Love, Inc

by Lily Zante

  He strode over to the table where Lexi sat, with Greta and Terri and greeted them all cheerily. “Hey, I’m glad you could all come. Is everyone here now?” He looked at the latest arrivals with a pleased look on his face. But when Lexi didn’t even bother to look up, he was a little taken aback.

  Still so sore about Monday and Susannah and the business card? he mused. He wanted to take her to one side and talk to her, to explain things. But she didn’t even give him the opportunity. Instead, she looked rather preoccupied with her smart phone.

  “I’d like to make an announcement,” he said loudly, looking around at both the tables. Everyone turned towards Wayne as a quiet hush descended on the tables. Lexi poured herself a huge glass of white wine and drank it slowly, refusing to meet Wayne’s gaze or to stare at Susannah who had now walked over and stood draped by his side. Jim and Edward were standing by Susannah’s side but they had their briefcases in tow and looked ready to leave after the announcement.

  “It is with great pleasure that I would like to inform you all, that we have been awarded the winning contract by McKenzie and Co!” He paused and let the news sink in and just as it did, everyone around started to clap. Greta beamed with delight and Lexi took another huge gulp from her glass of wine.

  “Which means that you all contributed to making this a huge success,” said Wayne, pausing for further effect. He gazed at Lexi. She could feel the hairs at the back of her neck stand up and knew he was staring at her for an uncomfortably long time. But she still declined to look at him.

  “So as of today, I am pleased to further announce that you all deserve, and will get, a pay rise with immediate effect!” There was much clapping and cheering by all the staff, especially the warehouse workers.

  But Lexi still did not acknowledge Wayne. He continued, wondering how long she was going to carry on like this for.

  “And I want to especially single out the brilliant dynamic duo, Greta and Lexi, for their hard work and dedication in contributing to the presentation and making it such a success.” Again, more cheering and clapping by everyone and Lexi pulled her eyes away from her smartphone and smiled vacantly at Wayne. She lifted up her glass as a toast and pointed it at him before taking another huge gulp from it. Then she busied herself with her phone again.

  But he had already seen the hurt in her eyes.

  They ordered their food and drank and ate merrily, indulging with the free and loose talk that usually accompanied a great meal and high spirits. Wayne, feeling that it might be better if he sat at the other table, joined the warehouse workers who at first felt that they had to tone down their drinking and their revelry. But after a few drinks, they realised that Wayne, although technically the owner of the company, didn’t come with any airs or graces and was just like one of them. Except that he kept glancing over at Lexi and saw that she didn’t seem her usual cheery self the whole evening.

  Greta had a slight tinge of red on her cheeks. Lexi looked at her and wondered if this was because Greta had consumed too much wine or because she was starting to feel the heat in the hot and garlicky atmosphere of the restaurant. As she was thinking these thoughts, feeling slightly floaty and light headed herself, Greta, who had been engrossed in a jovial conversation with George, glanced at her and asked her if she was alright. Lexi nodded slowly for everything seemed to slow down. “I’m fine, great. Couldn’t be better,” she replied, and noticed that her voice was beginning to sound just a trifle bit unlike her usual one.

  “Hey, Lexi, can I have a word?” Wayne had sneaked up on her and stood behind her chair. When she looked up at him blankly, he bent down and whispered into her ear, “We need to talk, please.” His voice, so low and seductive, caught her off guard. And yet, it was so delicious. She wished he would whisper more sweet nothings into her ear. She wasn’t drunk but was at the glorious tipping point between hard, bare faced reality and a bubble of luxurious floatiness. With as much resolve as she could muster, the words, “Of course,” slipped out of her mouth and she followed Wayne to the bar at the other side of the restaurant.

  They stood facing each other, Wayne with his hands in his pockets and Lexi still holding on to her glass of wine. At least it gave her something to do with her hands. When he said nothing, but looked at her, she said, “So, where’s your business partner.” She almost spat out the last word, such was her feeling of contempt for him at this moment. He didn’t flinch a muscle but watched her intently, his hand nearly coming up to brush away the lock of hair that had fallen to the side of her temple. But he resisted, choosing to stare at it instead, and to take in all of her features and her face and to relish just being near her. Alone with her yet in a room full of people

  “My business partner?” he cocked his head, allowing a thin smile to spread along his lips. “Lexi, they left over an hour ago. She invited herself over, to sign the contract. I had no idea why it couldn’t wait until Monday. She insisted.”

  “She seems pretty keen on you.” Lexi took another smaller sip from her glass.

  “She’s an investor, she’s part of McKenzie and Co, the company who took a chance on us. She doesn’t mean anything. But that contract does.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” Lexi arched her eyebrow. She wasn’t sure what to say to him. Somewhere in the fog in her brain she remembered Greta’s words; that women couldn’t help but throw themselves at him. He’s not a saint Lexi, she had said.

  “Lexi, I’m not here to talk about Susannah, or Jim, or Edward.”

  “No?”

  “No,” said Wayne with an air of seriousness. “I know you seem to think that Susannah likes me…..”

  Lexi cut him off, “She couldn’t take her eyes off you Wayne.”

  “I can’t help how she feels. I have no interest in that woman whatsoever, Lexi. And I’m not sure what you’re insinuating.” He sounded indignant and unsure of why he had to defend himself.

  “You know the really sad thing Wayne? You never think about other people’s feelings. Only your own. God help the woman who ends up with you because she’ll be too busy fighting off all the others who’re lining up for you! Poor Terri.”

  “Terri?” His gaze searched her face questioningly.

  “You both took last Friday afternoon off,” she said half-accusingly.

  If she had been completely sober, she would have thought twice about asking intruding questions such as these. But the wine had loosened her thinking and made her braver than she cared. It gave her the courage, or temerity to say the things she would have ordinarily kept in her head.

  Wayne’s eyes narrowed and he looked askance, trying hard to remember the actual day she was talking about. Then he found it and threw back his head. He stared back at her, tight lipped. He was wondering how to tell her. “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that,” retorted Lexi, eyeing his closely.

  A light went off in Wayne’s head. The distance that he had sometimes felt between Lexi and the way she had pushed him away in the past, suddenly made sense to him. Wayne could see how all this might have looked to her and yet it hadn’t even occurred to him that Lexi would actually believe the notion that he and Terri were together. As for Susannah, well she was just one of those women who sniffed out men at every opportunity. He came across them all the time and mostly disregarded them. But he saw how things looked from Lexi’s side. He didn’t want to frighten away the rare gems, which is what Lexi was. He looked at the floor, shuffled his feet and then rested his eyes on her. “For what its worth, Terri and I never really had a thing. It was one time. It was…….something that just happened.” He paused, feeling uncomfortable discussing things about another person, even though he felt he needed to clear things up with Lexi. “On Friday…….I had to shop, get a haircut, prepare for the presentation on Monday. Terri saw me leave, and followed me.”

  “And she took the whole afternoon off too-” Lexi started to ask, then was about to take another swig of her wine before she realise
d her glass was empty.

  “Lexi?” A group of people passed her by and one of them, a tall, sharp suited blonde man, stopped in his tracks and brushed her arm. “Is it really you?” He smiled broadly, surprised to have unexpectedly bumped into her.

  For a brief second Lexi was unable to place him, and she had been hanging onto every word that Wayne had been saying, but this sudden interruption left her startled.

  “James!” Through sheer luck she had managed to put a name to the face and got it right. She could tell because James’s face lit up at the mere mention of it.

  A friend had set the two of them up for a date a couple of years ago. They had been on a couple of small dates but both had been too busy to pursue things further. James seemed genuinely pleased to run in to her. It was so obvious from his face.

  “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, trying to gauge a reaction from Wayne who looked rather tight-faced. The look on his face gave Lexi a sweet feeling of pleasure.

  Wayne was waiting for their pleasantries to be over. He wanted to carry on his conversation with Lexi. But it wasn’t long before he realised that James had no intention of moving on.

  And Lexi seemed in no hurry to move him along either. In fact, she seemed quite drawn to the man, Wayne noted. She stood transfixed, joking with him and she looked really happy to see him again. He remained silent while the two of them twittered on about how long since they had last seen each other and who they were still in touch with. As Wayne looked away, Lexi watched his face and saw that he didn’t like it one bit. This revelation gave her much pleasure even though she really had no intention of talking to James for very long. But she had consumed more than a couple of glasses of wine and was feeling very light and flirtatious. Knowing that her conversation with James was annoying Wayne, she decided to indulge her little pleasure for a bit longer.

  “You sure I’m not interrupting anything?” James repeated, setting down his briefcase.

  Wayne didn’t answer but his stony face declared that the interruption was not welcomed. James ignored this, buoyed on by Lexi’s slightly exaggerated excitement at seeing him again. Encouraged, he offered to buy them a round of drinks, an offer which Wayne declined. When Lexi asked for another glass of wine, Wayne excused himself and walked away. Briefly caught up in the moment, Lexi made small talk with James, whilst starting on her new glass of wine.

  Her eyes followed Wayne as he walked over to the table she had vacated. He sat in her seat, opposite Greta. James was talking away at full speed. He didn’t seem to notice that she wasn’t listening, or maybe he did and carried on anyway. She didn’t really care. She saw that Greta was looking her way but Lexi averted her gaze and settled it on James. She didn’t want to deal with Greta’s prying looks right now. Greta could see through her as if she was a newly washed glass. Unable to help herself, she turned and stared back again and saw that Greta, George and Wayne were deep in conversation. Wayne had his back to her and didn’t turn around once. There was no need to. He had gotten the message loud and clear. She looked to the side at Terri and saw that Terri was laughing away helplessly at a joke or something that Hank had said.

  “So did you go too?” she heard James’ voice bringing her back into the conversation.

  “Ummmmmmmmmmmm” and she looked at him blankly, not having the slightest idea what he was talking about.

  “How many glasses have you had?” he made it sound like a funny line, the way he grinned at her like an imbecile. She giggled rather girlishly and flirted with him, both of which were very uncharacteristic of her. But she still needed to keep James dangling around for a while.

  “I think it’s been quite a few,” she winked at him mischievously, so much so that he needed to loosen his tie.

  After a short while, Lexi watched as Wayne, Greta and George got up to leave. Wayne had settled the bill and made some sort of thank you comment to the two tables and then turned to leave. He didn’t so much as turn back to look at her.

  She suddenly felt alone and empty. She suffered another ten minutes with James before announcing that she had a headache and needed to go home. She didn’t even wait to hear James’ remarks or pleas to stay a little longer. She rushed over to her table, took her belongings, bade a hasty goodbye to whoever was still left there and almost ran out of the restaurant.

  When she got home a short while later, she fell onto her bed and cried; big, huge, sobs that shook her entire body. She put it down to too much wine and a general tiredness from the hectic week. But later, as she lay in bed and analyzed the night’s events, she knew what the real reason for her tears was. And she kept seeing his deep green piercing eyes in front of her. And with that thought, Lexi drifted into a long and much needed night of sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When she awoke the next morning, Lexi’s head was remarkably clear. Her thoughts were uncluttered. She felt vibrant, awake and had a feeling of purpose. As was her usual habit, she checked her sales figures online and fell back in amazement when she saw that a total of sixty two lingerie orders had come in for her overnight. This sudden spike in her sales was a record and a milestone for her.

  Buoyed up with her results, she set to work, showering, changing and having breakfast. She tried to put a finger on why she was so happy this morning, even before she had known of her sales figures. It was because she had made a decision, just before drifting off to sleep. She made most of her decisions this way. And if it still felt right in the morning, she knew she had made the right one.

  The thing she had decided last night was that she would no longer carry on working at WB Enterprises. She had a connection with Wayne but the constant up and down rollercoaster ride she had been on emotionally was too much for her to bear right now. She wasn’t used to being the wishy-washy, hormonal and emotional wreck that she had become ever since she had set eyes on Wayne. Yet she had an inkling now that he felt for her more than he let on. And perhaps last night he had started to open up to her and put things right. But it had all gone horribly wrong. She was confused but even in her confusion she knew one thing: that she couldn’t give her heart to a man who she feared would have so many women fighting to claim him. She didn’t want to compete. She wanted a man to stake a claim on her because he wanted her and only her. Because he had eyes for her and nobody else. Because he had given her his heart and claimed hers in return. That was what Lexi wanted. And nothing less would do.

  This love business was too much trouble to deal with right now.

  She would distract herself in the meantime while she concentrated on her business. Her trial with James yesterday had shown her how easy it could be to be distracted. But she knew that finding a man like Wayne was not going to be easy. She knew now that she might never meet a man like him again. For she had a feeling that men like Wayne were rare and few and far between.

  Excited by her sales figures and confident that her business was at last starting to take off, Lexi dialed Karn’s number and sighed with relief when it went to voicemail.

  “Karn, hey, Lexi here - just to let you know, I won’t be going back to WB Enterprises on Monday. And……..” she paused and took a deep breath, brushing her hair away from her face, “I’m going to end my contract with TeamHQ. Call you on Monday.” Then as an after thought, “Have a good weekend.” It felt as though a huge boulder had been lifted from her chest. “Yes!” she said to herself softly, “this feels good.”

  Then, with some hesitation, she picked up the phone again and started to dial Greta’s number. But she couldn’t do it. She threw the phone down on the bed and carried on with packaging up the new orders.

  In her small studio apartment, there was a double bed in one corner and on the floor beside it, piled up along the wall, were boxes of lacey corsets and basques as well as lots of neat little piles of brown parcels ready to go out. In the opposite corner was her desk, with a computer and printer connected and ready to use. She packaged up some more orders together but couldn’t concentrate. She picked up
the phone again and with a determined effort, dialed Greta’s number again, praying it would to go voicemail. And when it did, she thanked god and left a message, “Hi Greta, it’s me, Lexi. I-uh, I’ve made a decision, to leave WB Enterprises. Umm,” She paused, wondering how to say it exactly, “I loved working there, you know I did. I mean, I do. But, uh - I have to move on Greta. I’ve told the agency. I won’t be coming in on Monday……….but I would like for us to keep in touch. Maybe see you for lunch one day next week?” She inflected her voice slightly, “Bye Greta,” and hung up. This was harder to do. She felt bad about the way she had told Greta, and by association Wayne. Perhaps they deserved to be told in person. But she couldn’t face seeing Wayne face to face, not yet anyway. It was too raw. She put the phone on silent and left it on her bed.

  Feeling better and more focused, she prepared half of the orders and then rushed off to the post office to get them sent off.

  When she returned almost half an hour later, she picked up her cell phone from the bed and she saw that she had five missed calls from Karn, two missed calls from Greta and a missed call from Wayne. Greta must have phoned and told him. She breathed in deeply, knowing there would be repercussions to deal with. There were no voicemails though. She turned and checked her answering machine and saw that there were a few messages on there. She listened to them in turn.

  “Lexi, Lexi pick up, it’s me, Karn.” She sounded annoyed and in a hurry, “You pick the Saturday of my sister’s wedding to drop this on me? I can’t talk now but young lady I will be having serious words with you on Monday. You can’t leave me in the lurch and tell me you’re not turning up. No explanation, no time to get a replacement. Your boss doubled your salary and gave you a thousand dollar bonus. Whatever you did last week, he loved it.” She hung up. Not that any of this changed Lexi’s mind.

  She listened to the next message. It was Greta. “Hey Lexi,” she could hear the downcast tone in Greta’s voice, “I just got your message…..and I’m sad to hear you’re leaving us. Just like that Lexi? I’ll call you later, I think we need to talk. Just want to make sure you’re okay.” Kind, sweet Greta.