The Proposal (9 page)

None of this had gone
unnoticed by Sandra, who was still watching Nadine with the eyes of a hawk.
Something wasn't quite what it seemed here, she could sense, and she would make
it her business to find out what it was.

"Now, where were
we?" asked Michael Zimmerman. Before Sandra could remind him of Nadine's
unanswered question, he glanced at Nadine and said jovially, "You need
to  loosen up Ms Stefano, working until the early hours of the morning
even after the Friday night  drinks!"

He tucked into his
breakfast heartily.

*         
*          *

After breakfast they
adjourned for presentations given by each of the heads of marketing from
overseas. Nadine had delivered hers and she had practiced so many times that
she pulled it off effortlessly. She had to remind herself to be more focused
through the day and did not let her mind dwell on Ethan too much. But she hoped
he was getting on without any problems and she was actually quite looking
forward to seeing him again that evening.

"If you see Ethan
around, please check to make sure he's okay," she had asked Melissa, who
was busy running around making sure there was enough tea, coffee, water and
muffins in each of the meeting rooms.

"I'm worried he
doesn't really know anyone here," Nadine explained. Melissa was as good as
her word, going up to Ethan whenever she saw him which was only on a few
occasions.

Ethan spent most of the
morning in the gym, then later he spent a few hours in the swimming pool. 
He was hoping to catch sight of Nadine during lunch and had showered and
dressed up in his casual jeans and t-shirt, scouring the hotel's restaurants
for her but she was nowhere to be found. He was just about to call her on her
cell when Sandra pounced on him out of nowhere.

"Ethan!" she
exclaimed, most pleasantly surprised. She craned her neck expecting Nadine to
appear and when she didn't, Sandra concluded that he must be alone. The thought
of this made her almost salivate.

"You look lost, are
you?" she purred, seeing his confused face. Ethan, who had been in the
middle of calling Nadine, was interrupted and put his phone away.

"I'm going for
lunch, join me," she ordered. When he looked undecided, she added,
"Nadine's going to join me later."  This made Ethan's choice
much easier.  He kept his distance from Sandra, but noted that she tried
to invade his space and sidle up to him at every opportunity, especially when
they went around the buffet table getting their food.

"Isn't your husband
coming?" he asked, more out of irritation than out of any particular
interest. His eyes darted around the other tables in the restaurant as he kept
an eye out for Nadine.

"Why yes, he'll be
here this evening I expect," she said shortly, nibbling away at her salad.
"So," she said, narrowing her eyes, and moving closer towards him
across the table, "tell me how you and Nadine met."

"Why?" he asked,
coolly.

"Oh, because I want
to know where she picked up such a cute looking man like you." She looked
at him as though she’d rather eat him than the dinner on her plate.

"We met at her
sister's dinner party."

"And got to know
each other from there," said a voice over his shoulder.

Sandra, who was facing
him, saw Nadine approaching before Ethan did. Her face darkened.

Nadine had been looking
for Ethan ever since her presentation had finished just before lunchtime. She
had scoured the hotel's restaurants before bumping into Melissa who told her
that she had seen him with Sandra. This was why Nadine knew exactly where to
find him. But she hadn't bargained on what the sight of him with Sandra would
make her feel like. It wasn't that she saw Sandra as a threat. She knew that
Ethan didn't have the slightest interest in that type of woman. But the sight
of his full, broad back and the sensual memories of their early morning
encounter coupled with the sight of Sandra sitting opposite him and
interrogating him, sparked a flame of anger inside her. And at the same
time another flame of desire shot through her body. 

She came up behind Ethan,
catching the briefest bit about their conversation. She traced her
 fingers gently around his neck and sat down beside him. She interrupted
the conversation blatantly and said, "And we got to know each other from
there." And then, she moved Ethan’s head towards her, catching just a
flicker of a smile across his face, and did what came naturally to her at that
moment. She leaned over and kissed him on the lips, lightly.

But she was not prepared
for what came next.  As she pulled away, Ethan responded by kissing her
back and she met his kiss with an urgency that they both felt. They kissed
fervently, releasing the feelings that had been bottling up inside them since
the morning. Not wanting to stop, Nadine forced herself to break away. She
looked straight into the eyes of Sandra, whose deep maroon fingernails shone
like talons as she held her fork in mid-air, watching their passion unfold
before her. She found herself in the uncanny position of an onlooker to a very
private moment.

Ethan sensed a shift in
Nadine and felt that their business arrangement had just moved to another
level. It both excited and intrigued him. "Nice to see you too,
honey," he said in a low voice.

"Cat got your tongue
Sandra?" Nadine asked, noting that the fork still remained poised in the
air. "You don't seem to have your usual ravenous appetite."

"Not any more,"
returned Sandra, slamming down her fork and pushing her plate away. She wiped
her bright red lips with a napkin. Nadine marveled at how not a single trace of
lipstick stained the soft tissue of the paper.

"If you'll excuse
me," she said coldly and was gone, almost vaporized into thin air.

"What
happened?" asked Ethan, tilting his head and assessing her slowly.
"If I didn't know you any better Ms Stefano, I'd think you were starting
to loosen up."

Nadine squirmed in her
seat. With a throwaway gesture of her hands she answered, "The look of her
made me so mad."

"Mad because she was
with me?"

"Oh don’t flatter
yourself!"

"I’m not."

"She’s not your type
anyway." Nadine retorted, turning in her seat to face Ethan.

"What makes you
think that?"

"I just know."

"You think you know
me?" asked Ethan slowly.

"I know she's not
your type."

"So what
is
my type then?"

Ignoring the question
completely Nadine continued, “I'll bet anything that she hooked you into having
lunch with her." And when Ethan didn't reply, “She did, didn’t she?” her
eyes blazed angrily. She knew Sandra was always looking for opportunities to
trip her up on. Nadine knew that Ethan was her Achilles’ heel. She couldn’t
risk Sandra finding out about her and Ethan’s arrangement.

Having lost his appetite,
Ethan replied, "I give up Nadine. You obviously know your colleagues very
well. Now tell me why did you kiss me the way you did? You said this
was-," he lowered his tone, "purely platonic, remember?" 
His face was serious again as he waited for her answer. He knew why
he
had responded the way he had. Nadine had been on his mind the whole morning,
from the moment he had helped her with her earring. He had been unable to get
her out of his mind. Now, he could see in her eyes that the feeling was mutual.
He could sense the subtle feeling of mutual attraction between them but he
wondered if Nadine was still in denial about it. He waited patiently; he needed
to hear her say that she felt the same way.  But she said nothing.

He double tracked,
reaching across the table to hold her hand. "I'm not complaining. It's
just that, I'm very confused now. I don't know what you want."

The problem was, neither
did Nadine.

She had never done
anything like that before and she put it down to tiredness from the night
before and a mixture of resentment towards Sandra, who she felt was
meddling in her affairs. Ethan
had
aroused feelings of desire in her. So
much so that everything had come together the moment she saw him sitting with
Sandra – anger, lust and envy and she had responded to her bubbling emotions by
kissing him. But he had kissed her back.

Yet this arrangement of
theirs was just that, an arrangement. Nothing more could ever come of it.
Pulling her hand away from his she said matter of factly, “I wasn't sure what I
was doing, Ethan. Don't worry. It won't happen again."

"I didn't mean it
like that," he started but Nadine interrupted.

"I've got meetings
all afternoon and then we have dinner at eight. I'll see you down here for
cocktails at seven thirty, just like yesterday." She gave him no chance to
speak, nor did he interrupt.

Ethan simply nodded his
head in acquiescence. "Whatever you say, Nadine."

He took a deep breath
after she had gone. Going on dinner dates as an escort was easy compared to
this. As an escort, he only had to listen. Many women just wanted to talk and
had no-one to listen to them. Ears were what he provided and never anything
more than that. He liked their company and he found it intriguing, the stories
some of these women had to share.

But this thing with
Nadine, he had never ever done anything like that before. He had women who
offered to pay him to go on vacations with them but he always turned them down.
He knew they wanted a bit more than company. But with Nadine, he had even
surprised himself by agreeing to be her boyfriend for this weekend event.

There were no two ways
about it, he was starting to fall for her. She had caught his eye and
fascinated him from the moment he had met her at her sister’s hen night.

But he had broken his
number one rule: not to get involved with clients and he knew that the proposal
was only going to lead to trouble. 

That fateful kiss left an
indelible imprint on Nadine.

She was doing something
that she would never, ever have done in a million years. Most definitely not in
front of work colleagues and especially not Sandra Donnelly. What was she
thinking? Ethan was having an effect on her and she wasn't sure she liked being
out of control that much.

She was unleashing
another side to her. A side that she had carefully put  away, in case it
got in the way of her career plans and life goals. She couldn't afford to be
reckless, emotional and out of control.

She had seen women on
roller coaster rides with men who proclaimed to love them and who they
proclaimed to love back. But often it seemed to lead to lots of tears and
emotional outbursts when the path of true love did not run smooth, as it often
didn't for many of her friends.  She had seen too many of them settle for
the safety of men who would not hurt them when their clocks were ticking
and they felt the urge to settle down. That was the problem,
they settled
. 
 

Nadine didn’t want to
settle for anything. She had convinced herself that a more orderly life was for
her. A life in which
she
controlled what happened and when. She had done
this easily by charting her career plan and following it. Nadine knew
exactly  what she wanted to achieve, the kind of salary she wanted to
earn, the assets she needed to acquire and by what age. She hadn’t included men
anywhere in her list of goals.

The truth was that Nadine
had never yet met anyone who had made her want to give up her controlled and
orderly life. 
Until Ethan had strutted into her life
. Her feelings
for him were starting to alarm her. Her head was full of thoughts about him
instead of the client accounts she was meant to be working on.

Melissa nudged her out of
her silent reverie. Nadine was starting to drift again. She pulled herself
together again and sat upright, paying attention to what Sandra and Michael
were talking about.

"The Noble Vintage
account is vital to our business this year," said Michael.  "We
are very close to securing the contract and thereafter, I expect this client to
be looked after very well."  He nodded in Nadine's direction and she gave
him her most winning smile.

Not wanting to be left
out, Sandra said, "I can take over once the initial contract has been
signed and we can vet out their marketing plan for the coming year." She
had noted that Michael had not looked in her direction once.

"As you will,
Sandra. This account is vital to us. Let's give them the attention that they
deserve." Sandra smiled as she reclined in her chair.

"Anything you want
to add, Nadine. I know you have lots of good ideas," Michael Zimmerman
asked her. 

Bolstered by his request,
Nadine replied, "Just to say that we'll take the very best care of this
client. Obviously, our first task is to find out exactly what they're looking
for and then to make sure we give them exactly that."

Nadine was grateful that
Melissa had nudged her, otherwise she would still be day dreaming about Ethan.
If there was one thing she couldn't afford to mess up, it was the Noble Vintage
account. Their business was vital to the company.