When they finally landed in Australia, Liz was smashed drunk and could hardly walk. She hadn’t realized just how much she had been drinking until she got up and tried to walk off the plane.
Luckily Ricardo was there to help her.
He grabbed her things from the plan and wrapped his arm around her waist to support her as they walked.
“I’m so sorry. I think I’m drunk.” Liz slurred as they went up the jet way.
“I think you enjoyed the flight.” Ricardo smiled.
Ricardo gathered his luggage and Liz’s and loaded the pair into a rental car. He drove to the hotel and checked them both in.
He brought Liz up to her room and dropped her off with her things.
“Can you set the alarm on my phone for when I need to be awake and sober?” Liz joked.
Ricardo took her phone and tried figuring out how to set an alarm. As he was working on it, a Skype call came in. He tried to hit ignore but accidently answered the call. He quickly handed the phone to Liz.
Ricardo didn’t see who the person was, but the caller ID had said, “Honey.”
He left Liz and returned to his room.
Chapter 4
When her alarm went off Liz could barely move. She felt like the world was beating a drum right on her head. But she knew she would need to get up and pull herself together. They had their first meeting with the client today.
Liz sent off a quick text to Harrison to apologize for not being able to talk long the night before. She had told him she was exhausted from the flight, but she knew he could tell she had been drinking.
By 8:30am Liz had made her way to the lobby and procured a nice large cup of coffee. She stood there waiting when Ricardo made his way downstairs.
“Wow, you clean up nice.” He said as he noticed Liz.
“I’m not just a first class lush.” Liz joked. “I’m also an amazing marketing designer.”
“That’s why I picked you.”
Ricardo and Liz made their way to the office of their new client. Palomino Enterprises. Liz felt surprisingly energized considering how her previous day had gone. She didn’t even feel that horrid jet lag that everyone talked about when traveling.
“So I’ll just sit quietly and let you do the talking?” Liz asked.
“Yep. I’ll show him the designs and talk about the project timeline. Should be a quick meeting. Then we can get started on the local campaign.”
“Great.”
As Liz and Ricardo entered the conference room, they were both surprised by the number of people that were there. Ricardo had intended to meet with just the marketing head, but instead they were faced with over a dozen people.
The CEO of Palomino Enterprises greeted them as they entered the room. The other officers of the company introduced themselves as well as some key marketing department employees.
Ricardo went right into action. Liz was impressed that nothing seemed to faze him. She sat there in awe as he went through their presentation. He quickly put all the executives at ease with his humor and obvious knowledge of the project.
“And this is the designer?” The CEO asked as he looked at Liz.
“Yes, Sir. I’m Elizabeth Cleveland.”
Liz made a concerted effort to look the man directly in the eyes and tried to appear confident.
“Could you tell me why you chose the skyline as the background in the ad?” The CEO asked.
Liz looked at Ricardo for an answer but quickly realized she knew the answer.
“I thought it would show off your global size and the fast pace of your corporation.”
“Great. I like that.” The CEO said.
“Do you think we could incorporate some other major city landmarks into the ad?” The Marketing president asked.
“Sure. I could redesign it.” Liz felt confident in her design work and more comfortable than she thought she would in front of the large group of mostly men executives.
“Great. Let’s look at the new skyline, say by the end of the week?” The CEO said as he looked at Liz and then over to Ricardo.
“Sure no problem. We will get those done and some mock-ups of the rest of the campaign.” Ricardo said as he turned off his power point and started to gather his things.
“I think we would like to do a simultaneous campaign in the U.S., U.K., and Australia. Could you get us the mock-ups for all three campaigns? Thanks.” The CEO said as he signaled for the crowd of executives to disperse.
“Sure thing,” Ricardo said as he shook the CEO’s hand. “We look forward to working with you on this project.”
Ricardo didn’t look like he understood the magnitude of what the CEO had just said. Liz stood there in shock as she shook all the executives hands and waited for them all to leave the room.
“Ricardo. He just tripled our project!” Liz said as panic started to take over.
“I know. Isn’t that great?” He said with a smile. “Triple the money too. This is going to kick start your career like crazy.”
Liz just stood there staring at Ricardo. It was going to be hard enough to get the new design finished for the Australian project, but now she had do one for the United States and England!
Liz felt a panic attack coming on. The room started to get smaller and smaller and before she knew it she was lying on the ground and Ricardo was standing over her waving some papers to help cool her off.
“Liz. Liz. Are you alright?” Ricardo said as Liz started to open her eyes.
“It’s too much Ricardo. Get someone else. I can’t do it.” Liz said as she stayed laying on the ground.
Ricardo smiled and lay on the ground next to her.
“I wouldn’t have picked you if I didn’t think you could handle this. Your designs are amazing. Your work ethic is ten times as much as anyone else in the office.” Ricardo said as he continued to lie on the ground next to Liz.
Liz felt comforted by Ricardo and hopeful that his confidence in her was not misplaced.
“You do know we are lying on the floor right now,” Liz joked.
“Yep.”
“Do you think we should get up?”
“Yeah. You’ve got a lot of work to do,” Ricardo smiled.
Ricardo helped Liz up off the ground and they gathered their belongings and headed to their new office.
Liz felt a surge of energy and quickly started working on the changes to the original skyline. She felt like if she could at least get that one done she would have more confidence that she could finish the other two by the end of the week.
Chapter 5
Liz stayed at the office and worked on her changes long after Ricardo had left for the night. She downed coffee after coffee as she worked to get everything finished.
The thought of having this one totally finished drove her to work well into the evening. She wanted to show Ricardo and everyone else that she was the right person for the job. The changes the CEO wanted weren’t too much for her and she would show them an even more amazing skyline than the first mock-ups had.
As midnight came and went, Liz continued to work until her phone rang.
Harrison was Skype calling her.
“Babe?” He said as she came online and he noticed she was still at her work and not back at her hotel.
“Hi, honey,” Liz said as exhaustion started to set in.
“Why are you still at work? It’s after Midnight there.” Harrison said concerned.
“They made a ton of changes to the project. I’ve got to get caught up.”
“You have to sleep Liz. You won’t be any help to anyone if you don’t sleep. Go get some sleep.”
Liz was just about to answer when she heard a woman’s voice in the background at Harrison’s office.
“Mr. Wellington you have a call.” The woman’s voice said.
“That didn’t sound like Martha.” Liz noticed.
“No, it is a new assistant. Martha’s daughter is having her bab
y today.” Harrison responded.
“Oh, that’s exciting. Tell her I said congratulations.” Liz loved Harrison’s assistant Martha. She was the nicest woman and it also made Liz feel good that she was over fifty years old. No way Harrison would be chasing after her if she were a grandma instead of some hot thing like Liz had been when she was his assistant.
“I’ll tell her. Now you go get some sleep.” Harrison said.
“Yes, Sir Mr. Wellington.” Liz winked at him as she closed out of the app.
Liz felt like jet lag had suddenly taken over her body. She was tired beyond what she could imagine. She locked up her office and grabbed a cab back to her hotel. As she pulled up, front Liz saw a distinguished looking business man walking into the hotel with a young twenty-something on his arm. She thought how ridiculous they looked and wondered if that was what her and Harrison looked like together.
Of course Harrison wasn’t as old as this guy and Harrison looked damn fine for his age. Liz reasoned that they didn’t look nearly as absurd together because. But she did decide that this guy was likely having an affair with his secretary or something by the way he looked back and forth several times before going into the hotel. He seemed very paranoid.
Liz got up to her room and crawled into bed. She started to think about Harrison and his new assistant. She would need to find out what this lady looked like and how long she would be working for Martha. Liz felt a tinge of jealousy as she wondered if this woman was a young hot secretary. She remembered back to the previous secretaries Harrison had before her and knew he had a tendency to find the hottest women, the most qualified for the position.
Only since dating Liz had, he actually hired a woman based on her real qualifications when he chose Martha.
Liz decided to try Skyping Harrison while she was in bed. She thought it would be fun to distract him from work for a bit and tease him.
The call buzzed over and over again, but Harrison never answered.
Liz tried calling him and sent him a text, but no answer.
She called his office and the secretary answered.
“Mr. Wellingtons office.” She sounded young. And beautiful.
“Hi, this is Liz. Is Harrison available?”
“Who is this?” The woman said with a bit of an attitude.
“This is Liz. Can I speak with Harrison, please?”
“Mr. Wellington is not able to come to the phone right now. Would you like me to take a message?” The woman seemed to have no idea who Liz was. It annoyed Liz.
“No, I will call his cell,” Liz said and hung up.
She tried to fight her feelings to reach through the phone and strangle the girl. How could she have no idea who Liz was? That annoyed Liz. Why wouldn’t Harrison just tell her that if Liz called she could be put right through? That’s one of the first things he told Martha when she was hired.
Liz tried not to dwell on it too much as she finally drifted off to sleep. But she couldn’t help but worry something was going on between Harrison and his new secretary. She wanted to trust him, but a sexy guy and a hot secretary were a bad combination. Liz knew this very well.
Chapter 6
The next morning when Liz heard her alarm going off she couldn’t even open her eyes. The jet lag had officially set in. Her whole body felt like she had only slept one hour. Not the seven that she had actually slept.
She tried to get into the shower to wake herself up, but it was minimally effective. Liz dragged herself down to the lobby and grabbed her large cup of coffee.
Ricardo laughed as Liz moved slowly across the lobby toward the car.
“It appears your jet lag found you.” He said as he opened the door for Liz.
“Yeah and it brought a baseball bat.” Liz smiled.
They sat in silence as Ricardo drove them to the office. Liz felt her head pounding with every bump they went over.
“How late did you stay last night?”
“After midnight. But I finished the Australian skyline.”
“Wow. Pretty impressive. Now just do two more in the next four days.” Ricardo joked.
He knew how much work the next few days were for Liz. It had taken her almost a month to perfect the original mock up for Australia. He didn’t know if she could do the other two in just four days, but he had to push her to get it done. The whole campaign relied on her getting these finished.
For the next four days, Liz worked harder than she ever thought possible. Luckily the specifics about the two other campaigns were easier since the first one was finished. But Liz still ended up working fifteen to eighteen hours a day as she tried to get the project done by the end of the week.
Ricardo was great during the week. Constantly encouraging Liz bringing her coffee and food. He made sure to get her to go for a walk every now and then and helped push her to leave at the end of the night.
Ricardo didn’t go home early any other night. He decided Liz would need him so he stayed and worked on the other parts of the campaign while she did the design work. This was all just the mock up for the bigger campaign and Ricardo knew it could all end very poorly if the CEO didn’t like Liz’s work.
Liz tried to call Harrison at the end of the evening on a couple nights, but he didn’t answer his phone. While she worked, she kept her phone turned off so she wouldn’t get distracted and of course Harrison would call her during those times. She hated missing his calls, but she knew he would understand how important her project was to her.
She plugged away right up until the deadline and walked into the meeting on Friday afternoon with the three finished mock-ups.
Liz sat in the meeting exhausted and let Ricardo take over with is charismatic personality to show off the three designs. Liz hoped the CEO would like them, but at this point she was so tired she sort of didn’t care if he didn’t like them. There was nothing more she could do, Liz had put everything she had into finishing those designs.
The CEO sat there looking over the designs with a flat, expressionless face. Liz tried to figure out what he thought about them but just couldn’t read his expression at all. He handed the designs around the table to the others and then stood up from his seat.
He walked over to Liz and reached his hand out to her.
“Very well done young lady.” He said to Liz.
“Thank you,” Liz answered as she looked at Ricardo, who gave her two thumbs up.
They finished the meeting and when the executives left the conference room Liz couldn’t help but jump up and down from excitement.
“They like it!” She screamed as Ricardo came over and gave her a hug.
Liz hugged him back. It was amazing to know she had worked so hard and they had really liked her work.
“You did great Liz,” Ricardo said as he hugged her again.
This time the hug seemed more than just a celebration. Ricardo looked down at Liz and kissed her.
Liz was in shock at first and didn’t push Ricardo away. She even kissed him back. The long hours and hard work she had done was finally over. Then Liz came back to reality and realized she was kissing another man.
“Oh, I can’t,” Liz said as she pushed Ricardo away a little.
“I’m sorry. That was my fault. Totally out of line.”
“No. It’s fine. I just have a boyfriend.” Liz said as she started to gather her things.
“A boyfriend? Well, I didn’t know that. Sorry.” He said again.
“No, really, it’s alright.”
Liz and Ricardo awkwardly gathered their things and he drove them back to the hotel. They tried to make some small talk, but it was pretty uncomfortable. As Liz exited the elevator on her floor, she stopped and put her hand in the elevator door.
“It’s my fault. I should have told you. I’m sorry. It really is alright.” Liz smiled at Ricardo and let the door shut.
She didn’t want him to feel bad about kissing her. It was her fault. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t
brought up that she had a boyfriend in the entire week they had been working together. All those long hours, walks, lunches and she never thought to mention Harrison. Liz felt so guilty about that.
Why hadn’t she mentioned her boyfriend?
Liz thought that she might have purposely not mentioned Harrison because she liked the way Ricardo flirted with her. But then she thought maybe she had just been too busy and it was an innocent mistake. But whatever the real reason, Liz felt like she had betrayed Harrison.
She knew she hadn’t really betrayed him. Liz did stop kissing Ricardo and she did tell him about her boyfriend. But the feelings of guilt weight hard on her as she got ready for bed.
Liz was exhausted as she hit the Skype call to check in with Harrison. She hadn’t gotten to talk to him since the beginning of the week and she wanted desperately to see his face. Not that she would tell him about what happened with Ricardo, but she did hope just talking to Harrison would help her guilt feel better.
The phone rang and rang and Harrison didn’t answer. It had been four days since she had talked to him and Liz now felt worried.
Chapter 7
Liz drifted off to sleep with a feeling of guilt tearing away at her stomach. She left the ringer on her phone set as loud as it could go just in case Harrison called. Luckily it would be Saturday in the morning and Liz planned to spend the day in bed catching up on her sleep.
Harrison never called.
The weekend was long and Liz spent it almost entirely in bed. She stopped trying to call Harrison since he hadn’t returned her call. Her guilt about kissing Ricardo filled her days and nights throughout the weekend. So as Monday morning rolled around Liz did not feel as rested as she had hoped she would.
She met Ricardo downstairs and he had a coffee in his hands for her.
“Well, you look worse than you did Friday,” he joked.
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“Drink this so we can kick some more butts this week. We have a lot to do to get this campaign ready.” Ricardo said in his usual upbeat tone.
The Deal Page 70