She had to do the one thing she'd known she'd have to do but had been postponing it. Now was the time.
The rest of the day was spent sequestered in her office. She only spoke to Rebecca 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, Julian was waiting for her in the living room. He wore a deep frown, and his brow was creased with concern. Beside him Abby sat and they both watched her as she came in.
“Where the hell have you been?” Abby demanded. “I was worried. We were supposed to meet here an hour and a half ago.”
"Hi, Abby" she said, ignoring Julian.
"Hello" Abby replied, "Wow, you're in a bad mood too. What's up with both of you today?
Nina said nothing. She was aware of Julian's eyes on her and she couldn’t even meet his gaze as she walked to her room and jammed her key into the lock. She shoved the door open, and went inside without switching on the light, allowing the dark to swallow her up. Julian followed her in.
“Hey, Red, what’s wrong?” he asked.
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.” he said. "What happened to you?"
“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?” he said, his voice hoarse.
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 said 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?” he asked.
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 Standard Gate.”
He looked blankly at her. “I fail to see what the big deal is, Red, 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 it. Well, I don’t, Julian. 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 Standard Gate. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true. It’s what everyone thinks. Our announcement of our agreement will be posted in Advertising 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 Standard Gate if I sleep with him.”
“Then I’ll kick his ass,” Julian growled.
“You can’t be there to kick everyone’s ass, Julian. That's my point. 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.” Nina said.
He blinked and then his eyes went cold and hard. “Is that really what you want, Nina? Because I have been trying to get those doubts out of your head before this even happened, but now I'm beginning to see that is not even going to happen. And I'm tired of this. So tell me, this is what you really want?”
She was afraid to answer, afraid to confirm after that terrible look that had come over him. But she wouldn’t lie.
“Yes,” she whispered. "You have to understand me, Julian. It's just for—"
His lip curled in derision. “I won’t be anyone’s dirty little secret, Nina. I'm done with this fuckery. I’m tired of running around like two people having an affair behind their spouses’ backs. I made the mistake of settling once. I’ll never do it again. I thought I had a chance with you this time, guess I was just wrong”
“Julian, please, it’s not like that. I just need some time,” she pleaded.
“It is like that, Red. It’s very much like that. It’s apparent to me that I’m definitely not first on your list of priorities. Or even second or third. There’s a hell of a lot of things that rank higher than me. I don’t give a damn who knows that we’re sleeping together. And I damn sure won’t continue to sleep with someone who does.”