by Ella Brooke
I typed an email that I sent all of them, asking for a late morning meeting. I was sure they would all be able to make it. They tended to make space for me when I asked to see them. Sure enough, they could all make it. In their response to my emails, they warned me that it had to be good – after a week of thinking about it, they had become skeptical. This was the last thing I needed, and seeing them would be good to remind them that I would deliver. Now that I had a plan – thanks to Elena - I was positive that I would be able to give them what they wanted to see.
With a meeting arranged, I could breathe again. The investors worked me up into a frenzy every time, and I had to concentrate on staying calm. At least, the research had delivered encouraging results, and I knew that as soon as we launched the new product, everything would fall into place. The investors would be happy, my customers would be happy, and if they were both happy, I was happy.
“We need to talk,” Doug said, walking into my office. He didn’t knock and he looked serious. He closed the door behind him before he walked to a chair opposite my desk. He didn’t sit down. Instead, he slapped the magazine down on my desk and rested two fists on either side of it. “Do you want to explain what this is all about?”
I looked at the magazine where he opened it for me and on the left side of the page, on glossy paper, Elena and I were kissing in the dark. Someone must have taken a photo of us when she was leaving my house.
“I can’t exactly explain that away,” I said.
“No shit,” Doug said. “I warned you about this. When we had talked about tapping that ass, it had all been fun and games. If I had known that you were already involved with her, I would have said something earlier. Now, it’s too late.”
I looked at the article, scanning it quickly and picking up all the words that would sink my company. This wasn’t good. If investors caught wind of this, they could pull funding straight away. The last thing I needed was a scandal. It could take away the power of the new product launch.
“This photo was taken on private property,” I said. Surely, that had to mean something. “I’m pretty sure we can press charges.”
Doug shook his head. “Even if you can, it’s not going to change the fact that it’s already out there. Whoever took the photo can fall down on his knees and kiss your feet, apologizing for everything that he did to you, but the public has already seen this. You can retract the image, but you can’t retract the gossip.”
He was right, of course. I had been careless. I had been too caught up in Elena and how I felt about her and forgotten about what I was doing.
“Does Elena know?” I asked. This was going to affect her, too.
Doug shrugged. “You were my first concern. Do you want me to call her in?”
“Yes, please. She deserves to know what’s going on.”
Doug disappeared for a moment to call Elena into my office. When they were both in front of me, with the door closed, I turned the magazine to Elena. I watched her face as she took in the photo, read some of the text. She looked horrified, her rosy cheeks now pale, her lips pursed together.
“I am so sorry about this,” she said.
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “This isn’t your fault. It takes two to get caught in an image like this and it was taken in front of my house. This shouldn’t even have happened.” I sighed. “I should have been the one to be more careful.”
Elena frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I arranged a meeting with the investors this morning. Ireceived calls and emails from them that communicated to me that they were impatient. I’m starting to wonder if this is the reason.”
Elena shook her head back and forth, back and forth. She was panicking. I could see it on her face. I wished I could pull her against me, help her feel better, but it was that kind of physicality that had us into trouble in the first place.
“I’ll fix it,” Elena said. “Publicly with the company. This doesn’t have to affect you.”
“Absolutely not. You did so much to save the company. It’s not fair for you to leave now.” I could see Doug disagreed with me, but he didn’t say anything. Good for him. I was going to defend Elena no matter what.
“But I’m just the secretary. It’s a small price to pay. Your image, your reputation, that’s what you should be worried about right now.” She was trying, and I appreciated that. But I wasn’t going to have any of it.
“It’s not a small price to pay, not for you. We’ll make this work. We’ll figure something out. We have made it through difficult times until now.”
“Barely,” Doug said under his breath, but I heard him.
I shot him a dirty look. I understood that he was upset, but this was my personal life and Elena’s career that we were talking about. It wasn’t something that we could sweep under the rug with no consequences. This was going to affect all of us, so we had to make sure that we handled it right.
“We have about an hour to come up with something we can say to the investors, in case they saw it,” I said, looking at my watch. “Once the meeting is done, we can look at damage control on a larger scale. Until then, let’s not panic.”
“Oh, my God, what are we going to do?” Elena said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “Noah, this could sink the business. After everything we did to save it,” she didn’t finish her sentence. She was panicking.
“Hey, don’t worry. We’ll figure this out. We have a great idea to increase sales, and if we can get past this, everything will be okay.” I wasn’t sure of my own words, but I wanted to calm her down. This wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t mine. We should have been more careful what we did in the office, but ultimately, that was not where we had been caught anyway.
Elena shook her head, and she looked like she was going to cry. “Things were so bad already. This is going to make it worse.”
Istood up and walked around my desk to her. I put my hands on her wrists and forced her to look me in the eye. Her eyes were wide, her breathing quick and shallow.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said again. “The last thing we are going to do is pull out after we have put in so much work. You’re not going to quit the company. We’re going to make this happen.”
I wasn’t sure how I would make it happen, but I wasn’t about to lose Elena and let her sacrifice her career over this. She was amazing at her job. She had potential and she deserved more. Not less.
Elena took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. She dropped her hands, wringing them in front of her. She glanced at Doug who watched us quietly. When I looked at Doug, his face was carefully blank. I didn’t know what he was thinking. He had caught wind of our relationship which meant we hadn’t been all that careful, after all. But Doug was my friend and knew me better than most. He had warned me, but like he’d said, it was too late now.
“What do you need me to do?” Elena asked me.
“For now, carry on with what you were doing. There’s nothing else that can be done for the moment. I’m going to the meeting, and as soon as we know what steps to take, we will take them.”
Elena nodded and left my office. Doug and I both watched her leave before looking at each other.
“What is this, Noah?” Doug asked. “Were you just having your fun or is this serious?”
“What are you asking me?” I asked. I wanted Doug to put it into words. I wanted to know what he was asking me before I would answer it.
“Do you care for this woman? Or were you just getting off?”
I cringed inwardly at his way of describing it. I was never “just getting off” with Elena. She was so much more than that.
“I care for her,” I said. “I’m starting to realize that I care for her more than I thought.”
Doug nodded slowly and pushed his hands into his pockets. “That changes everything.”
“Does it? Won’t the public see an affair?” I asked. Elena had been right when she’d mentioned my reputation.
“Maybe,” Doug said. “But if you car
e about her, if this is more than just a fling, you need to approach it differently. I think the first thing you need to do is postpone the investor’s meeting until tomorrow.”
“On a Saturday?” I asked.
Doug nodded. “You might die a social death if you leave it until Monday, but you can’t see them right now. Tell them something came up. We need the time to decide what we are going to say about this.”
“That will give them more time to see the tabloids,” I said.
Doug pulled up his shoulders. “You’re right. It will. But at least you will be prepared. If you go in there now and they have already seen it, there will be chaos.”
Doug was right. Now that this had come to light, Elena and I had to approach it differently. I needed her at my side in the meeting, and I needed to figure out what I was going to say to them. When Doug left my office, I made the calls to postpone the meeting. I told them something personal had come up, and they didn’t fight me on it too much. Either they knew everything already, or I was lucky. I was nervous to consider that it might be the former.
The rest of the day dragged by slowly. Rumors were going throughout the office. It took only one person to see the tabloids before gossip started, and it spread like wildfire. Elena and I kept to ourselves, taking care of business. We didn’t have a lot of time to speak, and I regretted that, but I had to take care of business as usual.
When I finally left the office, I was tired and eager to get home. The day had started off great, but it had turned horrible very quickly.
My cell phone rang, and a number showed on my car’s console screen that I didn’t recognize. I answered, letting the call go through my Bluetooth speakers.
“I saw the photos,” a familiar voice said.
I didn’t bother to hide my groan. “Nicole, you can’t call me all the time.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing with her. It’s plastered all over the news, now. Do you know what it feels like to see the man you love with another woman?”
I sighed. “I can be with who I want, Nicole. It’s been a long time since you and I have been together. You should move on. I have.”
“I can see that,” she said bitterly. “But we can still fix us, Noah. We can still make it work.”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear from you again. It’s never going to work out between us. Don’t call me again.”
I didn’t allow her a chance to reply before I ended the call. She was becoming a bit of a nuisance. For a moment I wondered if I should tell Elena about her. I decided against it. She had enough to worry about already. Besides, Nicole didn’t matter.
Chapter Sixteen
Elena
I didn’t usually go to work on a Saturday. Noah was very serious about not working overtime, but today was an exception. Noah had postponed the meeting with the investors to today after the photo of us kissing had appeared in the tabloids. Yesterday, the tabloids and newspapers had a field day with the story. Our photo popped up everywhere with text that suggested Saturn Intelligence was going down because Noah Fuller was concentrating on things other than business. It felt horrible that they were blaming me for the downfall of the business when things had been going downhill for a long time, and I had only been working for Noah for four months.
Of course, they would take whatever they could find and manipulate it to work for them. I had never been the object of scrutiny when it came to tabloids, and this was difficult for me to handle.
Since the photo had been published, I hadn’t had an opportunity to talk to Noah about it. He had been running around trying to put out fires, and I had been working hard to pick up the slack when he couldn’t focus on business. I had no idea what was going to happen. Noah had told me not to worry, that we would figure this out, but I wasn’t sure that it would be that simple. For one, I was sure that everyone would want me gone. Doug didn’t seem very happy when I was in the office with them yesterday, and I had a feeling this was the end of the line for me.
What was I going to do if I got fired? To be fired rather than quitting looked worse on any resume. Being in the news for having a relationship with my boss would ruin any chances of me finding a new job. Who would hire me if it waved above my head like a banner? But if Noah kept me on, it might affect his business. After what they were saying in the tabloids, I wasn’t sure he could afford to keep me around. Things were looking up for SI, but we weren’t in the clear yet. It could all go downhill from here, and I was worried that was what would happen.
Noah was in his office, reading cue cards for the meeting. He looked up and smiled when he saw me. I offered him a wan smile in return.
“It’s going to be fine, Elena,” Noah said, understanding my fears.
“I hope you’re right,” I said. My stomach bunched into a knot of nerves. I was nervous about the meeting. Scared. I had no idea what they were going to say, and even though Noah would be the one to do all the talking, it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t point fingers at me. It seemed almost inevitable, and I wished I didn’t have to be there.
The offices were quiet with everyone at home, and I was relieved. It was only us when we walked to the boardroom. There was no one to whisper behind our backs, no conversations to fall quiet and pick up after we had passed by the way they had yesterday. Rumors and gossip had been spreading the day before and being in the office had been horrible.
We were the first in the boardroom, and I sat down in my seat in the corner. I was overwhelmed. I curled forward in my chair and brought a shaky hand to my forehead. Any moment now, the investors were going to file into the room. I wished I was home. I wished I was anywhere but here.
One by one, the investors arrived. Every single one of them glanced at me before taking a seat at the table. I made eye contact with every one of them. I tried to look confident like I had nothing to hide. When I looked at Noah, there was no sign of distress. He was upright and exuded authority, as always. He smiled and shook hands with the investors, touching their elbows with his free hand when he did so.
“Gentlemen,” he said when everyone was seated. “Thank you for coming in on a Saturday. I know that takes you away from the families, so it is much appreciated.”
“What do you have for us, Fuller?” one of the investors asked.
Noah switched on the projector and stepped back so everyone could see. He showed the results of the research and surveys that the marketing team had conducted, as well as the projection of income and profits. I had heard the good news after Noah had spent time with the marketers, but it was the first time I saw everything laid out, and I had to admit, it looked great. If I were an investor, I would have agreed to put money into this product.
The investors seemed happy, too. They were smiling, nodding, talking amongst each other.
“I have promised,” Noah carried on, “you will each receive a better version of the product to try out for yourselves. I am confident that you will be happy.”
“Well done, Noah,” an investor said. “We are very impressed with the numbers and how you decide to approach marketing. I have to admit, we were very skeptical when you approached us the first time, but it seems we were wrong. From where we are standing, the future of Saturn Intelligence looks good.”
Noah smiled and I could tell he was relieved. Up until now, the investor’s money had still been a question. Despite everything that had gone wrong, it looked like Noah’s company was getting its happy ending. I was so excited for him. I only wished I could say the same about our personal lives. So far, nothing had been said about the news in the tabloids. I was too scared to hope that the investors hadn’t seen it or that it didn’t matter at all.
“With this information behind us,” the investor carried on, “we must touch on a different topic.” My stomach sank. I knew what was coming. “We noticed your company getting a little more media attention than usual. Is this going to be a problem?”
He was being nice by n
ot putting it into words, but we all knew what he was talking about.
“I am aware that the news might influence the release of this product,” Noah said. “I believe that we have something strong enough to pull us through.”
“As we are all hoping, Fuller, but you are still working with the woman in question.” The investors turned to look at me, and I fought the urge to back against the wall. “What are you going to do with her?”
They were talking about me as if I wasn’t there. I didn’t exactly have a leg to stand on right now, to demand they change their tone. I glanced at Noah. Whatever happened next was completely up to him. It terrified me that I had no idea what it might be.
When Noah looked at me, his gaze was soft, his eyes smiling. He tried to reassure me with his facial expression, but it worked only a little.
“Until yesterday morning when the news published an unfortunate photo, I was planning to promote her,” Noah said.
The investors were as shocked as I was. A promotion? This was the last thing I had expected. The investors didn’t seem very happy about the idea. Before they could get a chance to respond, Noah carried on.
“Of course, that’s not possible now. If I promote her, it won’t look good, and I want to keep rumors to a minimum.”
“We can agree with that,” someone said. “But are you not going to fire her? This can tank your reputation and considering your financial disposition, your image is the only reason we bought into Saturn Intelligence. It’s a big risk running with something that could lose us all a lot of money.”
I thought I was going to be sick. I swallowed hard and try to take deep breaths.
“I’m not going to fire her,” Noah said. He glanced at me. “This is no more her fault than it is mine, and it isn’t a meaningless office romance. I care very deeply about Elena, and our relationship is much more than a physical secret behind every corner.”