Red, nodded, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. His dark eyes met hers and for a moment she didn’t care about any of the workplace drama. She only cared about him, about pleasing him, making him happy in every way.
“You’re getting some hard lessons, Nicole,” he said. “And it hurts me that I’m the cause of it.”
“You’re not doing anything wrong.” She speared a piece of chicken and thought about eating it. “I need to toughen up. And I will toughen up.”
“You’re plenty tough,” Red said. He reached across the little table and covered her hand with his.
She looked up into his eyes. “People are going to regret messing with me.”
He smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
***
The rest of the day, Nicole worked at a furious pace. Edward was throwing all kinds of things at her. He had incredibly complicated project timelines that he needed to have mapped out with Jameson International’s timeline software. She’d never used any of it before, and it was complicated and not very intuitive.
So she sat at her desk with the software manual open next to her and spent hours reading it, then trying to work on little pieces of Edward’s timelines he’d given her to update and reorganize.
He’d also tasked her with completely reorganizing their file structure on the network. The creative group had a large set of folders on the company’s intranet, and these folders had been set up years ago when the company was much smaller. As a result, it had grown cumbersome to navigate and find things.
Nothing was in order.
Remi’s folders, in particular, were disastrous. She was a virtual pack rat. There were files from five years ago full of old ad campaign material: pictures, ad copy, contracts, all sorts of things.
Nicole got a bit of a start on reorganizing the file structure, but she needed to map it out first. If she wasn’t careful, she could make things worse and lose valuable material.
Near the end of the day, Edward had three long meetings in a row, and he brought Nicole with him to each one. She had to take in depth notes on subjects and topics that were very unfamiliar to her.
It didn’t help that everyone in these meetings spoke very quickly and used jargon she wasn’t familiar with. They discussed other companies she’d never heard of. There were people conferenced in and she didn’t know who they were. Some of them had thick foreign accents and she could hardly make out a word they said.
It didn’t matter. Edward was throwing her in the deep end and betting that she’d sink. She was determined not to, determined to prove to Edward and Remi and anyone else betting against her that she was much stronger and tougher than they’d given her credit for.
Finally, mercifully, the last meeting of the day was over. Edward turned to her. “You’ll have all of the meeting minutes to me first thing tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll look them over and then we need to send them out to all of the participants, and copy upper management.”
“Absolutely,” she nodded.
He didn’t say anything else, just walked away from her. No “good job today,” no “thanks for your effort,” nothing. She’d been busting her ass for him all day and would continue to do so, and Edward wasn’t going to give her any positive feedback at all.
She closed her laptop and walked back to her desk, feeling liked she’d already aged ten years. Her hands were sore from so much typing and her brain was fried from trying to learn and take in so much new information.
She called Red from her office phone and he answered promptly. “Are you ready to take the next step?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good. Let’s meet in the lobby.”
“The lobby? Everyone will be watching us.”
“So? I don’t care what everyone else does.”
Nicole got off the phone and readied herself for the next chapter of this bizarre journey. Before going down to the lobby, she went to the bathroom to freshen up, and on the way out, her cell rang.
She looked at the number. It was her parents’ home number.
“Shit.” She debated answering or not answering, finally decided to take the call. She couldn’t hide from them forever.
“Nicole?” her mother’s voice piped.
Shit. If it at least could have been her father who was on the line—Nicole could deal with him.
“Hi, mom. What’s up?”
Her mother sounded like she was chewing something. Probably eating some healthy snack. “How are you?” she asked. “How are things?”
“Fine, mom. Busy.”
“I’m sure. Yes.”
Long pause.
“Everything okay?” Nicole said.
“Your father and I have been talking about everything that’s happened since you moved to New York City. And especially, we talked about the party on Sunday and Red’s proposing to you.” More chewing, as her mother seemed to want to make this as drawn out and painful a conversation as possible.
“Okay…” Nicole said, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop.
“We’re just concerned about how fast this is all moving. Have the two of you discussed a wedding date yet?”
“Not just yet, mom. But I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve settled on something.”