CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NIKKI
†
I THOUGHT THAT WINNING the grant in the summer was going to be the highlight of my career. I was wrong. Winning the AOY topped it a million times over. To me, it had been a no-brainer that we needed sustainable living and working constructions that were going to give back to an environment we’d only really taken from until now, particularly in urban areas. But, it seemed that the right designer had never come along, until now. It was my time, and the timing couldn’t have been better.
The strange thing is that I was nowhere as nervous as I had been when I won the grant. Now, I was much happier in front of the camera, talking to journalists, answering their questions, some of which were very well researched and were a challenge for me to answer.
I no longer wanted to hide behind my stern suits and scrape my hair back, either. I felt more confident and, for the big day, I wore a smart red dress and black heels.
Work had saved me. There was no doubt about it. The weeks after Brandon’s wedding passed in a blur of tears and emails. I barely ate and just finding the energy to get out of bed in the morning was a struggle.
Only the determination to win this award kept me going. Hell hath no fury, right? And while I wasn’t sure I could say I’d been scorned, exactly, I’d certainly been taught a very harsh life lesson.
We had five minutes to go before the presentation when Hannah, the company’s press secretary, came bursting through the door.
“You’ll never guess who wants an interview!” she cried.
She didn’t answer when I raised my eyebrows. Wordless cues have never been Hannah’s strong point.
“Well, who?” I asked when I ran out of patience waiting for her.
“Woke magazine!”
My heart gave a flutter, and I made myself calm down before I replied. “We know that they’re here,” I said. “They were pretty much the biggest magazine we wanted.”
“No, you don’t understand!” Hannah replied. “They want a one-on-one with you and a full spread!”
Colleagues around me murmured their approval, and my boss, Bill, nodded vigorously. “This is great,” he said, grinning. “It’s exactly the kind of partnership we need. Great coverage from a publication that deals with conservation issues covering the award for the greenest building ever designed. Yes. Yes!”
He couldn’t stop nodding, and he was about to send Hannah back to confirm when he stopped and called her back before she could run away. “Wait for a second,” he said. “I don’t want any of their interns covering this piece. I want someone experienced. If they’re going to do it, then it’s going to be done right.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’ll be a problem,” Hannah giggled. “They’ve sent Jake Matthews. I knew it was him when I saw him. I mean, a girl never forgets a guy like that. But then he showed me his badge, too.”
At that, the blood in my veins turned to ice.
Did I want a one-on-one with Jake Matthews? What a question. Sure, it would be great if Woke wanted me for their magazine, because the publicity was unparalleled, but did they have to send him, of all people? I’d spent the morning with my head held high, my confidence overflowing. Now, I was back to being the quivering wreck who didn’t know if she’d be able to look him in the eye.
I excused myself and went to the bathroom. Standing with my hands clutched around the basin, sure that the ceramic was going to shatter in my hands, I looked at myself in the mirror.
I wasn’t crying. That was a good thing. My hair looked good, and my red dress clung to me in the all the right places. There was only one way to handle this: show Jake what he was missing.
I strode out of there and called Hannah on the desk. “I’ve got ten minutes for Mister Matthews,” I said, my voice clipped. “He can come into room five if he’d like.”
Room five was the best place. It was the largest of all our meeting rooms and was perfect for presentations. Floor to ceiling windows let in natural light at every angle and, while the freezing January afternoon wasn’t exactly the sunniest in the world, it was good enough. The scale models of each of my ideas were presented in glass cabinets, complete with tiny cabs and tiny people. The guys had done an amazing job of bringing my vision to life, if only on a very tiny scale, for now.
I closed my eyes for a second, and looked out of the window, trying to apply some kind of breathing technique to slow my racing heart. Not that it did any good. When I heard the door open softly behind me and turned around, it swiftly picked up to what must have been a couple of hundred beats per minute.
He looked the same. He might as well have left me only yesterday. His beard was trimmed neatly, his eyes were bright and smiling, and his body was as firm and strong as it ever was. In his smart gray suit and tie, camera bags over his shoulder, he looked every bit as perfect as he had the last time I saw him. I wanted to sink into the floor, passing out gracefully like some kind of heroine whose lover had just returned from the war, hoping he’d pick me up and scoop me into his arms with kisses and professions of undying love.
Of course, that wasn’t about to happen. Instead, I blinked, walked over to him, and held out my hand. “Jake,” I said, cordially.
“Miss Thomson,” he replied, taking my hand and shaking it gently. His large fingers wrapped around mine with soft firmness and held them for a second. I looked over his shoulder at Hannah.
“Thank you, Hannah,” I said. “Please tell Bill I won’t be long.”
She closed the door and once she was gone, Jake grinned. “Thought she’d never leave,” he said. He paused, staring at me. “You look incredible, Nikki.”
“Thank you,” I said curtly, impressed by my own sterling composure. “It’s good of you to come and offer to make us one of your feature stories.”
He cocked his head to one side, as though I’d just said something very strange he didn’t understand. “Well, how could I not?” he asked. “I mean, you’ve single-handedly changed the game in this area, and I can’t believe you haven’t featured in Woke long before now. I need to have words with my boss.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Well, it’s not like we haven’t had better offers from other magazines,” I said, stretching the truth just a little, “but it seems that my own boss wanted to use a magazine with the best coverage.”
“And the best photographer, right?”
He winked at me, and I wanted to melt. But still, I stood firm and only managed a tight smile. “Well, that’s what we asked for, but I guess they all were busy, right?”
He lifted an eyebrow at that remark and seemed to suppress a smirk. I clenched my fists. It might have been a cheap victory, but it was all I had.
There was simply no doubt that he was the best in the business. Woke and every single other magazine in the northern hemisphere could have sent fifty photographers, and none of them would have come close to his work.
“I wanted to see you,” he said, softly, and he began to walk toward me, but I turned around.
“Let’s get some good shots of the models,” I said. “I’ll take them out of the glass cabinets so that you won’t have any reflection on the glass. There are more downstairs in the main conference room but these show much more development, so you’ll have the scoop on some of the extra features. The roof gardens, for example, and the incorporation of a new kind of monocrystallic solar panels.”
“Ah, they’re the new kind, right?” he asked me, nodding. “Twenty-five percent better performance without all the ugly edges”
Damn it!
He knew his shit. He’d obviously been doing his research, and I couldn’t help but look impressed and, he knew it. I could tell by the way he grinned at me that he knew he had me.
I ignored him, opened one of the cases, and slid the model out on the runners, lifting it onto the glass with the smooth-running lever. This was my design, too, newly patented and waiting for approval, but I didn’t mention that to Jake. After all, it’s not like I was searching for his approval.
He took some shots of the models, experimenting with the lighting and checking each frame one by one.
Ten minutes quickly became fifteen and then twenty. I knew Bill would be looking for me. “Have you got what you need?” I asked.
“That depends,” he replied smoothly, placing the lens cap back on the camera. “Is there anything else you’d like to give me?”
Everything, I wanted to yell at him. I would have given you everything if you’d only given me the chance!
But, instead, I shook my head. “I think that you’ve got everything I wanted you to get,” I said. “You take great photos, so I’m sure you’ll do an amazing job of the piece.”
“I thought I might be able to ask you a couple more questions,” he said, taking out a notebook. “After all, I wouldn’t be much of a journalist if I didn’t get some kind of interview with you.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “Go for it.”
He stood with his pen poised over the paper. “First question,” he said. “Why are you talking to me like we’ve never met before?”
I had to hold my tongue before I angrily retorted with questions of my own. Questions about why he left me with nothing more than a few words on a scrap of paper. Why he thought it was perfectly acceptable to take my heart, twist it in his hands and throw it on the floor.
But, instead, I blinked for a long second and turned to leave. “I think you’ll be able to put a piece together from what you have,” I said. “You’re good with stories.”
He reached for my arm. “Look, you’ve got no idea what really happened, Nicole, or where I’ve been for the past three months,” he began, but I shook him off as I felt the tears pricking my eyelids.
“No, you’re right,” I said, making my way to the door. “And, I’ve no interest in hearing about it, either. Now, I need to get back to the other journalists.”
I wanted him to come after me. I really did. But I quickly disappeared into the open elevator, the doors closing shut behind me and leaving him behind.
I have no idea how I made it through the rest of the afternoon but it was while I was talking to a young, eager guy with a very tight knot in his necktie, that I thought about how I felt.
I was choking here. I was tired of the dark mornings and even darker evenings. Tired of the snow and rain.
The ceremony was over. The work was done, at least, from my end. I had time to take a vacation, so that’s what I decided to do. I thought about maybe going to Jamaica or Mexico, but I couldn’t help sitting at my desk with my award by my side, the mouse directing me to sites advertising breaks in Hawaii.
You’re being stupid, Nicole.
It was stupid, I thought. Stupid to go back. But, Kauai had plagued me, and I wanted to rid myself of the demons I carried with me. So, before I could overthink myself out of the idea, I booked myself a seven-day break.
I left two days later with nothing on my mind but sea, sun, and sangria. There’d be another ‘S’ missing, I knew, but maybe life was safer without it, anyway.
It had only caused me far too much trouble already.