Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (85 page)

The next Monday morning, after their
weekly team meeting, Edward approached Nicole at her desk.
 
“I just got a message from Red,” he told
her.

Instantly, her heart skipped a beat and
she couldn’t speak.
 
She simply
nodded at him.

“He wants me to come up to his office at
eleven, to present the organizational changes I’m making on the network.
 
Since you’re kind of taking the lead on
that project, I figured you should come too.”

“Red wants us to tell him about the new
file structure?” she asked, flabbergasted. It was hardly a major undertaking
relative to the company as a whole.
 
Sure, it would mean some changes for the creative group, but nothing
that should concern the CEO.

Edward laughed.
 
“Red’s always been this way.
 
Sometimes you can be working on a two
hundred thousand dollar contract and he doesn’t want to hear a peep about
it.
 
Other times, you’re doing some
pro bono work for a local supermarket and he’s totally involved in every last
piece of the thing.”

“That’s…” She shook her head.
 
“I don’t know what that is.”

Edward smiled sympathetically.
 
“Also, I just want to say that you don’t
have to do this if you’re uncomfortable.
 
Red didn’t specifically ask for you to come.”
 
At the last sentence, his expression
turned serious.

“He didn’t?”

“No.
 
I’m sure he’d be fine either way.”

Now she was more confused than ever.
 
She’d assumed that Red had specifically
requested her presence, that this little presentation about the file structure
changes was just a ruse for him to see her.

She took a deep breath and let it out.
 
“Of course I’ll go.
 
I’m the one working on the changes, so
it would be silly not to.”

“Okay, then.
 
See you in a few.
 
I’ll swing by.”

Edward left and went back to his office,
and Nicole went to the bathroom, where she freshened up.
 
She was dressed in tight white slacks,
dark red heels, and a blue blouse with a plunging neckline.
 
Last week she hadn’t been herself, and
some of her outfits had suffered.
 
Luckily, today she’d worn one of her best and was feeling more confident
as a result.

Nicole found she was getting
butterflies.
 
Incredibly, she wanted
to see Red again.
 
Despite
everything that had happened last week, the time apart had given her time to
really think about things.
 
Red
hadn’t contacted her, hadn’t sent a text or email, nothing.
 
Red had done none of those things, and
for all she knew, was glad to be rid of her.

She was sweating as Edward swung by her
desk and told her it was time to go up for the presentation.
 
On the elevator ride, he studied her
closely.
 
“Don’t be nervous,” he
said.
 
“Red’s going to grill me at
least as much as he does you.”

“I’m not worried about that.”
 
She smiled briefly and it was enough to
tell Edward that it was everything else she was worried about.

The elevator came to a halt and they made
their way to the office.
 
The door
was ajar and she could see Red behind his desk—instantly her heart ached
for him.
 
He was wearing a dark blue
suit and vest with a purple tie.
 
He
looked perfect, magnificent, as always—like a movie superhero ready to
jump from his office and climb buildings, fight evil villains.
 

It occurred to her that Red would fight
and kill and even die for her, and she’d discarded him as easily as a child
leaves its toys when they’re no longer new and exciting.

When they entered, Red looked up and his
eyes momentarily locked on hers with that same burst of intensity she
remembered.
 
Her breath stopped in
her chest.

It felt like minutes but in reality she
knew it had only been a second or two at most.

“Morning, Red,” Edward said, crossing to
the seats near his desk.

“Good morning, both of you,” Red replied
as if nothing was wrong, standing up to greet them.

Nicole smiled and muttered a good
morning, but it barely escaped her lips.
 
As usual, she was a child in front of him—nervous, without
armor.
 

This was the first time she’d been in his
office with someone else here, though.

It felt different.
 
And Red had prepared for the two of
them.
 
He’d pulled up two chairs
next to one another.

Once they’d all sat down, Red put his
hand under his chin and looked at both of them.
 
“So…reorganization of the creative
group’s network folders.
 
How is it
coming?”

Edward turned to Nicole.
 
“Nicole?”

She looked down at her hands, which were
shaking but in her lap so nobody would notice but her.
 
“They’re going well.
 
It’s going well, sir.”

Sir.
 
Uh-oh.
 
That was their
private language, and she’d fallen back to it without thinking.
 
Red didn’t appear to care at all.
 
“Details?” he said, leaning forward.

She launched into a very elaborate and
dull description of how she was changing the way every project and account was
set up on the network, and although at first it would be confusing for those
who were used to the old ways, it was going to be much more efficient in the
long run.

“Sounds wonderful,” Red said, after
thinking for a bit.
 
“Great.
 
That will be all.”

Edward smiled and stood up.
 
He made some small talk about a client
who had only just recently agreed to give Jameson International a big chunk of
business for the upcoming year.
 
Red
said that it was a great win for the whole company, thanked Edward for all of
his hard work.

“We’ll chat later today or tomorrow about
Germany,” Red told him pointedly, and Edward nodded as he made for the door.

Nicole couldn’t believe it was over so
quickly.
 
She’d expected something more—some
kind of overture towards her.
 
But
he’d virtually ignored her, treated her like nothing more than a stranger.
 
It was worse than she’d expected, the
pain she felt.
 
She could hardly
breathe.

As they were about to get on the elevator
again, she told Edward she needed to go back and ask Red something.

“Are you sure?” Edward said, as the doors
prepared to close.

“Yes, I need to—check on a thing…”
she rambled.

His eyes narrowed.
 
“I’m not so certain it’s a good idea,
Nicole.”

“Sorry, I need to just…take care…of one
little…” She didn’t even finish her thought before jumping out and walking
briskly back to the office as the elevator doors shut and Edward went back
downstairs.

She got to Red’s office door and opened
it without even knocking, and when she did, Red was almost right at the door
himself.
 
He was putting on a light
trench coat, and when he saw her, his brows knit with fury.
 
“What are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m busy,” he said.
  

“Please, Red.”

His eyes focused on her intently, but she
saw no love there—just impatience.
 
“What?”

“I think we should talk about what
happened at your house.”

“My house,” he smirked.
 
“How quickly the pronouns change around
here.”

“It was never our house,” she told him.

“Obviously.”
 
He began buttoning his coat.
 
“Look, this has been really pleasant,
but I have a lunch meeting and I don’t want to be late for it.”

“I know I hurt you,” she said.
 
“And I’m sorry about that.
 
But you frightened me, Red.
 
I didn’t understand—I still don’t
understand why you acted like you did the other night.”

He flipped up his collar with a brisk,
hostile motion.
 
“What do you want
from me now, Nicole?
 
I gave you my
heart and that clearly wasn’t enough.
 
So what’s next?”

She gulped.
 
“I—I—just want to talk.
 
I miss talking to you.”

His eyes were thunderous.
 
“You left.”

“I had to go.
 
It was too much.
 
When I heard you breaking all of those
dishes and glasses, I thought we were being robbed.
 
I thought you’d been hurt or killed.”

For the first time, she saw a flicker of
uncertainty in his eyes as he contemplated what she was telling him.
 
“Robbed?”

“Yes.
 
I’d been asleep in the movie room.
 
And I woke up to the sound of breaking
glass and screaming.
 
Do you know
what that was like for me?”

His shoulders slumped a little, his face
sagged just enough to make him appear older than he usually did.
 
For the first time, she saw wrinkles on
his forehead.
 
“I didn’t realize you
thought you were in danger.”

“And then, when I got to the dining room,
you looked completely insane.
 
You
were half-naked, glass and broken dishes everywhere, your feet were cut and
bleeding.
 
I thought maybe you were
going to hurt me.”

Red’s head drooped as she said the
words.
 
He put a hand over his face
and turned toward the window.
 
“Christ, Nicole.
 
I had no
damn idea that you thought those things.”

“Why would it surprise you?” she
said.
 
“I don’t know you all that
well, and the first night at your house you behave like a crazy person.”

“I was a crazy person.”
 
He laughed and put his hands in his
pockets.
 
“I was in the study for
hours and then I went looking for you, couldn’t find you anywhere.
 
I thought you’d left and I just went
berserk.”

“But you wanted me to leave—you
pushed me to go be by myself!” She said, coming further into the room.
 
“Why’d you do it?
 
Why did you treat me that way?”

The tears were in her eyes again as she
asked.

He turned around and looked at her and
now she saw his eyes were red-rimmed also.
 
“Fuck.”
 
His nostrils flared
and his breathing grew shallow.
 
He
bit his lip as if to stop himself from breaking down.
 
“I—I don’t think I can do
this.
 
I don’t think…” he shook his
head and waved her away.
 

She watched him, believing at any moment
he’d start to talk again.
 
But he
didn’t.
 
Instead, he merely shook
his head over and over and waved her towards the door.

“Red,” she said.
 
“Please, can we talk about it?”

He ushered her to the door, not able to
look at her or say anything, but he made it clear he wanted her to go.

She stepped out of his office and he shut
the door.

Nicole stood with her cheek close to the
door, wondering if he was doing the same from the other side.
 
She knew that Red wanted her still, just
as she wanted him.

But for some reason she couldn’t fathom,
he was unable to truly be with her.
 
He couldn’t even talk about why, about the demons that seemed to haunt
him.

***

Weeks passed.

Somehow time went by. Nicole couldn’t
grasp the way minutes became hours became days, but it happened and the next
thing she knew, it had been nearly a month since she had seen or spoken to Red
Jameson.

Life had regained some sort of
normalcy.
 
Work was fine, and she
had returned to assisting Remi for the most part, although Edward appreciated
her so much that he still forced Remi to let Nicole do tasks for him now and
again.

She was collecting a steady paycheck for
the first time, which was lovely, although each one reminded her of
Red—he signed all of them.
 
The first time she’d looked at his signature she’d almost burst into
tears, which would have been very awkward for her coworkers.