Mid Life Love (40 page)

He reached into his pocket and handed me a bottle of
Benadryl. “I suggest you tell Mr. Edwards that you were lost and ended up at
the gift shop on the other side of the resort. He called the front desk twice,
wondering if you’d bought your medicine yet.”

My hands shook as I clasped the bottle. “Thank you,
Greg...Um, I know you don’t have any obligation to me but....Could I ask you for a
favor?”

“Anything, Miss Gracen.”

“Could you tell Jonathan that I said, ‘I love you’?
And that I meant it when I told him that?”

He looked sympathetic. “Of course, Miss Gracen. Have
a good night.” He patted my shoulder and walked away.

C
laire

My reflection was lying to me.
Again
.

She was showing
me a happy woman in bright red lipstick and bronze eye shadow, a woman who
looked like she was having the time of her life—not a heartbroken woman who’d
spent every night this week crying herself to sleep.

You can do
this...You can do this...

I screwed the
top onto my mascara and placed it into a bag. I stepped back from the mirror
and twirled around in my dress—the sparkling nude colored one that Jonathan had
picked out months ago, the one I would’ve worn to the IPO ball.

I’d hoped that
by wearing it tonight, he would at least acknowledge my existence.

Ever since I’d
snuck up to his room a few nights ago, he’d gone out of his way to avoid me: He
and Stacy were supposed to sit at our table all week for the daily breakfasts,
but he had his seat changed. He was supposed to present Damien with an award at
the Value Ball two nights ago, but he claimed he had an emergency, so he
created a video for the audience to view instead.

I saw him a few
times in the hallways, and each time I would walk towards him and try to get
his attention, but the security guards always kept me from getting too close.

“It’s our last
night here, sweetheart.” Damien walked into the room and smiled at me. “I see
that you’ve saved your best dress for the occasion.”

I hate being
called “sweetheart.” Why haven’t I told him that?

“Do we have to
stay at the banquet the entire time?” I asked. I knew Jonathan was set to
receive an award, and even though I wanted him to acknowledge me, deep down I
knew that he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to sit and suffer as everyone else fawned
all over him.

“Of course not.
We can leave right after the closing statements.”

Great...

He reached for
my hand and we walked out of the room and towards the elevator like we had
several times before.

“Did you have
fun this week?” Damien pressed the down button.

“Yes.”

“Well, if you’re
not still—” The loud ping of the elevators cut off his sentence.

“What were you
saying?” I walked onto the elevator and noticed Jonathan and Stacy standing
together on the other side.

Jonathan’s eyes
went straight to my dress, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he swore under his breath.

“I was saying
that if you wanted, you and I could go to another resort next weekend. I
promise I’ll turn off my cell phone and focus all my attention on you.” Damien
put his arm around my hips. “And you won’t be on your—you know...Would you be
interested in that?”

“I...” I felt the
heat of Jonathan’s glare on my back. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Well, make sure
you do that. It’s a wonderful resort, and there’s plenty of amazing water
activities. It’s also extremely private.”

“
Private
things are definitely her specialty...” Jonathan muttered.

Damien must not
have heard him because he continued. “There’s this beautiful mountain clearing
that I’d love to take you to. We could spend the entire day there. There’s also
a lover’s loft nearby.”

“
Stop it,
Jonathan
...” Stacy whispered, and I wondered what she was talking about.

“It sounds very
tempting,” I said as the elevator doors opened.

Damien motioned
for me to step off first and looked back at Jonathan. “Congratulations,
Jonathan. You actually deserve the ‘Innovator of the Year’ award. Now, freeze
that compliment and remember it, because you know as soon as this conference is
over, I’ll go back to hating everything about you.”

Jonathan smiled.
“Thank you, Damien. That makes two of us.” 

––––––––

I
sat at the dinner table and picked at my food, too
hurt to eat much of anything. Jonathan was sitting directly across from me and
he hadn’t looked over at me once.

Any time he touched something on the table—butter,
bread basket, pepper, I asked if he could pass it to me. But, instead of doing
that, Stacy answered for him. She would say, “Of course he can,” and send it my
way.

I figured that since they were unable to switch their
seats for this event, they’d planned a course of action for dealing with me. 

I even texted him several messages, desperate to get
him to look at me—just once: “
Please look at me, Jonathan.” “You can’t avoid
me forever...” “I said I was in love with you, doesn’t that mean anything?” “Are
you really that upset with me?”

I saw him look through his phone, saw him read every
single message, but he managed to keep his gaze elsewhere.

I even tried the more blatant text message approach:
“I know you like the way I look in this dress.” “I bet you wish you could
take it off of me...”
 

I watched as he read my last two messages, as he
glanced at them without a single emotion crossing over his face.

“Would you like me to ask my assistant to bring you
some food from elsewhere?” Damien looked at my plate. “You haven’t eaten much
at all today...I don’t want you to get sick.”

“I’m fine. I guess my appetite is a little off
today.” I sighed as Jonathan and Stacy whispered something to one another.

“At least try the potato dish,” he said. “It’s to
die for.”

I picked up my fork and began eating some of it,
nodding my head at how good it tasted.

“See?” Damien patted my thigh. “When do you want to
leave?”

NOW
. “How about
right n—”

“Mr. Edwards?” A woman poked her head in between us.
“We’re setting everything up and we’ll be ready for you in about twenty
minutes. Are you ready to present?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I’ll be there shortly.”

The woman walked away and I grabbed his hand. “Ready
to present
what
?”

“The Innovator of the Year Award. Jonathan presented
me with my award the other day so it’s only fair that I present him with his.
Even if we don’t see eye to eye, there’s no one else as big in technology as
the two of us so—”

“So, we can’t leave right now?”

He furrowed his brow. “What exactly has been
bothering you this week? And don’t say allergies because I don’t think you
actually have any.”

“Nothing...It’s—”

“Are you ever going to tell me why you were crying
the other night?”

I sighed. “Yes...But could we please go—”

“Mr. Edwards?” That woman came back over again.
“We’re going to start things a little earlier. Could you come with me please?”

“We’ll leave right after I present the award. Okay,
sweetheart?” He kissed my cheek and stood up, walking away from the table.

I turned back towards Jonathan, frowning because his
eyes were still glued elsewhere. I thought about leaving, heading back to my
suite and letting Damien find me there, but for some reason I sat and continued
to watch Jonathan and Stacy laugh and whisper at something I couldn’t see.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention
please?” A beautiful brunette tapped the mic onstage. “Before we give away our
most prestigious award, I just want to thank you all for making the 2013
Juniper Conference a major success! Because of you, we have raised over ten
million dollars for over thirty different charities!”

The audience clapped and the speaker waited for the
applause to die down. “We hope that the sessions you’ve attended this week have
taught you something valuable and that the people you’ve met have instilled a
new sense of camaraderie and competitiveness amongst your respective companies.
We usually make the closing statements on tonight, the last night of the
conference, but due to an immense interest in Chef Roer’s breakfast this week,
we’ve decided to hold them off until tomorrow morning. Chef Roer has graciously
agreed to cook an extra breakfast for us all!”

The crowd cheered loudly, and Chef Roer stood up
from his seat and waved his hand around. Once he sat back down, the crowd
gradually became quiet again.

“So, before we begin our final ball of the week, I’d
like to bring someone we all know and respect to the stage.” She read off a
notecard. “This man has singlehandedly changed the way technology influences
our everyday lives. He’s a dominating pioneer in the field, and his
company—Apple, Inc. is currently valued at one hundred and fifty four billion
dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the ‘Developer of the Year,’ Mr.
Damien Edwards!”

The crowd stood to its feet, clapping and cheering
wildly. I stood up too, trying to plot my escape.

“If this is the reception I get, I can only imagine
what type of response the man I’m presenting will receive.” Damien laughed and
motioned for the crowd to sit down. “About eleven years ago, my company was the
number one software company in the world. As a young man, I was cocky and
honestly didn’t think that reign would ever end. We were ahead of all our
competitors by the billions and our workforce was quadruple of the next largest
company at the time. One day, I happened to be giving a tour of my company to a
select group of college kids who’d been sent from Harvard to complete a summer
program. One of those students, who I’ve grown to
hate
—” He paused as
the audience laughed.

“One of those students came up to me right after the
tour and said the following words, verbatim: ‘Mr. Edwards, with all due
respect, your computers suck. You might want to focus on redesigning the
internal instruments and building a bigger hard drive before I beat you to it.’
Of course, I laughed this kid off because at the time computers were more about
functionality than style, and we offered the largest hard drives on the
market...Yet, exactly one year later, Statham Industries was formed and I’ve been
regretting my unwillingness to listen to that annoying kid for eleven years.”
He laughed. “Ladies and gentlemen, the man I’m bringing to the stage as your
unanimous pick for the ‘Developer of the Year” for the tenth year in a row, is
a man who finally decided to show up here and accept it.”

I felt myself laughing along with the crowd and
stopped.

“He is a man whose company is currently worth two
hundred billion dollars, a man who develops the greatest ideas day in and day
out, and a man who always seems to get the best stuff first. If you ever think
you’re onto something, he’s probably had it in development years before the
thought ever crossed your mind.” He smiled. “Please help me welcome my fiercest
competitor and your Developer of the Year, Mr. Jonathan Statham.”

The response to him walking towards the stage was
insane; the screams and cheers were deafening and every person was on their
feet. 

He walked on stage with his sexy stroll, smiling at
the crowd, shaking Damien’s hand and accepting the crystallized plaque.

“Thank you all very much.” He spoke into the mic.
“This award means a great deal to me, and I’m sorry it took me so many years to
join you here. I promise I’ll make every effort to show up in the years to
come...”

He looked at his speech. “I have a few people I’d
like to thank for inspiring me. First, I’d like to thank Mr. Lowell, the only
professor who openly encouraged his own students to drop out,” he said,
laughing. “I’d also like to thank my parents who left old devices around the house
and helped me to realize what my true talent was...My employees who make me work
harder every day, my good friend and head of security Corey Walters, every
corporation that I’ve ever partnered with, my worst enemy—Damien Edwards, and
most importantly, the woman who has...” He paused, looking at the sheet of paper
in his hands as if he couldn’t believe what he’d written. He cleared his
throat. “I’d like to thank my good friend Stacy Rodriguez who manages to put up
with me through it all. Thank you all very much.” 

The crowd clapped and remained standing as he put
the mic down and began to take pictures with the people onstage.

“He’s so
sexy
...” “I know! I wish I was Stacy
Rodriguez tonight!” The two women behind me laughed.

My chest tightened as I watched him slip his arm
around Stacy, as I watched the two of them smile together and pose for
pictures.

Tears fell down my face and I made no move to wipe
them away. I kept wishing that he would turn around, that he would see my face
in the crowd and walk towards me, but he kept posing for pictures—laughing and
shaking hands, like he didn’t care about me at all.

He pulled Stacy against his side as he prepared for
another photo. The flash went off three times and she stood on her toes and
kissed him on the cheek.

I’ve had enough of this shit...

I pushed my chair up to the table and walked towards
the stage, weaving my way through all the suits and adoring women who kept
gushing over him. I took the steps on the right side of the stage and paused,
looking at Jonathan as he bent down for another kiss from Stacy.

“Claire?” Damien grabbed my wrist. “Are you okay?
Are you
that
ready to go? I’ll—”

I snatched my hand away from him and walked towards
the center of the stage.

“And thank you so much for your generous gift, Mr.
Statham. My company is so honored that you—”

“Excuse me.” I stepped directly in front of the man
who was addressing Jonathan.

“Yes,
Miss Gracen
?” Jonathan raised his
eyebrow.

“Kyle, get security.” I heard someone murmur. “This
is the tenth time this week...”

I took one step closer to Jonathan and looked into
his eyes. I wanted to say something, but the words were trapped in my throat
and I couldn’t concentrate with everyone in the audience staring at me.

I closed the gap between us and wrapped my arms
around his neck, kissing him as if we were the only people in the room. I heard
the crowd’s collective gasp, saw Damien’s jaw drop from the corner of my eye,
but I didn’t care.