Page 35 of The Fool
“What was your intention, Mr Carter?” I ask, relenting in my initial plan to offer him nothing but contempt.
“Please, call me Nate,” he says, looking genuinely relieved and happy over my tiny olive branch. However, when he tries to reach for my hand, I withdraw it far out of reach. He retracts his own hand and looks somewhat embarrassed by my rebuttal. “Would you believe me if I said I danced with you because I wanted to? That there was no malice in it?”
“No,” I reply with a shrug of my shoulders. “Why would you want to do such a thing with me? The woman who you take great pleasure in humiliating on a daily basis, even at the weekends it would seem.”
“I don’t enjoy doing that,” he sighs. I can’t help but stare back at him with incredulity, not believing him for one moment. “Look, Beatrice…Bea, at first, you did rub me up the wrong way. I thought you were snooty, that you were making judgments based on my ‘party boy’ reputation, so I decided to punish you for it; to make you see that I am where I am for my own merits, not just because I’m the CEO’s little brother.”
“What?” I ask with a thoroughly confused look on my face.
“Somewhere along the way, I stopped hating you. In fact, I began to respect you for not being like all the other women who have always tried to pander to Cameron and me, purely because of the Carter name and Medina Technologies. You got where you are all on your own, Bea, and you never ask for anything other than what you earn.”
“Get to the point, Mr Carter,” I tell him impatiently, letting him know I won’t be charmed like all the others.
“Something changed the night I saw you in your friend’s restaurant,” he says with a sigh, still fiddling and not acting at all like himself. “I saw you in a different light; something just sparked.”
“So, you’re saying…?” I push further.
“I’m saying that ever since London, the thought of you has been making me feel completely insane! Bea, I don’t fall like this, not since Lily, and it scares the shit out of me. In fact, it’s worse than Lily, because it makes me want to draw blood when I see you dancing with some barman. I wanted to rip out my own hair when I saw Sam trying to kiss you, and when Nick flirted with you, and when I thought the guy on your phone was a boyfriend. I even hated it when you were dancing with James, who bats for the other team for Christ’s sake!”
“So, you’re saying you have made my life a living hell, humiliated me, bullied me, stripped me of any confidence, all because you’re scared of yourfeelings?”
I immediately narrow my eyes at him as extreme rage begins to rise to boiling point. His face loses its Californian suntan glow at the same time as I grab a note from my purse and slam it onto the table.
“Expect my letter of resignation tomorrow; I’m done!”
Before he can respond in any way, I get up and begin marching toward the door, completely going against the grain and causing the scene I usually avoid at all costs.
“Beatrice, please wait!” he shouts from behind me, scrambling to get some notes out to pay his bill and come after me.
When I’m halfway back home, I begin to feel relieved, thinking I’ve safely escaped him. However, just as I pass by a less-than-savory-looking alleyway, I feel someone grab my wrist.
“Get off me, Nathaniel!” I snap, trying to shake him off but he only continues walking toward me so I end up being flat up against a wall. He then pins me in by placing each of his hands on the wall next to my head.
“No!” he shouts back, then holds me there all the while I try to struggle free of him. “I’m not going to let you throw your job away because of me. I promise I will treat you differently from now on. I know I’ve been awful, but… Look, don’t go, just give me a chance to prove to you I can be a decent boss, please?”
I breathe short and shallow breaths all the while I consider what he is saying. It would make things a hell of a lot easier to not have to leave and find a new job, and I do like working for the company. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I wouldn’t find a package as generous as the one I have.
“If, and I meanif,I stay, I get to tell you when you’re being an ass,” I finally reply, keeping continuous eye contact with him.
“Agreed,” he answers.
“And you stop making me look like an idiot in front of my colleagues?”
“Goes without saying.”
“And you use manners,” I tell him with a set of eyes that probably look like my mother’s did when she was training me to use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
“As long as you never tell my mother I did otherwise. Yes, to everything, Beatrice.”
“And it’s Bea,” I tell him, which earns me a soft smile. “Beatrice was only ever used when my parents were mad at me.”
“Only if you call me Nate. Nathaniel is when my parents are mad with me,” he replies with a wider grin on his face.
“Well, maybe when I stop being mad at you, I’ll call you Nate.”
“Fair enough,” he laughs.
We stand still for a moment, his eyes turning darker as they slip down to look at my parted lips. The way he’s looking at me is so intense, I feel a sudden need to break his hold on me, so I look away and sigh.