’t been any fun at all. But I hadn’t been expecting this one for a couple days. The source of my unaccustomed moodiness, obviously, not to mention all the stupid tears. Great.

  But at least Gabrielle was talking to me, which was more than I could say for anyone else, so I ignored the uncomfortable dampness, tried to remember exactly how much white versus red rose print the fabric of my skirt contained, smiled at Gabrielle in what was meant to be a carefree way and said, “Not from a gumball machine, no. And,” I went on, throwing caution to the wind, “yes, Hemi and I are engaged. And I can tell that you’re all wondering why on earth I’m working at this job and whether I’m here to, I guess, report back to Hemi, so let me answer that. Everybody needs a job, right? This is the one I seem to be qualified for. And—no. Hemi doesn’t share much about work with me, and I’m sure not expecting him to be interested in the scintillating details of my work day as an assistant. So unless you’re actually selling proprietary information and talking about it too loud next to my cube, I’m never going to know. How about just figuring I’m a marketing assistant? I appreciate the welcome and all, but I don’t know any secrets, honestly, and I’m just here to do a job.”

  “I’ll bet.” The words fell into the dead zone of silence following my speech. They didn’t come from Maggie, at least. They came from a blonde named Victoria and had been muttered to Maggie. Neither of them seemed to be angling to be my Bestest Friend Ever.

  I found myself flushing despite my best intentions. “So…that went well,” I said, and Gabrielle actually laughed. “I’m all out of ideas for how to be a Popular Girl, and I’ve got this bagel here, so…”

  I got a few genuine smiles, at least. “Well, then,” Simon said, his fidgeting having cranked up a notch, “let’s get back to work, then, shall we?” And I went to my cube, grabbed my purse, headed to the ladies’ room to deal with my hygienic emergency, and thought, Day On
e’s always the hardest.

  But I sure wished Nathan had been available for that glass of wine. Especially since I wouldn’t be able to tell Hemi about my day, at least the uncomfortable parts of it. My period was light, but I still felt achy and weepily PMS-y.

  I got even grouchier, too, because when I finished the tasks Simon had assigned me at four-thirty and asked him for something else to do, he said, “That was fast. I wasn’t expecting you to be done already, and I don’t have anything for you right now, actually, so why don’t you go on home? I’ll come up with something for the morning.”

  Nobody else had left, from what I could tell. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I’m happy to stay.” I’d already gathered, from overheard snatches of conversation, that the work on the new line was hot and heavy, and was going to get more so. It was going to be introduced in October, at the Paris show, and it was a Very Big Deal. In fact, it was amazing that Hemi had taken time out to show Karen and me New Zealand, except that I knew the line was already designed, and he’d passed the work on.

  That was about all I knew, though. Hemi wasn’t exactly good at sharing. But the buzz around Marketing was palpable, and now, I’d be part of it.

  Maybe. Or maybe not, since Simon’s gaze slid away from mine, and he said, “Nope. Nothing I can think of. See you at eight tomorrow.”

  Hemi texted me five minutes later, naturally, and I didn’t even bother asking him about his suspicious timing. I had to admit I was done with work, and he promptly informed me that Charles would be outside at five, and even managed not to sound smug about it.

  Part of me was more than happy to go. The physical part. My day hadn’t been hard, and yet it had been exhausting. Sore muscles, hormones, trying not to screw up, new-job jitters, even meeting Inez…it had all added up, in that way days can do.

  It was weak to climb into an air-conditioned car and be so glad of it. It was more than weak to get home to a penthouse apartment, find Karen buzzing over the chicken mole she and Inez had made, and barely be able to taste it before I was in the shower and climbing into bed. It was weakest of all to feel like crying, when I had everything in the world a woman could possibly want, just because I was hormonal, sore, and tired, and my man wasn’t there to hold me.

 

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