by Leslie North
Poppy pressed the button for the lobby. William stared at the glowing light, wishing he could come up with an idea that was equally brilliant in that moment. Something that would return things to the way they were. Something that would win her back.
"The presentation I was going to make today…" William cut himself off as the elevator door opened. He didn't know what good an undelivered presentation would do him now. Poppy blinked; she didn't walk immediately out of the elevator. She waited for him to continue.
But William did not continue.
"I'm sure it would have been excellent," she said finally. "Your presentations usually are. Goodbye, William."
No, he thought as he watched her walk out into the lobby. It would have been unlike any presentation I've ever given before.
"Goodbye, Poppy," he said quietly. The elevator doors closed over his farewell.
Chapter Twelve
E-MAIL DATED: Monday A.M.
SUBJECT: The Future of the Project
Miss Hanniford:
I take it by now you have also met with your staff and arrived at the same conclusions I have. I found that, despite the contract being awarded to Wildflower Agency, it appears our employees have taken the liberty of comingling and forming teams to tackle various aspects of the campaign. Please advise me of how you would like to proceed given the circumstances.
Congratulations again on the campaign. I know you will do creditable work as always.
Respectfully,
William Jameson
E-MAIL DATED: Wednesday A.M.
SUBJECT: Re: The Future of the Project
Mr. Jameson:
Thank you for your e-mail. I do appreciate the amount of work we will have going forward in untangling our staffs. It appears that things are just as you perceived: there isn't a single team that assembled itself that isn't comprised of both Jameson and Wildflower employees.
In the preparations for the convention I admit that I didn't dissuade, but rather encouraged, my employees to collaborate with your own. I thought we could achieve our best work that way and I wasn't wrong. However, I apologize for the confusion this has created for your team.
If you agree to it, then at this time, I think the best course of action for the good of the project would be to continue with the teams staffed as they are. Jameson Ad Agency will of course be compensated for the time. Your employees bring a uniform excellence to their work that I must credit to your strength as their leader.
Thank you for your congratulations. I intend to do outstanding work, as always.
Respectfully,
Poppy Hanniford
E-MAIL DATED: Wednesday P.M.
SUBJECT: Re: The Future of the Project
Miss Hanniford:
I appreciate your compliment, but I believe I have learned more about true leadership after a few weeks with you than I have during a lifetime of service to my agency.
Indeed, I would like to apologize to you. You were right in your criticisms of me, and perhaps even right to the contract alone when you believed we could not work together. I've been told all my life that a shrewd and forceful personality is the only way to succeed in getting what I want--that opposition only exists to be crushed, and that anything else is weakness.
But I've also been taught repeatedly in recent days that exerting my will without regard for others isn't just dangerous for my business relationships, but also my personal ones. It's a shortsighted way to live.
My strength is also my weakness. In the end, it drove the thing I wanted most away.
I regret the way things ended between us. I regret my behavior most of all. I regret that things are so busy that I have been unable to reach you at your office.
I'm not a man of many regrets.
Yours respectfully,
William Jameson
E-MAIL DATED: Sunday A.M.
SUBJECT: Re: The Future of the Project
Mr. Jameson:
I accept your apology. Thank you. More than that, I had hoped to deliver my own.
I want to apologize for the harsh words I used outside the meeting with the publishing house. I don't usually lose my temper like that, and in hindsight I feel that I was out of line myself. Tensions ran high with this particular interview, as you know, but that was not an excuse for my behavior.
I hope the coming week finds you well. I look forward to working together to iron out the kinks with our staff. You employ good people and instill a solid work ethic in your staff. My own team can only be enhanced from working closely with them, no matter how briefly.
Thank you again, and my apologies that it took until the weekend to get back to you. I've had a lot on my mind.
Yours respectfully,
Poppy Hanniford
E-MAIL DATED: Sunday P.M.
SUBJECT: The Future
William,
I realize now that a formal apology isn't enough from me, and it isn't enough for me. In fact, rereading what I wrote, it rings completely hollow and inadequate, and it's almost enough to make me wish I had never hit 'send'. But I know that an apology to you is necessary.
So please allow me to try again.
I need my apology to be personal to you. You've come to mean more to me than I can ever hope to express in a box of text…and more than I ever successfully expressed to you in person.
I got caught up in competing. I got caught up in the work. More than that, I got caught up in all the things that I perceived weren't working. I didn't look at the bigger picture of you and me. I saw how strong you were, how formidable, but it never frightened or intimidated me. It woke me up to my own potential. It excited every fiber of my being to be near you, and to see that same response excited in you.
I wish I had communicated that better before it was gone.
And here we are now, communicating, and I still can't express what I feel when we are together…and what I feel for you. You are everything I never expected to find. And suddenly this work, and this city that I love, seem somehow less without your perspective. Your dynamism.
Your passion.
If you receive this e-mail, it will be in the aftermath of a long war with myself. I'm afraid that I've said too much.
But I'm more afraid of not saying enough.
Yours,
Poppy
Chapter Thirteen
Poppy
Three days. All communication between them had ceased for three days after her last e-mail, and the silence was deafening. What was William thinking? What was she thinking? Why had she even sent him that last message…?
…and what did William's early morning invitation to meet with him today really mean?
Poppy's head spun with questions she fought to order as she stepped out of the car. Three days. Was it possible that Jameson Ad Agency had added on additional floors in that time? She didn't remember the building being this intimidating. True, even on a sunny New York City day it looked like a front for the operations of some hyper-efficient supervillain.
…all right, so that wasn't entirely true. Poppy had liked to think so back before she came to know the Jameson family, but she couldn't look at it—any of it—the same way now. The building looked taller than she remembered, but she remembered it fondly. Stepping into its halls had once been as exhilarating as stepping out of her own reality and into another. She had felt the pulse of industry there; the thriving business culture; the race to be the first and best, and it had been an exhilarating feeling.
It had been a short-lived feeling.
She passed through the doors and walked directly to the elevators. She was headed for the top floor. William had asked for a meeting. Poppy had no idea what he wanted to discuss, but her only consolation was that calling a meeting was so William. It wasn't that there was any particular relief to be found in his predictability, but…it was a side of him she loved. Desperately. His love of business, and his forthrightness in requesting something he wanted—these were all traits that she admired the hell out o
f, and found herself missing already after the three-day silence. She punched the button for the top floor, and the doors closed over her.
"Go right in, Miss Hanniford." William's secretary barely glanced up from her computer screen when Poppy entered. It was only a little past six AM, and the poor woman looked as if the coffee mug steaming beside her had been brewed pitch black and flavored with Wishful Thinking.
"Thank you." Poppy pulled William's office door open and walked in.
He was sitting behind his desk. Poppy hadn't really expected to find him anywhere else. Her heart trembled at the sight of him, but all thoughts of being intimidated fled from her in that moment; she couldn't get over how goddamn good he looked, and how much she had missed seeing him in the flesh. His messages were as professional and as poised as he was, but they were no substitute for the man himself. William glanced up when she entered. His dark eyes held her, and she wasn't close enough to see the blue in them.
She walked forward.
"You're early," he said.
"So was your e-mail," she pointed out. "Four-thirty AM? I thought you were in another time zone at first."
"I couldn't sleep last night." If that was the case, then William certainly didn't wear his fatigue like most mortals. His dark hair held the usual effortless coif, and the perfect angularity of his jaw was as distinguished as always by his careful stubble. He motioned, unnecessarily, for her to sit down. Poppy sat in the visitor's chair and crossed her legs neatly. She hated having the massive desk divide them more than she expected.
Because how else had she imagined this meeting taking place?
"Do you need coffee?" she asked. She wanted to invite him out…across the street…anywhere but here where he had to inhabit the role of CEO so fully. But she lost her nerve. She jerked her head back the way she came and offered a little half-smile. "I think your secretary brewed every bean in the building."
William's mouth flexed. It was almost a smile of agreement. Almost. "I won't deny how tempting that sounds. But I'll wait. I've worked out a presentation I'd like to give you, and I'd like to give it now, before we get into why I called you here."
Poppy's heart sank as he rose. "That e-mail I sent…" she began. "I know I owe you more…so much more than…"
"You don't owe me anything." William flipped the light off and switched on the projector. "You don't even owe me an audience. You can walk out at any moment, Miss Hanniford. But I hope that you don't." William clicked over to the title slide.
Poppy Hanniford: A Presentation, the first slide read.
Poppy's jaw dropped. She quickly clamped it shut again. She kept her legs crossed, but held onto her knee to prevent it from jogging uncontrollably. She had wondered if a presentation might be involved in today's meeting, but she had never expected it to be about her.
"Poppy, even before I met you, I knew you were a formidable individual. Strong. Intelligent." William had his back to her as he spoke. He was looking at the presentation, but didn't appear to be reading off it. There wasn't much to read, anyway. He had bullet points listed, sure, but these were accompanied by photos: her professional headshot, the photographs taken of her as Rhett Butler… and candids. Poppy hadn't expected that. There were pictures of her smiling; pictures of her laughing; pictures where her green eyes appeared to be flaming (and William was often featured in these). But she was the focus of the presentation's media, and of the presentation itself.
"William…" She couldn't not say something, but she didn't know how to continue.
William carried on as if uninterrupted. "In the first draft of this presentation I included a slide about your beauty: your effortlessness, your radiance, your complete charm and natural magnetism."
Poppy wiped her eyes. William turned to her, and even in the shadowy glow of the presentation, she could see his expression clearly. It wasn't the imperious man behind the desk who was speaking to her now. It was the man she had come to know and love: private, sensitive, and powerful in the moments he let himself be so. "I won't deny that these traits are wonderful strengths, and intrinsic to you. But I decided that they can't be encompassed in a presentation. You can't be encompassed in a presentation, and don't think for a second I don't know that. But I need you to see what I see, Poppy. I need you to see what the world sees."
He seemed to be asking for permission to continue. Poppy nodded. The slides clicked by, one after the other, each highlighting a perceived strength of her character: her fiery temper, her supportiveness of others, her innovation and audacity and utter fearlessness of things new and untried. As William continued, Poppy realized it was no use wiping her face anymore. The tears flowed freely under cover of darkness in his office. William pitched to her the portrait of a woman who sounded invincible. She sounded like a storybook queen and knight and ad magic enchantress rolled all into one. When he began to wrap it all up with graphs comparing and contrasting their talents, and showing how they complemented one another in every sector, Poppy started to laugh. She couldn't help it. The feeling he had instilled her with was too wonderful for words.
"In conclusion, I identified that something was missing in all this," William stated. "You were missing something, Poppy. And that was your own Poppy. What you need is someone in your own court to act as cheerleader. A CEO of your talent and ambition and insight can't operate almost solely in support of others. Your good nature allows you to see potential everywhere you look, and to act on it… but the humility you carry with you, the same thing that allows you to put ego aside for the betterment of the project, is holding back your own potential. In order to achieve all that you were meant for, you need someone who is equally supportive of you and your ideas. I would like to be that person for you, Poppy."
The slideshow clicked to an end. The lights came back up. At the conclusion of the presentation, Poppy rose. She crossed to the window to gaze out at the city below. She swallowed audibly, trying to evict her heart from her throat.
"Miss Hanniford," William said. "Would you care for a glass of water? Coffee?"
"Scotch," she replied. She heard William chuckle appreciatively. She watched in the reflection off the glass as he crossed to his cabinet and pulled the little door open. He fished down two glasses and the most expensive-looking bottle in his collection.
"That was quite a presentation, Mr. Jameson," she said.
"Thank you, Miss Hanniford. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it's the most important one I've ever given."
She watched him pour their drinks in the window's mirror world. When hers was ready, she drew in a deep breath, and turned to face him. She accepted the glass, but she didn't drink immediately. They didn't toast. Even the ice cubes in her scotch seemed to be holding back on cracking. The air in the room was charged with anticipation.
"I want to propose a merger of sorts," William said.
Poppy's heart gave a hard thump! in her chest. She was surprised the throb didn't knock her completely off her feet. "A merger. Of sorts." What are you, an echo? Say something else, Poppy! "I must say that sounds intriguing, Mr. Jameson. I would love to know the terms of the merger you are proposing."
William gestured for her to sit—not in the chair reserved for his appointments, but against his desk. Beside him. Poppy crossed to join him. They both still held their untouched glasses aloft. William seemed to have forgotten he had poured them drinks at all.
"What I'm proposing," he said, "is that we merge our companies. Jameson and Wildflower. It's become more than apparent to me over the last few months that we are stronger together. That being said, I will happily continue to take on Wildflower as a rival—there are no other challengers out there that force us to put out our best work quite like you do."
"I agree," Poppy said. "Every fire requires a little friction to get started."
"But those forces don't have to be opposing to be effective," William continued quietly. "In fact, I think it's obvious that the combination has the potential to be harnessed. What we could build to
gether, Poppy…we could lead the industry. You and I."
"Together," she repeated. "As partners?"
"As more," William said. He raised his glass. "Effective immediately I also suggest we create a focus group for an in-depth exploration of how you and I can merge most fully, with the greatest possible satisfaction given to both lovers."
The word on his lips…his tongue…she had to taste it. She clinked her glass against William's, then swooped in before he could take even a single sip of scotch. She caught his mouth with hers, plucking his surprised lower lip out of the air with her teeth, teasing it into position until she was kissing him fully. She heard the distant tinkle of ice as William set his drink down. Her hand came up to cup his cheek, to cement him in place; his alcohol may have been expensive, but she could drink him forever. Her lips roved, and he returned the pressure of her kiss with the heat and need she had been looking for. He took the liberty of removing the glass of scotch from her hand and setting it aside.
"Fuck. I'll take that as a 'yes'," William groaned against her.
"But how many times can you make me say the word?" Poppy asked with teasing innocence. She batted her eyes at him; their faces were pressed so closely together that her lashes swept against his cheek. "I'd be curious to know the sort of prowess that goes into your negotiations."
"I'd be happy to show you as many times as you like," William replied. He cast a hand out across his desk, scattering pens and papers and even his own nameplate; all office supplies toppled to the floor. This leg of the meeting wouldn't require any paperwork. Poppy lifted herself up to meet him, capturing him by the hair, pulling him down with her onto the desk. She was determined to make him love this piece of furniture, and she would be willing to meet as many times as he liked until he was satisfied.
