The Proposal (14 page)

"He's different,
since he came back. Won't talk much, we don't see him much at all. He's very
quiet."

"But he's alive? No
accident or anything?" Nadine’s face had turned visibly pale.

Zoe stopped staring out
of the window and stared at Nadine. “No, he's not completely dead. Just a
little quiet. Is that what you were hoping?  Sick." The girl’s eyes
darted around Nadine’s office taking in everything.

A little relieved to hear
this Nadine continued, "I thought you had some bad news about him. I mean,
that's why you’re here, isn't it?"

"Look lady, I don't
know what morbid world you inhabit. But I came to tell you that what you saw
that day, me and him, it's not how it is. I think he tried hard, very hard, to
tell you that."  Zoe stood with her hands on her hips, defiantly.

Nadine remembered their
last conversation. But Zoe interrupted her thoughts. "I'm Billy's
girlfriend. Billy's the guy with the strippers group that Ethan stood in for
one evening, that evening he met you."

Nadine nodded.

“We all live together,
though I live with Billy. And the reason Ethan didn't have a shirt on, is
because he and Billy were goofing around and Billy spilt beer on him
accidentally. He was getting changed when you showed up." 

A look of utter relief
swept over Nadine's face. And for the first time in over a week, she managed a
proper smile, one which came from the heart.

"That's what you
thought right?" Zoe asked, seeing the transformation on Nadine's face so
quickly before her.  "Lady, if you can't figure out what type of
decent guy Ethan is by now, you don't deserve to have him."

Nadine was speechless as
Zoe walked away. She was done. She'd come to say what needed to be said and she
wasn't interested in any explanations from Nadine. Nadine didn't say a word.
She was inwardly overjoyed at the news. And thankful that Zoe had plucked up
the courage to come and tell her.

"Oh, and one more
thing," Zoe had her hand on the door knob and hesitated before turning it.
"He didn't tell me to come here and say anything. He doesn't even know I'm
here. This has been lying on the kitchen table. I shouldn’t have taken it but
it was the only thing that led me to you. I don’t even know if I should give it
to you or leave it for him to do.” She showed Nadine an envelope inside which
Nadine guessed was the check that he was going to return. He had addressed it
to her work address and not her home address, which puzzled her.

"Thank you. Really,
thank you." Nadine gushed, she felt a quick release of the tension she had
been keeping inside her. 

A sudden knock at the
door, and the sudden opening of it, saw a furious looking Sandra flying in like
a mini missile decked out in an orange skirt suit. She shot straight past Zoe
and stood in the middle of Nadine's office.

"You lost the Noble
Vintage account. How the hell did you manage that?" she snarled with such
viciousness that even Zoe looked on in amazement. She confronted Nadine in the
middle of the room.

"What are you
talking about?" asked Nadine, her mind trying to make the switch from
Ethan mode to Sandra and business mode quickly.

She was vaguely aware of
Zoe watching the commotion unfolding in front of her before Melissa ushered her
out of the office.

"The people from
Noble Vintage just got in touch with Zimmerman. They aren’t happy with the
response times to their questions. We were supposed to get this deal signed off
today and now it looks as though they're backing out!" She pursed her lips
tightly and glowered at Nadine. 

Nadine was confused. Her
mind had being doing happy leaps of joy since talking to Zoe. She didn't quite
take everything in. But one thing she knew for certain. "Sandra, Mr.
Zimmerman handed
you
the Noble Vintage account. I had nothing to do with
it. He specifically told you in front of our final meeting at the Stormont that
it was an important account and you would be dealing with it in the
beginning."

Sandra's face maintained
its granite hard composure before breaking out into a cruel grimace. "I
passed things over for you to deal with Nadine, or did you forget them?"

Nadine stood her ground,
the color rising to her cheeks as she felt her anger flare, “What things? I've
been working on all the other accounts and dealing with Italians and French
companies since we got back from the convention. I've been working twelve hour
days and that's just in the office!"  Nadine, the taller of the two,
walked over to Sandra defiantly. At five foot ten inches she towered over
Sandra's tiny frame.

"You've been pushing
all of your work onto me Sandra and I've been dealing with it all. Everyone
clearly knows you were over the moon to be handling the Noble Vintage account.
Why things would change within the space of two weeks? It seems to me that
there's a problem at your end. You’ve got a problem and you’re looking to blame
someone else for it. Well, don't you dare come in here and point fingers at
me!"

Melissa rushed in just
then, "Nadine, I have it minuted here in the meeting notes at the final
Stormont meeting. It says here that Sandra was going to handle the Noble
Vintage account in the first instance especially up to and including the time
that they signed the contract. You would take over once Sandra had worked with
them on their new strategy.”

"Don't worry about
it Melissa, thanks. I think we all have a copy of these minutes anyway."

It was a futile attempt
by Melissa to help Nadine out but Sandra, livid with a seething inbuilt anger
that looked set to explode any minute now, waved the papers away as Melissa
stood in between both women.

The sheaf of papers went
flying into the air before floating lazily onto the floor. Melissa looked
horrified, never having been subjected to this level of anger before.

"Sandra!"
gasped Nadine angrily, "Don't take your anger out on anyone else! You only
have yourself to blame for this."

She was angry herself but
knelt on the floor to help Melissa get the papers together.  Melissa was
shaking and Nadine held her hand to steady her.

"Your head’s been
full of your lover boy ever since you met him," snarled Sandra, the poison
spewing forth from her mouth. Nadine stopped abruptly in her tracks because she
wondered why Sandra was bringing Ethan into this conversation.

"I never thought
you'd end up with a male escort!”

There, she delivered the
final coup de grace with relish.

Her lips had spread out
into a wicked smile, revealing her sharp white teeth. Beside her, Nadine heard
Melissa gasp. She herself was lost for words. How did this woman know? 
Sandra circled Nadine slowly, fully reveling in the misery she was wreaking on
the woman. She had hated Nadine ever since she had stepped into the role of
Executive Creative Director. She knew Nadine was better than excellent and she
knew it was only a matter of time before everyone recognized her talents and
knew just how capable she was.

She had seen the way
Michael Zimmerman had been impressed with Nadine at the convention.

No, she had to do what
she had to do.  Going in for the kill, her black bob jerking this way and
that, she said in a slow, languorous tone, "I saw a picture of your male
escort friend, with a rather good friend of mine. My friend, a rich divorcee,
who apparently your friend has been wining and dining. Antonia can’t speak
highly enough of him saying what a gentlemen he is, how he listens to her and
pays her such careful attention. I wonder what else he does for her, huh?” And
on she went, spewing forth her cutting words.

She didn’t stop either,
as Nadine watched her, unable to tell her to get out of her office. “Antonia
showed me his picture. Imagine my total amazement when I saw that her male
escort was your Ethan!"  It had all come out. And Sandra had enjoyed
stabbing Nadine with every single word.

"Ladies," there
was a knock at the door, and Michael Zimmerman walked in. His face had lost
that genuine good natured look and he seemed stern. He walked in, "I've
seen and heard enough. And frankly, I'm disgusted." He aimed this at
Sandra but then he glanced over at Nadine, so she wondered just how disgusted
he was with her.

The two women stood
silently, wondering how much longer they had before he fired them. "We are
this
close," he said putting his index finger and thumb together to
indicate a tiny amount, "from losing the Noble Vintage account. I’m going
to have to do some serious repair work now to get our relationship back on
track. Later on, I'll get to the bottom of the problem, but for now, I'm going
to have to do some serious clearing up. I want to see both of you in my office
tomorrow morning at nine sharp."

And he was gone. Gone to
salvage whatever he could of the new account that had held so much potential
for the company.

"You'll pay for
this," Sandra spat out these last words to Nadine before leaving the
office.

Melissa stood unable to
move, her pale face and gaunt expression revealing her true feelings. She
wanted to ask Nadine if what Sandra had said about Ethan was true. But she dare
not now. In fact, she didn't really care whether it was true or not. She liked
Ethan and she had seen how happy he and Nadine had been together. And from what
she had seen, his intentions had seemed genuine to her. Not that this would
matter to Nadine. And now it looked as though Nadine might lose her job over
the account, which Sandra would somehow manage to blame her for. And then if
not that, then the whole escort story would spread around the company faster
than a wild bush fire. Everyone knew that Mr. Zimmerman was a family man, with
strong moral values. As much as he liked Ethan, would it be enough to overlook
this?

Instead she said,
"Can I get you a drink, Nadine? A Starbucks hot chocolate or
something?"  Nadine smiled tiredly, before sitting down on her chair.

She pushed her head back
over the rim and stared blankly at the ceiling. It felt better staring at the
ceiling than facing what had just happened. She had just experienced two
extreme emotions in the space of about ten minutes. And the one thing she
wanted to keep quiet from everyone in her company, to nurture the career she
had worked so long and hard to grow, had been blurted out to the founder of the
company.

Melissa didn't move. She
was concerned about Nadine, who carried on staring at the ceiling. "Shall
I get you a drink Nadine?" she asked again, standing up against the desk.

Nadine shuffled in her
chair, sitting upright once more, her richly golden hair falling around her
shoulders. "I'm fine, thank you. How are you doing?"

Melissa nodded,
"That's been more excitement than I've had all year!" she tried to
make light of the situation.

"Don't worry about
it. I'll have to wait and see what Zimmerman has to say tomorrow." She
smiled at Melissa. "And you know something? Frankly I don't care."

"That's the new
Nadine then," Melissa felt encouraged by her boss's response.

The old Nadine would have
worried and fretted and dived into righting the situation or at least be
working doubly hard, to prove herself.  Because the old Nadine always felt
that there was something to prove. But this Nadine didn't care any more. And as
much as Melissa had liked the old Nadine, she was getting to like the new
Nadine a whole lot better.

"There's someone I
have to see, something I have to do Melissa. Cover me, check my emails and
shield my calls. I'll be back in a couple of hours." 

Suddenly re-energized and
having a clearer head, Nadine knew exactly what she had to do.

"Take your time
Nadine. You don't have any meetings scheduled today. I'll keep everything
else at bay for you."

"But let me know if
Zimmerman needs me." Nadine got up, collected her things, picked up the
envelope and rushed out of the door.

Nadine had a tingling
feeling in the base of her stomach. She suddenly felt light again and the
darkness of the past week had shifted. The Zimmerman Group was the furthest
thing from her mind.

She barely gave the
incident with Sandra a second thought. In fact she didn't care now whether
Zimmerman fired her or not. She didn't care that Sandra knew about Ethan or
that Zimmerman had overheard. She could barely keep her legs from twitching,
she felt so excited.

She was going straight to
Ethan. She was going to find him. The thought of him melted her heart. Though
she wondered, with trepidation, how he would react.

Zoe had said that he had
been quiet and withdrawn. Perhaps he had been angry beyond measure. What if he
was totally over her? Again, the swirling cloud of doubts flew around in the
air, encircling her emotions, making her question whether what she was doing
was the right course of action.  She pushed the thoughts away, and jumping
into a taxi, she headed for his house.

"Wait for me,
please, I might need to come back," she told the taxi driver, who nodded
cordially. With a thumping heart and a stomach that seemed to have a life of
its own,