by Mia Ford
“And I think that you are being paranoid as hell,” I said. “Look, we both have a ton of work to get done. I don’t have time for this right now.”
“I’m sorry, Nathan,” he said, standing up. “I am just trying to be a good friend. You told me you never wanted me to hold back on any of this ever again, and I’m not. I came to you to tell you what I thought. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I looked up at him and sighed, watching him leave the office and walk down the hall. I got up and walked over to the door, slamming it shut. John had taken something perfect in my life for the first time ever and ripped the rug right out from under me. The last thing I needed was for someone to start putting those kinds of thoughts in my head. I felt completely pissed, not even knowing what to do with myself. I couldn’t talk to Amanda about it, she would forever feel weird around John, and I really had no one else to confide in. I had a hard time believing that she would be that close to Jordan and Lindsey, and he wouldn’t tell me if something odd was going on.
I walked over to the window and looked out over the city, trying to calm myself down. It wasn’t often that I got mad, but when I did, it completely clouded my judgement. John’s warnings were doing exactly what he wanted them to do, plant a seed of doubt in my mind so that everything started looking suspicious with Amanda. I was not going to let that happen. I cared about her way too much for someone else to affect us like that. I knew that John didn’t mean to be malicious, he was just looking out for me, but he was being irrational. It might be out of his character to act that way, but people really had a good way of surprising me when I least expected it.
I walked back over to my desk and picked up my cell phone. I scrolled through the messages from Amanda, and it helped to ease the stress. I wanted to see her, to find solace in her arms and words. I scrolled down to her number and pressed send, pulling the phone to my ear.
“Hey,” she said, answering on the second ring. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I should be, but this cute little vixen keeps running through my mind, distracting me from my work.”
“You should tell her you have a girlfriend.” She giggled.
“Can I come by tonight and see you?” I asked. “I really want a kiss.”
“Aww, I do too, but I’m doing things for the wedding with Lindsey tonight and tomorrow night,” she said. “We can get together on Thursday night, though. I really miss you, and when this wedding is done, I will have all my nights reserved just for you.”
“Alright,” I said with a sigh. “Thursday night, it is.”
“Okay, baby,” she said. “I have to go. We are going in to see the planner. Call me later.”
“I will,” I said. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said.
I hung up the phone and set it on the desk, staring down at it. I was disappointed, but I understood. She was Lindsey’s right-hand man for this wedding, and she was determined to make it a special day for her. That was commendable and showed that she was a good friend. Still, John’s words were rattling around in my brain, and I wanted to see Amanda face to face to make me feel better about it. I would just have to deal with waiting until Thursday, hopefully dodging anything to do with John for a couple of days.
Chapter 11
Amanda
“Wait, what do you mean?” Lindsey asked with anger boiling in her tone. “I want you to repeat yourself, but slowly.”
“We don’t have your catering list on file anywhere,” the girl behind the counter said. “There is no way that we could put it together under such short notice. I’m sorry about this, but there is nothing I can do here; my hands are completely tied. You say you put in the order, but there is neither a file in the cabinet or a record of it in the computer. Did you pay a deposit?”
“Of course, I did,” Lindsey yelled. “My wedding is looming here, and you are telling me that you have no way to feed my guests?”
I put my hand on Lindsey’s shoulder, trying to calm her down. She was livid, angrier than I remember seeing her in a very long time. Neither of us could wrap our heads around why something like this would happen. We had spent hours and hours with these people, finalizing the perfect menu for Lindsey’s big day. Even the event planner was under the assumption that everything was on track and there wouldn’t be any issues. All we had to do was come down and sign off on it before all the food was ordered. There was no way anyone else could pull this together in that short amount of time. I completely understood why Lindsey was so mad.
We stood there for over an hour, arguing with the people at the catering company. The girl turned the monitor around on the screen and typed everything in just as Lindsey spoke it, but still, there was no record of her order. We were completely perplexed.
“I need you to call the manager,” Lindsey said. “Mary is the one we worked with, and she was personally handling this because it was a multi-thousand-dollar order.”
“We can’t call her,” the girl said. “She gave explicit instructions that she didn’t want to be bothered on her day off.”
“No, that is not acceptable,” Lindsey said. “By signing a contract with you people, I gave explicit instructions to not screw up my wedding day, but you are going back on the deal.”
“Do you have the contract?” the girl asked.
“No, it’s in my binders back at the house,” Lindsey said. “I shouldn’t have to have the contract. You should have it. How does something like this just completely disappear? I know it didn’t grow legs and walk out of your store.”
“I’m going to go in the back and check again,” the girl said, obviously not knowing what to do at that point.
When she walked away, Lindsey threw her arms up in the air and looked at me. I smiled sympathetically and shook my head. She paced back and forth for a few minutes before walking over to the desk and setting her purse down. She crept quietly around the desk, and I watched with wide eyes. She grabbed a binder that was labeled as the “Employee Book” and flipped it open. There was a tab at the back for phone numbers, so she went there, found Mary’s number, and pulled out her cell phone. She typed the number in her phone and put the binder away.
“I guess I will have to do this myself,” she said, shrugging as the phone rang in her ear. “Hello? Mary? This is Lindsey. I am standing in your catering store, and we have a huge problem.”
I looked up as the girl came back to the front, stopping and listening to her conversation. Her eyes got really big for a moment, and then she walked back into the back. I kind of felt bad for the girl. She wasn’t even working there when Lindsey set everything up. Still, it was the catering company’s job to make sure everything was being handled.
“Fine,” Lindsey said, hanging up the phone and turning to me. “She will be here in a little bit. I just can’t fucking believe this.”
I watched as she sat down in the waiting area, pulled out her phone, and texted furiously. I could only assume she was texting Jordan, letting him know what was going on. I felt terrible for her that she had to deal with all of this when her wedding was coming up so quickly. There was nothing I could do, though, and yelling at the girl at the front was obviously not helping the situation. When Mary finally got there, Lindsey had worked herself up into a complete meltdown. She was so upset that she had to walk outside to cool off and collect herself. I figured I should probably handle this.
“What happened?” Mary asked.
“They say they have no record of the order,” I explained. “Not even a paper trail.”
Mary turned and walked into the back, immediately talking loudly to the girls back there. I turned and paced, trying not to listen to what she was saying. When she came back, she took in a deep breath and straightened her jacket.
“There is a record,” she said. “It’s on my desk. The order wasn’t supposed to be given until tomorrow, but they screwed up.”
“So, what do we do now?” Lindsey was calmer as she walked back in.
“I will personally make sure that your food is ordered as specified,” Mary said. “The food company will extend this courtesy since it is such a large order. I will also now be catering your wedding with a fifty percent discount due to all the trouble that you have been put through. I am glad you came in and caught this mistake, and I am terribly sorry that you had to go through all of this. It is not like us to make a mistake of this proportion. We are known for our excellent service and quality products. You have my deepest apologies.”
“Thank you,” Lindsey said. “I really appreciate you doing all of this. I am sorry that it got so mixed up, but you coming in on your day off and straightening things out for me makes up for that. It shows me that I can trust that I will have everything in order on my wedding day.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “And feel free to call in as much as you want to ease your mind. I will send you an email with the invoice after I have placed the order, which I am going to do once we are done. Again, I am terribly sorry for this misunderstanding.”
I could tell that Lindsey was happy with this, and she nodded her head and turned to leave. We walked down the street to the Irish pub and pulled ourselves up to the bar. We decided to get a drink to celebrate the fact that everything was pretty much put together and ready to go for her wedding. It had been a long year planning, worrying, and freaking out over all the details, but the caterer was the last thing. Luckily, it was also the only thing that we had a near disaster on. As I sipped my beer, my phone started to buzz on the countertop. I looked down and smiled, seeing Nathan’s face pop up on the screen. He knew I was handling wedding stuff and normally didn’t call when I was out with Lindsey.
“Hey,” I said, picking up the phone.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you busy?”
“I’m just getting a celebratory drink with Lindsey,” I said. “We finalized the last thing for the wedding.”
“And it was almost a disaster,” Lindsey yelled in the background.
“That’s great,” he said. “Listen, I desperately want to see you. I have a proposition for you. Is there any way that you could meet me at my house?”
“What kind of proposition?” I asked.
“I’d rather talk to you about it in person,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, it’s nothing like that.” He chuckled. “I’ve just been thinking about it all day, and it is driving me insane.”
“I don’t know if I can come right now,” I said, glancing over at Lindsey who was staring at me. “I mean, we just got to the pub, and I don’t want to leave Lindsey by herself after the disaster we just skimmed by.”
“No, no,” Lindsey said, interrupting. “It’s fine. Go. Jordan is supposed to be meeting me here shortly. I am fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “Go.”
“Alright, well Lindsey said Jordan is meeting her here, so I’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” I said.
“Perfect,” he replied. “Do you want me to send the car?”
“No, I drove over here today,” I said. “I have my car right outside.”
“Okay, see you soon,” he said.
I hung up the phone and sat there for a second, thinking about his call. I had no idea what his proposition could be, but I was really excited to get to see him a day early. I turned to Lindsey and smiled.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Go before I change my mind,” she said with a smirk. “I’ll be alright.”
“Love you,” I said, kissing her cheek and grabbing my bag. “I’ll call you later.”
I ran out of the bar and down the street to the parking lot where my car was parked. I jumped inside and took off toward Nathan’s house, super excited to see him. There wasn’t that much traffic on the road going my direction, so I was lucky enough to get to him fairly quickly. I got out of the car and jogged up the walkway, smiling as he opened the door and took me directly into his arms. He kissed me passionately, pulling back and shaking his head.
“I can’t stand to be away from you,” he said.
“I feel the same exact way,” I replied, leaning up and kissing him again.
He let me go and stood to the side as I walked into the house. He shut the door and took me by the hand, pulling me excitedly into the house. I giggled, never seeing him so jolly before. I sat down on the couch and watched him disappear into the kitchen, coming back a few seconds later with two glasses of wine. He handed me mine, and I took a big sip, finally relaxing from the stress I had just been through.
“So, what’s up?”
“You are constantly on my mind,” he said. “I can’t seem to go ten minutes without thinking about you. Does that sound crazy?”
“No.” I laughed. “I am the same way. I don’t quite feel right without being by your side.”
“Yes,” he said, pointing at me animatedly. “What if we get married?”
“Wait, what? Are you serious?”
He let out the air in his lungs and relaxed his shoulders, walking over and sitting down next to me. He took the wine, put it on the coffee table, and took my hands into his. I was shaking, knowing what I wanted to say but not believing that he was actually serious.
“I am dead serious,” he said, staring deeply in my eyes.
He leaned forward and pulled me close, pressing his lips against mine. I could feel the passion between us exploding and the energy in my chest bubbling over. As he pulled his lips away, he ran his hand down my cheek. Out of nowhere, though, I started to feel sick. He looked at me and tilted his head.
“Are you alright?” he asked. “You just went as pale as a ghost.”
“I don’t feel so hot,” I said, holding my stomach.
“Here, turn and put your feet up,” he said, standing up.
“I think maybe I have food poisoning or something,” I said, feeling the room begin to spin. “It just hit me out of nowhere.”
“I ask you to marry me and you get sick.” He laughed. “That is not a good sign.”
“And yes, I think that’s a great idea,” I said, closing my eyes. “The best idea you’ve ever had.”
Chapter 12
Nathan
Another long day at the office had crept into my plans, forcing me to try to be present when it came to handling business. I had been doing better with it since my talk with John during the last meeting and had stayed in the loop with everyone. John had avoided me the day before, and I was glad because I didn’t want to argue with him anymore. I wasn’t sure if he was having a bad day that day or what, but I wasn’t interested in his opinion anymore, even if he was just trying to be a good friend.
Amanda was on my mind as usual, only this time, it was a bit different. I was worried about her, having woken up to her still complaining about being sick. I had insisted that she stay the night with me when she started to feel ill, and I carried her up and put her to bed in my room. She tossed and turned all night, and when she woke in the morning, she wasn’t feeling any better than before. I made her some toast and brought it to her in bed, which seemed to help a little bit. I insisted that she go to the doctor, but she just wanted to go home and go to sleep. I understood not wanting to go to the doctor. I never went myself, even when I was dying from the flu. So, I got ready for work and took her home like she asked me to. I took her inside and set her up in her bed with ginger ale and movies to keep her busy. I felt terrible about leaving her there on her own, but I had an extremely important meeting that I had to get to. It was about the hacker, what they had found out, and what kind of charges they would be pressing against him. I had to be there to make a statement for the trial.
Speaking of the meeting, I had to get over there. I left my phone on the desk and headed over to the conference room, nodding my head at John and Jordan as I walked in. The agent from the FBI was sitting at the end of the table, shuffling through some papers. She looked up as I entered and stood, shaking my hand.
; “Thank you for meeting with us,” I said. “As you can imagine, the hacker really shook us up.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “None of the damage to your system is out of your capabilities to fix. All of the sensitive information was hidden, and the hacker didn’t have anything saved on his computer. Nonetheless, these attacks are becoming more prevalent, and we are taking them very seriously. We will be prosecuting the perpetrator for internet crimes.”
“Good,” John said.
“Do you think he is a threat to other entities?” I asked.
“Well, he is pretty reckless, so we think he is in his infancy with hacking, but if he could hack your system with limited knowledge, we can only imagine what he could do with lessons,” she said. “For that reason, we are searching out the maximum sentence for this crime. He is facing sixteen years in prison and the inability to ever work on the internet again, without facing serious consequences. We want to nip this in the bud before it happens again.”
“Understood and appreciated,” I said, nodding my head. “I’ve given the list of damages to Jordan, my VP of IT, and his team is already working on fixing the issues. If nothing else, this kid gave us a good view of where our weaknesses are. I’m just glad he was caught. This could have been very bad for our customers and our clients.”
