Brash Boss

by Roberts, A. S.

  ‘This might help.’ She nodded at me resolutely.

  * * *

  ‘This way, Mrs. Morello.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I followed behind the impeccably dressed woman until we came to a door I was already familiar with. In truth, I wanted to stop for a few seconds to brace myself, but knowing he would already know I was out here, I held my head high and followed as assertively as I could. Luckily, I was holding a large, black, zipped folder in both of my hands, otherwise I knew I would be wringing them with my discomfort at the situation and that wasn’t how I wanted this meeting to go at all.

  ‘Mrs. Morello.’ Franco tipped his head towards me.

  ‘Good morning, Franco,’ I offered him a half smile.

  I watched as Franco placed his thumb on the scanner by the door and heard the click as the lock released itself on recognition.

  ‘He’s expecting you,’ he offered me almost apologetically.

  ‘Of course he is, because you wouldn’t be doing your job very well if he wasn’t,’ I replied.

  I reached out to touch one of his large arms as I tried to reassure him of the fact that I knew the whole of Nico’s security team would be reporting back to him my every movement. It wasn’t, as far as I was concerned, them taking sides against me, I knew they were just doing their jobs.

  I looked on as Franco’s large hand pushed open the door in front of me and after taking a deep breath I strode into Nico’s office.

  With every step I took I was thankful that I’d spent nearly the whole of yesterday shopping. As far as I was concerned this was going to be at the very least a business meeting. I had an agenda to run through and I wanted to look and feel the part. Having explained that I wanted to be wearing something powerful to the shop assistant yesterday, after already having had my hair and nails done, she’d pulled out several options in my size. My eyes had been immediately drawn to the bright red, fitted dress I was wearing now.

  I had been in Nico’s office a few times before today, but I had never felt more in control than I did at this moment and I knew it was the care I had taken with my appearance that made me feel that way.

  ‘Bee.’ His voice was deep and gravelly.

  His voice came at me and my insides began to quake.

  Don’t you dare, Barbara… don’t you dare.

  I took hold of the back of the chair in front of me, but refused to dig my fingers into the expensive leather, knowing he would be able to read just how I felt by that simple action.

  I took a few seconds to settle myself and then I turned my head and lifted my eyes to find him.

  As my eyes took him in, I inhaled and held my breath. He was stood with his back to me. A black, button down shirt was stretched magnificently across his back and it was tucked into a pair of smart pants which fitted him like a glove. If I still hadn’t been able to see every undulation and worked hard for muscle on his body in my head already, I knew the way his clothes fitted him would have given me a very good idea.

  ‘Nico,’ I managed to force out on an almost whisper.

  Still holding onto the chair, I made myself stand taller on the four-inch heel, strappy, crystal-jewelled Louboutins, as I waited for him to turn around.

  Finally, he did.

  Our eyes met and our worlds as they now were collided. The power, the pain, hurt and silent recriminations swirled around the room so fast it was hard to draw in a meaningful breath.

  I took him in for the first time in five days and although I knew we had been apart for longer periods before in our short marriage, I understood that I had never missed him like I did at this very minute. We were stood not twenty feet apart, but at this moment in time it felt like the distance of an ocean was between us.

  I swept my eyes over him. His hair was impeccably styled, his jawline was clean shaven, and his thick framed glasses were covering his eyes.

  My brash boss was back.

  Just as I thought I couldn’t go on with this so called business meeting that I’d conjured up in my head, and as the feeling of wanting to flee began to take hold of every sinew in my body, I watched his dark brown eyes as they ran over me and took all of me in. He pulled his glasses off his face and in the reflection of his eyes I could see everything he was trying to hide from me.

  Hope replaced my need to flee.

  ‘I have a business proposition for you.’ I spoke and watched as his left eye narrowed in on me.

  ‘You do?’ he questioned as his head twisted slightly to one side when he tried to read the situation between us.

  ‘Yes, because I need to make a living. I refuse to be a kept woman, especially one that her husband feels is a dead weight around his neck.’

  ‘Bee… your choice of words,’ he pushed in, interrupting me.

  ‘Please do me the decency of hearing me out.’

  Nico crossed his arms over his chest and nodded back at me. ‘Please take a seat.’

  ‘I prefer to stand, but I will need somewhere to spread these out.’ I held up my zipped folder.

  Nico waved one arm towards the meeting table next to him and summoning every ounce of strength I had in me, I let go of the chair which had been offering me the stability I needed and walked towards the table and closer to him.

  His arms uncrossed, he pushed his hands deep into his trouser pockets and his loud exhale found me. I could feel his need for me being projected across the room. I revelled in it and used it to fuel what I knew I had to do. Clasping the folder in front of me with both hands I added an extra wiggle as I walked nearer to him.

  Although I tried hard not to, my nostrils found his cologne floating on the air-conditioning of the large room. Like a woman fighting for her very existence, let alone her life, I breathed him in and let him fill up every single one of my senses.

  Longing for him ran through me.

  I opened my folder and trying to ignore how very close he had stepped up to the side of my body, I began to spread out the pictures I had especially chosen in front of me.

  ‘I’ve brought these with me to give you examples of how I see my future.’

  I stood back after speaking and let him close in further towards the table. One by one I watched as he picked up my work and began to examine them.

  I could hear his breathing begin to quicken as he picked up one photograph after another. On the top I had deliberately placed the pictures of Crete, its heritage sites and its gorgeous beaches.

  ‘A photography business? You know already that I think you have a good eye,’ he offered as he took each one in.

  Then I held my breath as he found the ones of him that I’d deliberately placed underneath. The ones in casual clothes. The photographs I’d taken of him when he wasn’t aware and the ones when he’d been looking down the lens of my camera with such longing I’d almost disintegrated on the spot. As I heard him clear his throat, I knew that he’d found the one at the bottom of the pile. The one he’d taken of me as I’d walked into church not ten minutes before he’d walked out.

  ‘Mio angelo,’ he whispered.

  My heart rate quickened at the words as they fell out of his mouth without so much as a thought. The same words I had mourned that I might never hear again. I knew then he hadn’t left me because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much.

  The room around us fell into a painful silence and I held my breath before going into what I knew was going to be the biggest speech of my life.

  ‘Tell me what you see, Nico.’

  He picked up the photos one by one over and over again.

  ‘Mainly, I see me.’

  I knew he had turned his face towards me, but I refused to meet his questioning gaze.

  ‘Do you? Do you really?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ He shook his head a little as if he was trying to arrange all the pieces of a jigsaw in his mind. ‘Do you want me to back a business venture for your photography? Because I will without a moment’s hesitation.’

  ‘You didn’t ans
wer me… Do you really see you in those pictures? I mean really see you. I want the truth; you have told me several times that you always tell the truth.’

  He looked down at the table again and I allowed my eyes to focus on the side of his face.

  ‘That’s the real you, Nico. You weren’t playacting. You were being the man I truly believe you were always meant to be. Look at them! Understand who you are.’

  ‘This is who I’m supposed to be.’ He answered me but still kept his eyes on the mass of colour I’d placed on the table as he moved the smooth pieces of paper around with one finger.

  ‘No,’ I voiced louder than I’d intended. ‘This is who your father told you to be and whether you want to believe it or not, by casting me and the life we have together aside you’re allowing him to win… to win, Nic… please understand that.’ I couldn’t help the begging tone that entered my voice.

  Suddenly, he moved and turning to face me he grabbed hold of my forearms and pulled me into him. All of the air expelled from my lungs. Slowly, I looked up into his face. The pain he was in was etched on every single part of the handsome features in front of me.

  ‘I left to protect you.’

  Gently, I shook my head at him and lifting a hand up towards him I let my forefinger stroke his cleft chin and watched as his jaw relaxed just a little under my touch.

  ‘No, you left to protect yourself. You’re scared of being alive and hurting. He still has such a hold over you that you still believe all the lies he fed you and you don’t have the strength to push him away… You see, Nico Morello, you can run from me, but you can’t hide, because I see you, like you saw me.’

  ‘You were wearing my mamma’s necklace… in church that day.’ He offered me the information so that I might understand. ‘It was the same one I unravelled from the coarse rope she chose to end her life with.’ A silent tear began to run down his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ I whispered up to him as he dipped his forehead to mine and let it rest there.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone before, so you couldn’t have known.’

  I opened my hands and gripped onto his shirt, holding him tightly to me.

  ‘Then let me in… let me all the way in and together we can put all the pieces of our shattered hearts back together.’

  ‘I can’t walk away from this life.’

  ‘I know, and I’m not asking you to. I accept this is part of who you are, because I love you.’

  ‘I wish you didn’t, and this would be so much fucking easier.’

  I summoned all the strength I had left in me.

  ‘This is your chance to choose, Nico. Remember what Mrs. Davison told us both?’ I questioned, and then I continued on not waiting for a reply. ‘We are in charge of our own lives. We are not our parents even if we look like them, because we are not created in their exact image. The adults around us imprint on us growing up and we are made to believe certain things about who we are. Once we become independent, we can become who we were meant to be. There are other ways forward and we carve out those other paths by fighting for what we really want… Fight for me, Nico like I’m prepared to fight for you.’

  I reluctantly pulled myself out of his arms and once again put my hand inside my folder. After finding what I was looking for I placed the small piece of white plastic, with the two blue lines that I’d been saving until last, down on top of the photographs. His eyes followed my every movement and he stiffened in response to what he found.

  ‘This is both of ours chance to choose a different pathway. This isn’t about you and Cade, or me and Brody anymore. This is about us. This is our child I’m carrying and I’m choosing to make their life different to ours. I’m choosing love, and happiness. I’m choosing a different ending. I choose you and our baby. I hope you can be strong enough to be the man I know you are to choose us… But if you don’t, we’ll be fine without you.’ I managed to swallow down the sob that was creeping into my voice.

  I turned on my heels and although I wanted to bolt towards the closed door, I made sure I walked calmly away. My face was wet with tears, but not able to give him any more of an insight into my feelings, I let them fall. Just as my hand touched the doorknob with my back towards him, I spoke again.

  ‘Remember, you have to embrace your darkness to see your stars shine. Our baby is your star.’

  I pulled open the door and walked through it, not knowing if I would ever see him again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Bee

  ‘Trip has requested our flight today with the powers that be. The crew we need are all available, and he’s just let me know that we should fly sometime today. We’re just waiting for an available slot and that’s just about as much as I know, Kendall.’

  I pressed my cell tightly to my ear with one hand and blocked out the sound of the airport with a finger from my other. I heard her repeating what I’d already said back to Nonna.

  ‘Well, Nonna and I want to say that we both know you couldn’t have done anymore. He knows where to find you. It’s down to Nico now. We also want to say that we love you.’

  A loud, unexpected sob left my mouth and I turned away from everyone else in the VIP lounge.

  ‘Don’t cry, Bee. I am convinced he will come to his senses. You know what men are like. You have to plant the seed and then let them think it was all their idea in the first place.’

  Plant a seed.

  I pressed a hand to my flat stomach. She wasn’t far wrong.

  ‘I have other news for you, but I’ll save it until I arrive home.’

  ‘Yes, Bee, you do that. This is and always will be your home.’ Nonna’s voice filled up my ear and I quickly worked out that her and Kendall had swapped places.

  ‘BEE.’ I heard Trip shout from the doorway of the lounge and snapped my head around to find him, as did several of the other ladies in the vast area with me.

  Despite my melancholy over having to walk away from Nico, like many other females in the room, I could appreciate a handsome and charismatic man in a pilot’s uniform. As I waved my hand to him, he took off his cap and walked quickly towards me.

  ‘Trip’s here, Nonna,’ I explained to her as I removed the cell from my ear.

  He finally arrived at where I was sitting.

  ‘If we can board in forty-five minutes, they can give us a slot.’ He tipped his forehead to me in question.

  ‘I can.’ I looked around me. I only had a small bag with me and had gone straight to the airport after leaving Nico, not even going back to Pearl’s to pick up the rest of my stuff. I had made a phone call to her explaining what I was doing and my strong urge to get back to Crete as soon as possible and she’d said she understood completely, and she’d fly over as soon as she could.

  ‘Is the plane ready?’ I questioned.

  Trip put his head to one side and although he didn’t answer my question immediately his face gave me a “wadaya take me for” look.

  ‘Refuelled, stocked and flight crew are getting ready to board as I’m stood here talking to you.’

  I put my cell back to my ear. ‘We should be leaving in about an hour,’ I explained as I lifted my eyebrows to Trip for him to clarify my words.

  He nodded his head and bent to pick up the small bag I had at my feet. Then after offering me the crook of his arm, we walked out of the lounge and through to security.

  ‘Love you both.’ I spoke once again into my cell as Trip shouted out to also be heard, ‘Love ya, Perky… see ya soon.’

  Then I disconnected the call and tried to settle myself. With every step I was taking I was walking away from the man I knew I would always love. I was walking away from Vegas, the one place I hated but always thought I would call home. To say I was upset was a complete understatement; I was gutted. I knew what I was doing was the right thing and for all the right reasons, but the finality of it all was breaking my heart. With my emotions threatening to get the better of me, I ran my free hand over my stomach again and used the
strength of love I felt for the little being inside of me to drive my feet forward one after the other.

  Trip produced our passports and my bag was checked. Then we each took a seat on the awaiting cart that would whisk us through the building to Nico’s private plane. Almost as if Trip could feel my emotions falling off me, he picked up my hand and placed it through his arm and silently he offered me his strength by rubbing my hand with his own.

  * * *

  It was strange being the only one aboard apart from the crew. But in truth, I knew I needed the time to myself. I needed the chance to mourn what I had so briefly had and then I would pick myself up and be happy about the new life that was growing inside of me. I curled myself up like a child into one of the large, leather chairs and with tears pouring down my face, I watched through the small window to the side of me as Trip pulled the plane up high into the sky and circled it just the once over The Strip. I placed my index finger to the window and for a split second I touched the large hotel and casino that was Nico’s, as in my head I said goodbye to him. Then I pulled the blanket one of the stewardesses had given me up and over my head as I feigned sleep.

  I let the tears fall down my face, making no attempt to wipe them away. I could hear Trip going through the motions. This was the supreme commander speaking, we would be travelling at a height of such and such feet and it would be approximately so long until we touched down in Heathrow, London for our scheduled stop. I heard it all, somewhere in the background of my pain-filled brain, but registered none of it.

  ‘Today’s song isn’t going to be sung by me, but by another member of today’s crew… enjoy.’

  The first line of the song sung to me by Nico as we’d danced together on the beach back in Crete entered my head, and initially I screwed my eyes tighter.

  You’ve got to be joking? Why?

  At that minute, I was trying to work out how life could be so damn cruel. Then to put the icing on the cake, it would stick a knife in just a little bit further before it twisted the blade deep in my gut.