| Subject: So, I present....Chapter 9 |
Author:
Mary
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Date Posted: Monday, August 15, 08:12:44pm
In reply to:
Mary
's message, "The Healing Touch II Chapter 8 +" on Monday, August 15, 08:09:01pm
Chapter 8 – Part II
The next week went by like the life cycle of a storm. There did seem to be times when times were calm and Nikita felt like she could concentrate on her job. But those times were few and far between. But then there were other times when she was completely in an emotional turmoil and almost unable to function. Mick had gotten very good at reading the signs of when she was able to perform work and when she just needed to be left alone. During those alone times, he was like a mother bear protecting her cub, no one got anywhere near Nikita without going through Mick.
First she had to try to look like she was pushing forward on the Marcali deal, when in fact she trying every stall tactic that she could think of to delay the inevitable meetings that had to take place. Grey had been patient and kind, but he knew of Nikita’s prior work and she could tell that he was questioning her. Not directly, of course, but there were questions floating in his head about what she was doing.
The longer she studied the financial declarations of Marcali the more that things did not add up. This fact leant credence to Michael’s scenario of the company being much more than the out shell it portrayed. Michael. He never left her mind, at least not ever for very long. He haunted her thoughts throughout the day as she heard his words over and over again.
And seeing him, physically seeing him, made her yearn to want to see him again. But she despised herself for feeling that way, for wanting to have anything to do with him. He had lied from moment one to her, had left her believing that he was dead, when all the time he was alive. There had to have been other ways to remove the threat of Paul and Madeline besides the extreme profile that he decided upon without ever telling her what he was doing.
He just made decisions and acted on them without ever thinking about what her opinions, her feelings would be. She could take care of herself, had done so for years, so why did he think that the moment he walked into her world he was allowed to control it? To make all the decisions for her? How dare he?
Every time the small tone went off on the PDA that he had given her she would jump and swear in her head because it was just another way that he was keeping her on edge. He was close to the inner circle at Marcali and he wanted to meet with her tonight to discuss the way they were going to handle the first merger meeting in two days. She agreed and threw the PDA into her briefcase.
Mick had driven her totally over the edge but in reality she had no idea what she would do without him. She had completely refused to see a tailor so he booked it into her schedule and brought the tailor right into her office. By the time the tailor was done measuring it showed what Mick had feared, she had lost two dress sizes and her suits fit horribly. He sent them all out to be altered and for new suits to be made. She was wearing one of the new ones now. Meanwhile Mick was driving the tailor crazy daily in making sure that her garments were done.
She looked up to see Grey standing in her doorway, “Hey there. I can’t believe I actually got in here without being spotted by Mick.”
“You’re lucky. I believe he’s out at the tailors.”
“I’d better hurry then. Before he gets back,” Grey smiled as he settled in the chair across from her. “How is the Marcali deal looking?”
She hesitated, just half a second, but she knew that she stumbled slightly, “It’s going well. I’ll have the full report for an initial meeting ready in the next couple days.”
His tone changed in a way she had never heard before, “Nikita, I really want this deal. Their stock is undervalued and that won’t last forever. You know that timing is everything. Is there something wrong?”
Panic started like a knot in her stomach and she told herself to remember to breath. “No Grey nothing is wrong,” she told him flashing her brightest smile. “I’m just trying to be very thorough. I don’t want us to make a mistake with this initial meeting. If things go well from the beginning then we will be less apt to be put in a hostile takeover position. We don’t want that to happen.”
“No of course not, but at the same time we have to weigh that risk with the very real possibility of someone else coming in and making an offer. I don’t want that to happen either. Now, this needs to happen and it needs to happen fast.”
For the first time since she had been working with Grey she saw a side of him she had not witnessed before. There was very real anger in his eyes and she actually felt fear. He seemed to have no remorse for the anger even as she sat there shocked and silent as the seconds ticked by on the clock on her desk.
There was a loud rap on her door that caused her to jump and then through the door poured Mick carrying suits in plastic bags and hat boxes, and other assorted bags of other shapes. “Pumpkin wait until you see some of the magnificent things that I have for you. You would not believe what they have Jonathan’s, I was stunned at…” Mick stopped instantly when he saw the look on Nikita’s face and then noticed that Grey was sitting there.
“Mr. Wellman, my apologies, you know how over excited I can get and I jut barged in and I wanted…”
Grey stood, but he never took his eyes off Nikita, cold eyes seemed to stare right into her and it was like he knew that she was lying to him and he would make her pay for it. “No apologies needed Mick. You’re doing your job. Take good care of our girl here. She’s on a tight deadline.”
With those parting words he left the office. Nikita physically shivered after he closed the door. Something was wrong, and everything inside of her screamed to talk to Michael. She ran through it in her head, if she picked up the PDA and sent him a message she knew that he would then think that all had been forgiven. But she would not give him that satisfaction, she could take care of this on her own and she would.
The only flaw in her logic was the fact that she was in a terrible situation and she desperately needed help, but her pride would not let that be known. At least not until it was completely out of her control. And at the moment she still had a small amount of control left, and that meant that she would be strong, she would be independent and she would handle Grey on her own. Michael had no need to know.
Mick disrupted her thoughts, “He seems a little chilly today.”
“Yes. Yes he does.”
“You ok?
“Fine,” she lied. “What have you got for me?”
*****
Michael walked up the stairs to her apartment. The lift was available but he needed the time to think about how to talk to her. Things were beginning to proceed rapidly and she had to understand that they had to work together if they were going to make it through this. He stood in front of her door, his stomach twisted in knots at the thought of seeing her again, and lightly knocked.
She answered the door and he drank in the sight of her, comfortable in jeans and a dark sweater, she held a pen and a file in her hand. “Come in Michael.”
“Thank you.” He looked over the apartment, the operative in him ever searching for signs of danger, a predator. He noticed the papers spread out over her coffee table, her laptop, the fire going in the fireplace. The apartment was warm but she looked cold as she wrapped her hands around the steaming mug of tea and sat on the floor in front of the laptop, pulling a blanket over her lap as she sat.
“There’s tea on the stove if you would like some.”
“No. Thank you.”
He hated this moment, he was actually unsure of what to do, what to say to her. He stood there and felt like an idiot. “Michael, please come over here and sit down. You asked to talk tonight and I have a lot of work to do. So let’s talk.”
Michael decided to hide behind the business at hand so he sat across the table from her on the floor and pulled out his laptop. “I met with Marcali and he is open to the merger. He wants to meet with you as soon as possible. Or I should say, he wants me and his team of investment advisors to meet with you as soon as possible.”
Nikita tried to ignore the headache pounding behind her temples and sipped at the hot tea hoping that it helped to soothe her nerves and warm her. Seeing him alive still completely unnerved her, his eyes were so beautifully deep green and his chestnut hair caught the light and shone as he talked with that fantastic accent she remembered. She couldn’t believe he was there, it was like seeing him again finally made it real to some part of her brain that had previously been unconvinced. He was sitting right there, breathing, talking, looking at her. Even from across the table she could sense that uniquely Michael scent and she breathed it in wanting to savor it.
She knew that he was talking to her but she was having trouble trying to remember what he had said and her brain couldn’t seem to form the thoughts that she wanted to say. Suddenly holding the tea seemed much too heavy and she felt the cup being taken from her suddenly shaking hands. Then she was in his arms and surrounded by his warmth and she was crying and there was no force on earth that could stop her tears at that moment. She felt him sitting with her, holding her as she shook in his arms, felt the blanket cocooning her in warmth and his arms around her again, heard his soothing soft words of comfort. But she couldn’t respond she could barely breathe as she held onto him and realized that he was alive and that she still loved him.
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