by Dawn Tamayo
“So you know what’s been going on? It sounds like you know more than me, tell me everything.”
“Are you sure you really want to know?” Alice wasn’t sure she wanted to tell her best friend all the gory details about her lying cheating fiancé, but if that was what she wanted then she would. After all, if it was her then she would want to know every tiny little last detail.
“Yes, I want to know. I want to know when and where. I want to know the whole lot.”
It had been a long conversation and by the end of it Victoria had cried so many tears she didn’t think she had any left, or if she would ever be able to cry again. So, her so called loving fiancé was really a lying two timing rat. It seemed he had been screwing his secretary in lunch breaks and after work pretending he was working late for the last few months. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, his secretary had very kindly told her friend how she was not the first woman Mark had cheated on Victoria with. Apparently Mark was well known in the office for having a string of one night stands, ducking out of work dinners or drinks early to run off and meet one woman or another, or even just one he had picked up in the bar that evening. So much for pre-wedding nerves, not as long as his nerves had kicked in as soon as he had asked Victoria to marry him because if what Alice had said was true, and she knew Alice would never tell her anything she wasn’t sure of, then this had been going on for a good year or more. Victoria wondered why Mark would want to marry her if he was screwing around with other women behind her back, but then as Alice had said, “He probably wants to have his cake and eat it. He has steak at home but can’t resist going out for a cheap take-away burger. Or quite simply he is greedy. Greedy and a cheat!”
Victoria woke up in the morning surprised she had actually slept so well. When she went to bed she thought she would toss and turn all night with thoughts of Mark and other women in her head, but as soon as her head hit the pillow she had fallen into a deep exhausted sleep. Now she was up early and dressed in her killer heels and best business suit. Victoria was ready to go, and what a day it was going to be, she was going to make sure of that.
Jake heard the loud buzzer ring on the suite door and he turned over to look at the clock – it was eight thirty in the morning. Normally he would have been up hours ago but last night had been a late one having slipped out of the stunning blonde woman’s bed somewhere around three o’clock this morning. He had sent his personal assistant a text message last night telling her to come in late this morning, but it looked like she hadn’t got the message. He turned over in his bed and tried to cover his ears when the buzzer carried on making its awful racket. Finally he got out of bed, he was not happy!
“Look, didn’t you get my message.” Jake said as he flung the suite’s front door open wide and stopped when he realised it wasn’t his personal assistant at all. “Victoria?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t think I would be waking you up, but I need to talk to you.” She said taking in Jake’s ruffled hair and hastily thrown on t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. Her mind was running at a hundred miles an hour and she didn’t care whether he was dressed or not, she was a woman on a mission. “Can I come in?”
Jake stepped back letting Victoria walk past him into his suite - he certainly hadn’t expected to see her this morning, and wow didn’t she look amazing. Today she was about as tall as him since he was barefooted and she was in high-heels which only seemed to make her slender legs even longer. And what was it with that suit jacket of hers? It was done up so tightly that it looked like her ample breasts were crying to spring free from it, and screaming out to him to help them in their fight!
“I need to know why you want me to come to Miami with you.” She faced Jake square on, she wanted to get straight to the point.
“I want you to show me what you are capable of. I want you to have the chance of showing yourself and that pompous boss of yours what you are capable of.”
Victoria would have smiled at that if she been in a better mood, but she wasn’t.
“I know your reputation Jake. I just want to make sure this is not some sort of little game you are playing. Because this is my life, and I am not someone to be played with.”
“Hold on a minute, what exactly does that mean, you know my reputation?” Jake looked at Victoria feeling confused and slightly annoyed.
“I have seen plenty of media coverage on you to know what you are like Jake, but this is important to me. If I come to Miami I need to know that it is purely business and nothing else.”
“Well, since you seem to think you know me, let me tell you a little something you don’t know.” He walked across to the coffee maker by his personal assistant’s desk and flicked the switch on, he always had it sitting waiting just ready for him to flip the switch first thing in the morning. “If you think what you see in the papers is me then you don’t know a dammed thing about me. People think they know me, but they don’t. You and the rest of the world know what I want you to know about me. But me, the real Jake Cumberland is the guy you had dinner with two nights ago. So tell me, do you think that guy would be jerking you around right now?”
Victoria hesitated, she had to admit the Jake she had dinner with didn’t seem like the person portrayed in all the press reports. Yes he was younger than your average chairman, he liked to party and loved to think outside the box, but he had a lot more depth than the papers seemed to be making him out to be. The press was all about his playboy lifestyle and risky, albeit successful, investments, but the man she had dinner with two nights ago was a lot more than that. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Good, then you have your answer. So are you coming or what?” He made it sound so casual, but deep down he really didn’t want to hear the “or what”.
“Yes I’m coming. But I’m serious Jake. No funny business okay?”
“Yes Ma’am.” Jake said as he watched Victoria walk back out the door and close it noisily behind her. He had absolutely no idea what all that was about, but wow she was really something when she was all fired up. She was one hell of a feisty woman, and he loved it! Jake chuckled and reached for the now hot coffee.
It was nine o’clock as Victoria walked into Ben Churchill’s office. He waved her straight in when he saw her walk through the office front door, and she took a seat in front of his desk.
“Good to see you this morning. I’m guessing you’ve wised up a bit and you’ll be going to Miami on Monday.” He said smiling, literally seeing the money and notoriety from what would hopefully be his new client rolling in.
“Yes and no.” Victoria said sitting up straight in the seat.
“What does that mean?” Ben Churchill said wondering if she had lost the plot.
“Yes I’m going to Miami, but I want to fly out the day after tomorrow.”
“You don’t need to be over there until Monday.” He pointed out flatly, thinking she had obviously got ideas she could call the shots here when she couldn’t. As far as he was concerned his soon to be client may have asked for Victoria but she was just a little pawn in all of this and she needed to come down a peg or two, and quickly. “Don’t push it Victoria.”
Despite feeling anything but happy and polite, Victoria put on a smile to soften her words. She felt empowered this morning and she wanted to push as many boundaries as she could, she was almost enjoying this. Almost. “Mr Churchill, you and I both know that if we get Jake Cumberland’s business it will be because I got him here and because I am going to Miami. So let’s set a few ground rules and say it the way it is. I am going to go to Miami on Friday so I can go shopping and buy some more appropriate clothes for Jake’s partying type of publicity stunts, and when I put these clothes on my company expense account you are not going to freak-out at me and complain. I also assume the company is going to be putting me up in decent accommodation and not in some squalid back-road hotel, and in return I am going to work my butt off for you and bring back Jake Cumberland’s business.” Victoria sat quietly and waited for his response. Quite hon
estly she wasn’t sure if he was going to explode and tell her she was fired or burst out laughing at her audacity.
Finally Ben Churchill spoke, “Well Miss Pembrose you had better know what you are doing because believe me after this little meeting, if you don’t bring Jake Cumberland’s business to this company, I am going to fire you for sure. Do I make myself clear?”
Victoria breathed a sigh of relief. She had no doubt her boss meant every single word but for now she was getting exactly what she wanted, for once.
“Oh and one more thing. I’m going to need this morning off, but I will be back in the office this afternoon.”
“Is there anything else?” He said not quite believing he was hearing Victoria correctly - this woman hadn’t said “boo” to a goose until two days ago. In fact he hardly knew she was in his agency until he recognised her from the press photos last weekend, and now she seemed to think she could swan in and out when she wanted and call the shots.
“No, nothing else thank you.” She smiled sweetly knowing she had thoroughly pissed him off.
“Fine. Be back by two. We’ll meet again then.”
Nodding Victoria walked out the door - she had something important she had to do.
Mark was sitting behind his desk when his office door burst open making him jump. Victoria stood at the door looking amazing, just like she always did and he wondered why he seemed to have forgotten that. But today she had an expression on her face he didn’t recognise and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what was coming.
“Victoria, let’s not do this here, let’s talk at home tonight.”
“No thank you Mark. You see you won’t be coming home tonight, and in fact you won’t be coming home until Saturday. By then I will have taken all my stuff out of the house and you can deal with the rest, along with the estate agent. Oh yes, I made an appointment for an estate agent to come on Saturday morning to put the house on the market.”
“Victoria, honey. Don’t do anything you will regret.”
“Oh I can assure you I won’t. The only thing I regret is not seeing you for the low-life, two-timing, cheating scumbag you really are.” Victoria said as she purposely and slowly walked further into his office not bothering to close the door behind her. She was happy for all his colleagues to hear this, after all they probably knew about the rest of his antics, so why shouldn’t they know how the Victoria part of it ended.
Victoria saw Mark’s eyes flash over her shoulder briefly and then back to her.
“Don’t worry Mark, Chantelle scarpered the minute she heard I was on my way up. And do remember to thank her for being so generous and open with her information, but then again why shouldn’t she be? After all she’s just a cheap tart who slept with her boss when she knew he was engaged. Whereas you, however, are the actual cheating scumbag here!”
“Okay Victoria I get it. I screwed up, I know that, but we can work this out.” Mark said hoping not too many people were listening, but by the looks of things there were far too many people conveniently needing to be at their secretary’s desks near his office door and he knew full well they were there for the show.
“The only thing we can work out Mark is how much money we each walk away with from the sale of our house. I have to go away for business for a few weeks, but when I come back I will rent somewhere else, and you will have put our house on the market and hopefully have secured a sale.”
“Look Victoria let’s take a moment to think about this. I’ll find somewhere to stay for a few days and we can talk about it when you have had time to cool down a bit.”
“Cool down! Oh Mark darling I have cooled down. In fact I am possibly freezing cold in my heart for you. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. The wedding is off, and the floozies you seemed to have enjoyed so much are very welcome to you.” And standing there in front of Mark, Victoria really meant it – she felt stone cold and she knew her voice was portraying every single icicle.
“What about your ring?” Mark asked as he looked at the empty space on Victoria’s finger, she never went out of the house without her engagement ring on and if she wasn’t planning on wearing it he wanted it back considering it had cost him a small fortune. As far as Mark was concerned Victoria couldn’t have it both ways - if she was cancelling their engagement he wanted the ring back.
Victoria laughed! Wow, it hadn’t even occurred to her what to do with the ring, but she would be dammed if she was going to give it back to him just so he could give it to someone else. She had no idea what she was going to do with it but she wasn’t about to let Mark know that. “Well considering I will never be wearing it again, and it is legally mine because you gave it to me, then I suppose I’ll sell it and treat myself to something nice from it.” She enjoyed watching Mark nearly choke - she knew how much he really hated it when he wanted something but he couldn’t get it. “So Mark let’s recap. You and I are over. Don’t bother to contact me again. Stay away from the house until ten o’clock on Saturday morning when you need to be there to show the estate agent around, and get our house sold by the time I get back from Miami. Got it?”
“Miami?”
“Yes, I was coming home last night to tell you but it really doesn’t concern you anymore.” She knew she shouldn’t tell Mark but she couldn’t resist rubbing his nose in it a tiny bit. “I’m off to Miami to spend some time with Creative Technology Holdings’ marketing team at the personal request of Jake Cumberland. And you know what Mark? It sounds like it’s going to be one great big party. Goodbye!” Victoria said as she turned around and walked off leaving Mark standing in the middle of his office with his mouth half open and a hallway full of spectators looking on. For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours Victoria actually felt good, and she almost didn’t feel like her heart had been ripped out of her body and stamped on multiple times with all her hopes and plans for her future shattered and blown away into the dust.
CHAPTER FOUR
The dry warm air hit Victoria as she stepped of the airplane and she welcomed it. She had tried to sleep during her eight and a half hour flight from London to Miami, trying to keep her mind from imagining Mark and Chantelle together, but it had been no good and the images of them had flashed through her head over and over again. Victoria knew she shouldn’t care, she was well rid of a rat like him, but it still hurt and she suspected it would for a very long time. And then walking away from Mark wasn’t the end of everything, not just yet. Victoria still had to cancel the wedding. She had tried to do it before she left England but it was just too much for her at that time, each time she picked up the phone she put it back down again without even dialling a number - Victoria decided it wasn’t going to make any difference if the venue was cancelled this week or next week, they would still lose all their deposit money anyway, but she needed a few more days to let things settle before she had the strength to make those calls. For now it was enough that her family knew the wedding was off, and Alice would see to it that her friends knew too. After that she wanted to handle the cancellation of the church and the venue herself, she needed to do that for closure.
But for now as Victoria walked through the air conditioned bustling airport, collected her heavy suitcase and passed through security and passport control, she looked forward to the busy few weeks she was sure she was going to have with Creative Technology Holdings, and this was a good a start as any to the beginning of the rest of her life. Besides, she couldn’t think of a better place to start anew than here, in Miami with its stunning beaches and hot sunshine. No matter how much it hurt, she was determined to put Mark behind her, because someone who could do what he had done to her had no place in her life. She knew she deserved so much better than that. She deserved so much better than him!
Victoria spotted a sign being held up with her name written across it and handed her suitcase to the driver as she followed him outside to his car. As the driver exited the airport and expertly weaved his way through the ridiculous amou
nt of traffic in all four lanes of the highway she looked out of the window, the sky was turning a dusty shade of dark blue and car lights sprinkled like fairy lights on a Christmas tree all around her. Victoria took in a deep breath, for the first time in a while she was actually feeling a little bit excited.
The car pulled off the highway and Victoria watched the frenzy of car lights disappear into the distance as they drove along the streets.
“You ever been to Miami before?” The Latino taxi driver called over his shoulder.
“Yes but it was a long time ago. It was when I was a child but I don’t remember that much. I do remember your great beaches though.”
“Yeah that we have. You’re going to be in for a real treat lady. You here for your holidays?”
“Not really, I’m here for work but I’ve got a couple of days free first.”
“Work? What you do?”
“Nothing too exciting I’m afraid. Marketing, that kind of thing.”
“Well you need a taxi somewhere you give me a call and I can be your driver.” He handed a card across his shoulder and Victoria leaned forward to take it. He seemed friendly enough and it was always good to have a taxi number just in case she needed it, but then again every third car driving on the Miami streets seemed to be a yellow taxi so she doubted she would ever need it. Victoria pocketed the card just in case.
“Tell you what, your hotel is just around the corner but I’ll drive you around this little area first so you can see what you’ve got. It’s a good little area, you have got shops along this road here and at the end there.” He said pointing to the long road of retro styled buildings where every shop window shone brightly enticing its customers through their doors.