She was late, thanks to a traffic snarl that lasted an entire hour and an already late start from her apartment. By the time she made it off the elevator, it was closing in on noon, and her mood was in the toilet.
When she saw Shelby, she knew something was wrong. The usually cheerful receptionist eyed Celia with something that looked suspiciously like pity, and she refused to hold Celia’s gaze for long.
Not even wanting to know what that was all about, Celia bypassed her usual meet and greet with Shelby and headed for the sanctuary of her office. To her surprise, Elle was waiting for her.
“Hello, Elle,” Celia said as she came in and tossed her briefcase onto her desk.
Elle’s face was drawn, and she looked like she was dreading talking to Celia. In her hands was a folded newspaper or magazine. Celia couldn’t tell.
“Celia, there’s something you need to see. Everyone else has already read it. I tried to call you but couldn’t reach you at home or on your cell.”
Celia’s stomach sank. She didn’t like the look on Elle’s face or the way she was coming at her with that paper.
Elle plopped the newspaper on Celia’s desk and it was then that Celia saw it was a gossip rag. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Elle, what are you doing reading that crap?”
“Look at it, Celia.”
Elle jabbed her finger at the photo spread and the headline. Celia looked down and all the blood drained from her face. She had to grip the edge of the desk to keep her knees from giving way.
There were pictures of her and Evan at Mitchell’s wedding. The same pictures she’d received via e-mail from Evan’s mother. One was of them dancing and her laughing up at him. The other was of Evan kissing her. Her hand was splayed over his chest and there was no mistaking the huge rock on her third finger.
The headline blurred in front of her, but she got the gist. It was all about Evan and his new fiancée and was it coincidence that Evan had allegedly signed a contract with Maddox Communications, the agency where his fiancée worked.
She scanned the article, but she was too furious to continue past the insinuation that Celia had spent the last several weeks doing whatever was necessary to land Evan’s business.
“That’s not all,” Elle said grimly.
She walked around Celia’s desk and jostled the mouse so that her screen came up. She typed in a URL
and navigated to an advertising community site that hosted a blog and a message board, mostly used by advertising professionals. There in the latest blog post was the picture of Evan kissing her along with the announcement of Evan going with Maddox Communications. The subtitle was short and to the point, and made no bones about the way they thought Celia landed the account.
Celia sank into her chair, stunned. Absolutely and completely stunned by what she’d read.
“My God, Elle, what do I do?” she whispered.
Elle squeezed her shoulder in sympathy, but her eyes told Celia she was at as big a loss as Celia was as to how to handle it.
“Does everyone in the office know?” Celia asked painfully. “Have they all seen it? And what do they think?”
“Well, Ash hasn’t been back in, so I don’t know if he’s seen it. I know Brock and Jason saw it because I was in Brock’s office with both of them. Jason didn’t have much to say but Brock was pissed.”
“At me?”
Elle shook her head. “I don’t know, to be honest. I doubt it. He’s not the type to get angry before he hears your side. Besides, you got the account. It shouldn’t matter to him how you did it.”
“That’s true, I guess. It only matters tome .”
“I’m sorry, Celia. Really sorry.”
Celia put her hands over her face. “I was stupid, Elle. I was stupid, and now I have to pay the price.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat had Celia looking up toward the door. Brock stood there, an indecipherable expression on his face.
“Elle,” he said. “Would you leave me and Celia for a moment?”
“Of course,” Elle murmured as she hurried away.
Tears burned Celia’s eyes. She was holding on by a sheer thread.
“Want to talk?” Brock asked.
It was that question that did it for Celia. If he’d been angry or if he’d been indifferent, she could have handled it, but the simply worded request broke her down.
Her shoulders shook, and she lowered her head as a sob welled from her throat. It appalled her that she’d cry in front of her boss. But there was no holding back the release of the crushing pressure that had been building over the course of the last few weeks.
Brock didn’t say or do anything. He just stood there while she gathered herself together again. When she looked up, he sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk and waited for her to speak.
“It’s not how it looks,” she said as she wiped tears from her cheeks.
He glanced at the spread out paper on her desk. “Well, it looks like you were wearing his ring, but you’re not now.”
With a sigh, she explained the whole sorry tale about her trip to Catalina with Evan and how she hadn’t
felt like she could refuse when he was short on time and ready to move on his campaign.
She left out the mushy details she’d shared with Elle. Brock was, after all, A. her boss and B. a man. He didn’t need to know that she’d stupidly fallen in love with a man she’d be working with for a long time to come. It made things entirely too messy. What if they broke up? Would Evan feel weird about continuing the relationship with Maddox or would he take his business elsewhere?
There were a million reasons why she should have never ever gotten involved with Evan, and yet, she hadn’t heeded any of the warning signs.
“I overheard what Elle said about how it shouldn’t matter to me how you got the account. I won’t lie. It doesn’t. Furthermore, it’s none of my business unless you broke the law or did something to damage the reputation of Maddox. I don’t think this qualifies. My concern is for you. I know how devastated you were by what happened in New York.
“I meant what I said when I told you that you had my support. That hasn’t changed. I’ll make sure to put an end to any speculation going on in the office, but I can’t control what people think or say outside the work area. I don’t imagine this is going to be easy for you to deal with in the next little while, but Maddox Communications stands behind you.”
“Thank you, Brock,” she said in a shaky voice. “That means a lot to me.”
“Any idea who would have done this?” Brock asked.
She frowned and stared down at the pictures. Then she looked back up at Brock.
“These pictures were on my company computer. Evan’s mom sent them here. They’ve only been here. I don’t imagine Evan’s ex has any love for me, but she and Mitchell left immediately on their honeymoon.
They haven’t even seen the photos yet. So other than me, and maybe Evan if his mom showed them to him, the only other person who’s seen them is his mom. These weren’t taken by the professional photographer. Evan’s mom shot these with her digital camera, and I don’t believe for a minute she’d go to these lengths to discredit me. She was too damn excited over our supposed engagement.”
Brock swore long and hard. “Are you sure this is the only place you had them?”
Celia stared back at him. “You don’t think…surely not. No one here would do something like that.”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” he snapped.
He rose and stalked to the door. Then he paused and turned back for a moment. “Don’t let this get you down, Celia. I have a feeling that whoever did this intended just that. You did a damn good job on this account. No one can take that away from you unless you let them.”
Then he was gone, leaving Celia sitting there like a deflated balloon.
She was supposed to meet Evan in just a few hours. Their evening was already planned, complete with the sleepover at his hotel and his driver taking her to work in the morning. She’d already had reservations about it all, but now the idea made the knot in her stomach grow even larger.
Who the hell had released those pictures? It made her furious. Why would anyone even care or go to such lengths to discredit her?
She wouldn’t put it past Athos Koteas. He’d made it a point to tar Maddox Communications any way possible, but how would he have gotten his hands on those pictures?
The idea that one of her coworkers was responsible made her want to puke. She couldn’t believe it and work here another minute. She had to push that possibility out of her mind or go insane.
How sick was it that she didn’t even want to venture out of her office now? She couldn’t face everyone knowing that they’d seen that damn article.
She laid her head on her desk and tried to ignore the painful ache that had developed around her temples.
She knew what she had to do, and it hurt far more than those damn pictures. But she hadn’t worked this hard to rebuild her reputation and her career to have it go down the toilet over one torrid affair.
The rest of the day was spent sequestered in her office. She only spoke to Shelby to tell her she wasn’t accepting any calls and the rest of the time she spent in brooding silence.
At five, she stared out the window, watching as her coworkers left the building. She purposely waited until everyone else had left before she locked up her office for the night.
Though it was well past seven, she dragged herself down six flights of stairs just on the off chance any stragglers were in the elevator. She was pathetic and spineless but she didn’t care. She’d face them all when she had some semblance of control over her emotions.
She drove to her apartment with her fingers curled tightly around the wheel. She battled bouts of fury and the impulse to break down into tears. By the time she reached home, she was mentally exhausted.
To make matters worse, Evan was waiting for her by the door. He wore a deep frown, and his brow was creased with concern.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I was worried. We were supposed to meet here an hour and a half ago.”
She couldn’t even meet his gaze as she jammed her key into the lock. She shoved the door open, and went inside, allowing the dark to swallow her up.
“Hey, Celia, what’s wrong?”
He flipped on the light, and she winced. He was in front of her immediately. He grasped her arm and tilted her chin up with his other hand.
“What the hell? Have you been crying?”
She closed her eyes and tried to pull away, but he held tight.
“Talk to me, dammit.”
“We can’t see each other for a while,” she blurted out. “Okay? We need to cool it. Things are crazy.
My life is crazy.”
Her words did what she hadn’t been able to do. He let go of her arm and took a step back.
“Want to run that by me again? In a way that I understand?”
There was a wary look in his eye that warned her this wouldn’t be easy. But then he didn’t give a damn about what people thought. He wasn’t ruled by the opinions of others. As she had so many times before, she wished she could be like him.
Instead of answering him, she rummaged in her bag for the stupid gossip rag and then she thrust it at him as if it was self-explanatory. And it was in a way.
He glanced over the paper and then looked back up at her. “So? What’s the problem?”
She knew he’d react that way. Positively knew it, and it drove her crazy. She wanted to scream and rail at him, but she’d come across as some hysterical banshee, and then he’d never take her concerns seriously.
“That’s not all,” she said stiffly. “It’s all over the Internet. An advertising community site has it on their blog along with some snotty little line about how I got the account after the announcement of you signing with Maddox.”
He looked blankly at her. “I fail to see what the big deal is, and I damn sure don’t see why it’s any cause for us not to see each other anymore.”
She gritted her teeth. “You fail to see. Well, I don’t, Evan. This is my career we’re talking about. My reputation. Which I might add is in shreds now. Everyone in my office saw that. Everyone in the advertising community saw it. Everyone knows, or thinks they know, just how I got you to sign with Maddox. It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It’s what everyone thinks. Our announcement of our agreement will be posted inAdvertising Media . Right on the heels of those pictures. Do you know how that looks?”
She stopped and swallowed back the damning sob that welled up in her throat.
“How am I supposed to go out on my next client call? What if the client is male and what if he expects the same favors I granted you? Or maybe he’ll agree to sign with Maddox if I sleep with him.”
“I’ll kick his ass,” Evan growled.
“You can’t be there to kick everyone’s ass, Evan. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. The best thing you can do for me is to back off until the smoke clears.”