Verity felt sensitive. She had begged and pleaded with the powers that be sometimes. She had bargained and demanded. She had threatened and swore. She had even asked nicely to please, pretty please, have one more chance to hold his hand and be close to him again. A tear ran slowly down her right cheek. It was a tear of relief. It was a tear of sadness. It was a tear of pain. It was a tear of joy. His thumb began caressing her thumb. Verity didn’t understand. How could he be acting so lovingly towards her and still say he loved her, if he didn’t? And if he loved her, why didn’t he call her? Why didn’t he come to their graduation? Why didn’t they live happily ever after together? Verity sat up straighter. She was here to listen to a conference and that’s what she should be concentrating on.
An hour into the conference, their hands were still together and he hadn’t tried to talk to her. He was being professional, apart from holding her hand and smiling at her occasionally. He leant over and kissed her on the cheek and then stood up and did up a button on his jacket. Verity wanted to ask where he was going, but assumed he was going to the bathroom. She watched him walk to the end of the row, but he didn’t go towards the bathroom, he walked down the slope towards the front of the auditorium. Verity furrowed her brow, wondering where he was going. The slide image change and his name appeared in big letters. There was a round of applause as he stepped onto the stage and up to the lectern.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. As David alluded to, absorption costing in manufacturing at Towers is complying with one zero two of accounting standards, but what is it really telling them? Without considering both the fixed and variable cost in inventory, and the appropriate sharing of each, the financial statements might be giving them false hope in their decision making. The rate of return has clearly been skewed by the information not being represented accurately in the balance sheets and …”
He was in front of everyone, talking, giving a speech, people hanging on his every word. Verity was fascinated. He didn’t appear to be speeding up or drying out like he often did when he gave speeches at university. She was better at speeches then he was, or at least she used to be. She smiled that he was so confident and not even using palm cards or notes. Damn. It was something else that he was better at than her. She did a mental checklist and determined that he’d pretty much covered everything he was better at than her now. Verity hung on his every word, smiling in agreement and with pride. He continued for ten minutes and looked towards her corner.
“And it’s only because of variety that I’m standing here today. Because, variety, men and women of the conference, is the spice of life,” he said.
Verity laughed and clapped and whistled. She put her hand to her mouth. The whistle was one step too far. Why did she do that? She hoped no one would notice. She sat down still smiling and watched him walk back up the slope towards her. She wanted to tell him he was wonderful. He sat down at the end of the row not beside her and Verity didn’t understand why. She looked over at him, waiting for him to look at her so she could tell him how much she liked his speech. He wasn’t looking. Verity moved around the armrest and sat one seat closer towards him. After two minutes of glancing at him without a reaction, she gave up and looked down at the lectern. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and noticed he had moved one seat closer to her. She looked at him, waiting for him to look at her. After another two minutes she huffed and moved one seat closer to him. This continued over the next twenty minutes and when there was only one seat left between them, Verity moved back in the direction she came from. He laughed and shook his head.
Chapter 40
The final speech ended and participants who were attending the dinner were reminded to be there in half an hour and if instructions were required to ask the staff in gold vests. Verity watched the lights get brighter and saw him get up and walk away without another glance. She picked up her bag and handbag from the corner she had been sitting in and made her way out of the auditorium. She looked around for him and didn’t see him. That was that for now then.
She walked out of the conference centre towards the doors and looked at the street lights. She would now have to make her way home to her apartment and make some dinner. She had no idea what she could have for dinner or even what was available to cook. She could look through the refrigerator and freezer when she got there, and while she was doing that she could try to figure out what he was thinking and why the chair games had ceased, and why he didn’t talk to her during the intermission, and what was on his mind.
A man in a hat and gloves stepped out in front of her. “This way please,” he said.
“Which way?” Verity asked.
“To Mr Horton’s limousine, madam,” he replied.
“Oh no, Ivan, no, you’re not getting me in there again, no thank you,” she said, looking towards the limousine.
The window came down and Jake looked at her, “Must you be so assuming all the time? I am taking you in my vehicle because you are my plus one this evening. Please join me.”
Verity moved closer to the window, “Your plus one for what, Jake? Why do you get to decide where I’m going this evening and that I’m your plus one? Did you ask me first?”
“No. So, Verity Sharpe, would you like to be a plus one at the finance dinner from seven thirty onwards?”
“No. I wouldn’t. I have a lot to think about.”
“Perhaps I can assist you to think. The food at the Rowland Room is very good. Perhaps your iron is low. Should I check for you? Or perhaps we could be civilised professionals instead and I could talk to you about an upcoming career opportunity.”
“Okay, Jake, but only because I can’t decide what to have for dinner, and on the condition that you do not say the p-word to me.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Sharpe. Get in the car.”
Verity moved and allowed Ivan to open the back door of the limousine for her. She was mindful of how she stepped into the vehicle and how her legs were placed as she sat opposite him. “You’re a bizarre individual, Jake Horton. You talk funny, and you think funny, and you smell… pretty good.”
Jake laughed and his shoulders shook. “Could you not come and share my home and my money with me, Verity? You make me laugh. You always make me think I should feel bad about myself, but I just don’t. Not because I don’t care of your opinion, but because I just don’t.”
“I don’t want to live with you. I’m in love with someone, and I’m seeing someone.”
“Two lucky men, perhaps, or two men destined to feel let down by you.”
Verity folded her arms, “That wasn’t very nice. Unlike you, I actually do have feelings.”
“I have feelings. I just don’t give them injudicious names and fit them into places they don’t belong. You think I’m gorgeous, I know you do. We could have had a special relationship, but you can’t get beyond my eccentricities and I respect that. You think I’m a nut job, as you so nicely put it. Perhaps this nut job can help you with your dilemma as a gesture of friendship.”
“I don’t know that you can, but it’s nice that you offered. I’m sorry I called you a nut job, and I would like to be your friend. I’ve learned to apologise properly over time and it isn’t fun for me. You are eccentric and when you’re as rich as you are that’s a label you can no doubt wear with pride.”
Jake lit a cigarette and turned on the exhaust fan above his head. He handed Verity a business card, “You have an interview here at the time and date listed. I have already put you down to attend. You will go, you will obtain the position and you will start your career properly before you get any older or bitterer than you already are.”
Verity furrowed her brow, “Thank you, I think.”
“Do you know why I work?”
“No, not when you apparently have so much money.”
“I was inspired by a man who came from nothing. He had nothing much at all. Typical rags to riches, I guess, but really he was very clever with his mind. He used his mind to build an em
pire and become wealthy, and even when he was so wealthy, more so than me, he continued to work. I could find anyone to share my life. I could choose one person, two people, several people, but why? Love evades a lot of people. They don’t find it. They think they just have it, that they’re just in love and that’s all, they have it. Love is a commitment to continue to work forever. People appear to fall in and out of love all the time. That’s not love. Love is a deep affection for something. So love is not even an accurate definition for love. Anyway, that man died in March.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, especially if it was premature.”
“Trusting one’s heart to the wrong people can be fatal. I use this analogy because it is his heart that killed him in theory and in practice. Let me digress. I attended his funeral and I paid scant attention to his eulogy because my attention was drawn to his daughter. For the entire funeral and the wake afterwards, I could not take my eyes from her if she was present. She wore a veil but I saw her lift it during the ritual to observe through unveiled eyes, and I saw love on her face. She sat like a child in awe of fireworks gazing lovingly at his image and absorbed in words of admiration about his life.”
“I didn’t get to attend my father’s funeral,” Verity said, looking at her hands.
“That’s sad for you, and you have my condolences,” Jake said, and inhaled on his cigarette, “After the funeral, I ventured to his home. It was a home at which I had attended a soiree before, but never in attendance was his daughter. And she stood, fixed, in one position by the fireplace, as if glued to the floor. I still could not remove my eyes from her. I was waiting to see her face. In a magazine a face can be lit to change and suit the story, but a woman suffering grief in person cannot so easily morph. It took a long time, but as she looked upon the crowd and sipped her water with her unveiled face my heart was moved.”
Verity folded her arms, “I get it, you’ve got the hots for Callinger’s daughter, the billionaire baby. Good luck with her. Maybe she’s as eccentric as you and you can live happily ever after together.”
Jake blew smoke hard across the limousine towards Verity, “Your cold indifference to anything outside of your own head is not a heart-warming attribute, Verity Sharpe. I did digress, but in that story another person may have heard something more. Let me help you by setting it out plainly for your bitter heart. Her grief is pinned to the idea that she will never love another man like she loved her father. The realisation that love is not something that can be contained and pinned only to one soul per lifetime will come as a huge relief for her. People throw the word love around like it’s confetti, but if you understood its true value then you would sprinkle it gently, widely perhaps, but gently. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Verity tried to cogitate on Jake’s words. He used words oddly compared to most people. “Not really, Jake, maybe if I had more time.”
“Maybe if you weren’t distracted. You’re in love with someone and you’re seeing someone. If the man you love is not the man you are seeing, why are you seeing the man?”
“I do love him.”
“Interesting,” Jake said, “So you love him, but you’re in love with the other man, but maybe he’s not in love with you because otherwise you would not be seeing someone else. Will you cast one aside for the other?”
“That’s a horrible thought, but yes. I didn’t think he would love me, I told him not to love me, but he couldn’t help it, like I can’t, and he knows the situation.”
“And in doing so he no doubt loves you all the more. You are in the same dilemma you were when you were working with me. These two men, one who’s a theory and one who’ a practical demonstration, there is no way to not break a heart in this position if there is real love. What do you tell him? Is he your plan B? A second choice? A fall-back position? How cruel to know that you’ll never be good enough for someone who says they love you but without telling them the real reason.”
Verity wiped a tear from her cheek, “Why are you doing this to me? I didn’t expect to feel love again after I lost the man I was in love with. I wanted him to come back.”
“And yet I observe that you run away from him at every opportunity, just like today. He stood watching you, waiting for a chance to talk to you, and you ran away. And why do you do that, Verity?”
“I don’t work for you, and I don’t have to answer your questions.”
“The answer is because as long as you string them both along you are guaranteed to have someone to love you.”
“I can love them both.”
“Except that you will live with one and leave one alone. Both men will want to have you in their home, like I did, and I wonder which one you’ll chose? The one who loved you when you were loveable, or the one who loved you when you weren’t? Perhaps they both do both for you, but there is only one you’ll marry, isn’t there? ”
“Yes.”
“Then wouldn’t it be best to tell them both know so that they would move on?”
“No. It wouldn’t.”
Jake extinguished his cigarette, “You’re a hard case. So I assume the p-word you don’t want me to say is ‘pussy’? You don’t like the word pussy, do you? If used correctly, the word pussy can do things to a man.”
“You say it too often and it means nothing.”
“Just like the word ‘love’, Verity. If you know love then you know sacrifice. You’re being selfish, but you seem like someone who always has been and always will be. Who is it that doesn’t understand that they can’t always have what they want? You or me?”
Verity looked at Jake and shook her head, “Seeing as you’re so wise, what do you suggest I do? I love both of them and I don’t want to hurt anyone. I have to let one of them go regardless and it’s not because I’m selfish, it’s because I don’t want to be selfish.”
“Then get an answer and give an answer. Stop running away from the man you want answers from, and give answers to the other man because he deserves them. Also, get out of my car.”
“What?”
Jake smiled, “We have arrived at our destination, Miss Sharpe.”
Verity looked out the window and the door opened. She was offered a hand and stepped from the limousine. She looked at who was holding her hand and didn’t let the hand go. “You’re coming to the dinner?” she asked.
“Yes, Mr Horton gave me his ticket.”
Verity turned around to look at Jake but the door closed and the window was dark. She waved hoping he would see her as the limousine drove away.
“Are you okay, Verity?”
“Yes, thank you. I appear to be holding your hand again.”
“We still have a few minutes before the dinner starts. Can I talk to you?”
“Is this a conversation that I want to have in front of people who we’re going to be working with or that I can maintain a level of professionalism in front of based on whatever you’re going to tell me?”
He sighed, “No. I guess you don’t want to hear me out right now then, and probably not afterwards because you’ll have had a long day and I respect that, but could you please, please, just once, say my name? I’ve said your name almost every time I’ve seen you and I’ve longed to hear you say mine but you won’t. It’s like you think the world will fall down if you say my name out loud or something. Please, Verity? Actually call me by name.”
Verity licked her lips, “Hello, Brock Vale.”
He smiled and let out an exaggerated sigh, “Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you sit next to me again? You mentioned me in your speech, and I was so proud of you that I whistled.”
“That was you? I thought so. Being close to you isn’t easy because I just want to be closer and you keep pushing me away. There’s another reason you don’t want to talk, isn’t there?”
Verity swallowed, “I’m seeing someone.”
“I already know that, I saw you in the café together.”
“He knows that a piece of my heart belongs to you. If I coul
d find out what our future holds that would be good, but either way I have to let him go so he can have a better life and it’s hard. I don’t want anyone to be hurt. I didn’t expect this to happen and I need help.”
“You haven’t really looked at me yet,” Brock said.
Verity took a deep breath and let go of his hand. She stood in front of him and raised her head slowly to look at him. She looked at his bearded chin, his smiling lips, his masculine nose, his brown eyes, his messy eyebrows, his wavy hair. It was really him. “You look really good, Brock.”
“I haven’t changed much, just gotten older.”
“And you’re growing a beard now. I just wish I could look at you without wanting to cry,” Verity said, “I have needed you so many times and you weren’t there, and even standing in front of you now I don’t know where you are.”
“I know where I’d like to be, Verity. I’d like to be with you. I’d like to spend the rest of my life with you, just like I always have.”
Verity smiled and held back the tears, “I don’t know if I can do that, until I know why you didn’t come to our graduation.”
“And I’m more than ready to tell you, but you keep running away from me. If you see me in the street you go the other way. You already said that you don’t want to do it here because we’re supposed to be here for work, but soon, please? So we can both move on? Whatever direction it’s going to be, we need to have that conversation.”
Verity nodded, “Okay, but for tonight let’s pretend that we only just met.”
Brock nodded and put out his hand, “Hi, I’m Brock Vale.”
Running Rings Page 31