by Whitney G.
“Please, Greg...I need to—”
“He wants to be alone.” His voice was clipped.
“Please.” I cried. “I know we haven’t been together for three months, but he means a lot to me. You have to believe that...Please help me...”
Sighing, he grabbed my hand and led me around the front desk, greeting all of the managers, showing me a private elevator. He hit the top button and the doors glided open immediately.
As the cart rose, he turned to face me. “When you get off, make two lefts and his room will be in front of you. This is the back entrance to his suite, so you’ll have to be quiet or the guard who stands in front of the other elevator will alert me or the hotel’s head security. Understand?”
I nodded and the doors opened seconds later.
“To the left, Miss Gracen.”
I rushed off the elevator and headed for his room.
I stood in front of the door for a few seconds, running my fingers across the golden nameplate that bore his name in newly painted cursive.
I knocked once. No answer.
I knocked twice. Nothing.
I knocked again and again, louder and louder with each try.
“Hold on! Hold on!” A woman’s voice came from the other side of the door. There was some shuffling, and then the door swung open.
“Oh...It’s you.” Stacy Rodriguez stood in front of me wearing a light blue slip with her hair tousled all over her head.
Did he just have sex with her?
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Jonathan!” She glared at me before walking back inside. “He’ll be right out, Claire.”
I began to count the seconds with nervous taps of my foot. I was on the verge of more tears when I realized that five minutes had gone by.
I took a step forward, tempted to step inside and confront him, but I saw him walk across the room. He took a long sip from his glass and slammed it down on the table. Then he turned towards me.
He came to the door and stared into my eyes, expressionless. He opened his mouth to speak, but then he shook his head and started to close the door.
“Wait!” I held my hand against the doorknob. “Please listen to me, Jonathan! I am so sorry—I didn’t know what to say! You caught me off guard and you know I’m—you know I’m not the public-type but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. I do. And I want to be with you. Please just...I’ll go get Damien, bring him here, and tell him that—”
“Miss Gracen, I don’t have time for any unscheduled meetings. I have enough on my plate this week with seminars and tech demonstrations.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his business card, handing it to me. “Feel free to schedule a meeting with my secretary at your earliest convenience. However, I’m booked through the end of the year so don’t expect an immediate appointment.”
“What? Jonathan, you can’t be serious. Please let me—”
“Security?” He held his phone up to his ear. “I have an unapproved guest bothering me at my suite and I’m not exactly sure where she came from or where she belongs.”
I gasped.
“Enjoy the rest of the conference, Miss Gracen.” He shut the door in my face.
“Wait!” I knocked on the door again, as forcefully as I could manage. “Open the door, Jonathan! You didn’t mean that! Come back! Come back!” I started kicking at it, twisting at the doorknob, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Before I knew it, Greg was picking me up and carrying me back onto the private elevator.
“Put me down, Greg! I need to talk to him! Don’t let him do this to me! He said he doesn’t know me and you know that’s not true!” I’d never behaved so erratically in my life. “Please! I need to tell him I’m sorry again! He didn’t understand me! Please! Please!”
He set me down on the floor as soon as the doors shut and hit fifty two—Damien’s floor. He ignored my pleas and kept his face completely stoic.
When the doors opened again, he gently grabbed me by my shoulders and walked me down the hall to my room.
He pulled another handkerchief from his jacket, and as if he knew that I was too broken to do anything but cry, he wiped away my tears as they fell—waiting until they’d completely stalled.
He reached into his pocket and handed me a bottle of Benadryl. “I suggest you tell Mr. Edwards that you were lost and ended up at the gift shop on the other side of the resort. He called the front desk twice, wondering if you’d bought your medicine yet.”
My hands shook as I clasped the bottle. “Thank you, Greg...Um, I know you don’t have any obligation to me but....Could I ask you for a favor?”
“Anything, Miss Gracen.”
“Could you tell Jonathan that I said, ‘I love you’? And that I meant it when I told him that?”
He looked sympathetic. “Of course, Miss Gracen. Have a good night.” He patted my shoulder and walked away.
Chapter 33
Claire
My reflection was lying to me. Again.
She was showing me a happy woman in bright red lipstick and bronze eye shadow, a woman who looked like she was having the time of her life—not a heartbroken woman who’d spent every night this week crying herself to sleep.
You can do this...You can do this...
I screwed the top onto my mascara and placed it into a bag. I stepped back from the mirror and twirled around in my dress—the sparkling nude colored one that Jonathan had picked out months ago, the one I would’ve worn to the IPO ball.
I’d hoped that by wearing it tonight, he would at least acknowledge my existence.
Ever since I’d snuck up to his room a few nights ago, he’d gone out of his way to avoid me: He and Stacy were supposed to sit at our table all week for the daily breakfasts, but he had his seat changed. He was supposed to present Damien with an award at the Value Ball two nights ago, but he claimed he had an emergency, so he created a video for the audience to view instead.
I saw him a few times in the hallways, and each time I would walk towards him and try to get his attention, but the security guards always kept me from getting too close.
“It’s our last night here, sweetheart.” Damien walked into the room and smiled at me. “I see that you’ve saved your best dress for the occasion.”
I hate being called “sweetheart.” Why haven’t I told him that?
“Do we have to stay at the banquet the entire time?” I asked. I knew Jonathan was set to receive an award, and even though I wanted him to acknowledge me, deep down I knew that he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to sit and suffer as everyone else fawned all over him.
“Of course not. We can leave right after the closing statements.”
Great...
He reached for my hand and we walked out of the room and towards the elevator like we had several times before.
“Did you have fun this week?” Damien pressed the down button.
“Yes.”
“Well, if you’re not still—” The loud ping of the elevators cut off his sentence.
“What were you saying?” I walked onto the elevator and noticed Jonathan and Stacy standing together on the other side.
Jonathan’s eyes went straight to my dress, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he swore under his breath.
“I was saying that if you wanted, you and I could go to another resort next weekend. I promise I’ll turn off my cell phone and focus all my attention on you.” Damien put his arm around my hips. “And you won’t be on your—you know...Would you be interested in that?”
“I...” I felt the heat of Jonathan’s glare on my back. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Well, make sure you do that. It’s a wonderful resort, and there’s plenty of amazing water activities. It’s also extremely private.”
“Private things are definitely her specialty...” Jonathan muttered.
Damien must not have heard him because he continued. “There’s this beautiful mountain clearing that I’d love to take you to. We could spend the entire
day there. There’s also a lovers’ loft nearby.”
“Stop it, Jonathan...” Stacy whispered, and I wondered what she was talking about.
“It sounds very tempting,” I said as the elevator doors opened.
Damien motioned for me to step off first and looked back at Jonathan. “Congratulations, Jonathan. You actually deserve the ‘Innovator of the Year’ award. Now, freeze that compliment and remember it, because you know as soon as this conference is over, I’ll go back to hating everything about you.”
Jonathan smiled. “Thank you, Damien. That makes two of us.”
I sat at the dinner table and picked at my food, too hurt to eat much of anything. Jonathan was sitting directly across from me and he hadn’t looked over at me once.
Any time he touched something on the table—butter, bread basket, pepper, I asked if he could pass it to me. But, instead of doing that, Stacy answered for him. She would say, “Of course he can,” and send it my way.
I figured that since they were unable to switch their seats for this event, they’d planned a course of action for dealing with me.
I even texted him several messages, desperate to get him to look at me—just once: “Please look at me, Jonathan.” “You can’t avoid me forever...” “I said I was in love with you, doesn’t that mean anything?” “Are you really that upset with me?”
I saw him look through his phone, saw him read every single message, but he managed to keep his gaze elsewhere.
I even tried the more blatant text message approach: “I know you like the way I look in this dress.” “I bet you wish you could take it off of me...”
I watched as he read my last two messages, as he glanced at them without a single emotion crossing over his face.
“Would you like me to ask my assistant to bring you some food from elsewhere?” Damien looked at my plate. “You haven’t eaten much at all today...I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I’m fine. I guess my appetite is a little off today.” I sighed as Jonathan and Stacy whispered something to one another.
“At least try the potato dish,” he said. “It’s to die for.”
I picked up my fork and began eating some of it, nodding my head at how good it tasted.
“See?” Damien patted my thigh. “When do you want to leave?”
NOW. “How about right n—”
“Mr. Edwards?” A woman poked her head in between us. “We’re setting everything up and we’ll be ready for you in about twenty minutes. Are you ready to present?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I’ll be there shortly.”
The woman walked away and I grabbed his hand. “Ready to present what?”
“The Innovator of the Year Award. Jonathan presented me with my award the other day so it’s only fair that I present him with his. Even if we don’t see eye to eye, there’s no one else as big in technology as the two of us so—”
“So, we can’t leave right now?”
He furrowed his brow. “What exactly has been bothering you this week? And don’t say allergies because I don’t think you actually have any.”
“Nothing...It’s—”
“Are you ever going to tell me why you were crying the other night?”
I sighed. “Yes...But could we please go—”
“Mr. Edwards?” That woman came back over again. “We’re going to start things a little earlier. Could you come with me please?”
“We’ll leave right after I present the award. Okay, sweetheart?” He kissed my cheek and stood up, walking away from the table.
I turned back towards Jonathan, frowning because his eyes were still glued elsewhere. I thought about leaving, heading back to my suite and letting Damien find me there, but for some reason I sat and continued to watch Jonathan and Stacy laugh and whisper at something I couldn’t see.
“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?” A beautiful brunette tapped the mic onstage. “Before we give away our most prestigious award, I just want to thank you all for making the 2013 Juniper Conference a major success! Because of you, we have raised over ten million dollars for over thirty different charities!”
The audience clapped and the speaker waited for the applause to die down. “We hope that the sessions you’ve attended this week have taught you something valuable and that the people you’ve met have instilled a new sense of camaraderie and competitiveness amongst your respective companies. We usually make the closing statements on tonight, the last night of the conference, but due to an immense interest in Chef Roer’s breakfast this week, we’ve decided to hold them off until tomorrow morning. Chef Roer has graciously agreed to cook an extra breakfast for us all!”
The crowd cheered loudly, and Chef Roer stood up from his seat and waved his hand around. Once he sat back down, the crowd gradually became quiet again.
“So, before we begin our final ball of the week, I’d like to bring someone we all know and respect to the stage.” She read off a notecard. “This man has singlehandedly changed the way technology influences our everyday lives. He’s a dominating pioneer in the field, and his company—Apple, Inc. is currently valued at one hundred and fifty four billion dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the ‘Developer of the Year,’ Mr. Damien Edwards!”
The crowd stood to its feet, clapping and cheering wildly. I stood up too, trying to plot my escape.
“If this is the reception I get, I can only imagine what type of response the man I’m presenting will receive.” Damien laughed and motioned for the crowd to sit down. “About eleven years ago, my company was the number one software company in the world. As a young man, I was cocky and honestly didn’t think that reign would ever end. We were ahead of all our competitors by the billions and our workforce was quadruple of the next largest company at the time. One day, I happened to be giving a tour of my company to a select group of college kids who’d been sent from Harvard to complete a summer program. One of those students, who I’ve grown to hate—” He paused as the audience laughed.
“One of those students came up to me right after the tour and said the following words, verbatim: ‘Mr. Edwards, with all due respect, your computers suck. You might want to focus on redesigning the internal instruments and building a bigger hard drive before I beat you to it.’ Of course, I laughed this kid off because at the time computers were more about functionality than style, and we offered the largest hard drives on the market...Yet, exactly one year later, Statham Industries was formed and I’ve been regretting my unwillingness to listen to that annoying kid for eleven years.” He laughed. “Ladies and gentlemen, the man I’m bringing to the stage as your unanimous pick for the ‘Innovator of the Year’ for the tenth year in a row, is a man who finally decided to show up here and accept it.”
I felt myself laughing along with the crowd and stopped.
“He is a man whose company is currently worth two hundred billion dollars, a man who develops the greatest ideas day in and day out, and a man who always seems to get the best stuff first. If you ever think you’re onto something, he’s probably had it in development years before the thought ever crossed your mind.” He smiled. “Please help me welcome my fiercest competitor and your Innovator of the Year, Mr. Jonathan Statham.”
The response to him walking towards the stage was insane; the screams and cheers were deafening and every person was on their feet.
He walked on stage with his sexy stroll, smiling at the crowd, shaking Damien’s hand and accepting the crystallized plaque.
“Thank you all very much.” He spoke into the mic. “This award means a great deal to me, and I’m sorry it took me so many years to join you here. I promise I’ll make every effort to show up in the years to come...”
He looked at his speech. “I have a few people I’d like to thank for inspiring me. First, I’d like to thank Mr. Lowell, the only professor who openly encouraged his own students to drop out,” he said, laughing. “I’d also like to thank my parents who left old devices around the hou
se and helped me to realize what my true talent was...My employees who make me work harder every day, my good friend and head of security Corey Walters, every corporation that I’ve ever partnered with, my worst enemy—Damien Edwards, and most importantly, the woman who has...” He paused, looking at the sheet of paper in his hands as if he couldn’t believe what he’d written. He cleared his throat. “I’d like to thank my good friend Stacy Rodriguez who manages to put up with me through it all. Thank you all very much.”
The crowd clapped and remained standing as he put the mic down and began to take pictures with the people onstage.
“He’s so sexy...” “I know! I wish I was Stacy Rodriguez tonight!” The two women behind me laughed.
My chest tightened as I watched him slip his arm around Stacy, as I watched the two of them smile together and pose for pictures.
Tears fell down my face and I made no move to wipe them away. I kept wishing that he would turn around, that he would see my face in the crowd and walk towards me, but he kept posing for pictures—laughing and shaking hands, like he didn’t care about me at all.
He pulled Stacy against his side as he prepared for another photo. The flash went off three times and she stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.
I’ve had enough of this shit...
I pushed my chair up to the table and walked towards the stage, weaving my way through all the suits and adoring women who kept gushing over him. I took the steps on the right side of the stage and paused, looking at Jonathan as he bent down for another kiss from Stacy.
“Claire?” Damien grabbed my wrist. “Are you okay? Are you that ready to go? I’ll—”
I snatched my hand away from him and walked towards the center of the stage.
“And thank you so much for your generous gift, Mr. Statham. My company is so honored that you—”
“Excuse me.” I stepped directly in front of the man who was addressing Jonathan.
“Yes, Miss Gracen?” Jonathan raised his eyebrow.
“Kyle, get security.” I heard someone murmur. “This is the tenth time this week...”
