6. Friendly Honesty

I was deep in thought, reviewing the small changes to the plans for the shopping centre that I instructed my team to adjust before I left. I was making the final touches when Rachel sauntered into my office.

“Hi,” she chirped, pulling me out of my concentration. “Do you have any plans for lunch?”

I looked at the time and noticed that it was already slightly after noon. I had been haunched over my desk for almost four hours and I didn’t even notice.

“Um, no.” I reply, “ just let me finish this up this one thing real quick and I’ll be right with you.”

She makes her way to the lounge area in the corner of my office and dramatically plops down into one of the seats. “These are pretty, did you get them yourself?” She asks, noticing the flowers on the coffee table.

“No, someone sent them.” I answer carefully. I didn’t want to give more information, but I didn’t exactly want to lie. Rachel knows me too well for me to be able to get away with lying to her; and if she detects even the smallest hint of dishonesty, she will dig and dig until she has me confessing to things she never even asked.

“Do you know who they’re from?”

“They didn’t come with a card.” I keeps things simple, yet truthful.

“Look at you, having secret admirers.” She sing songs. “Any ideas who this mystery person could be?” She leans forward in her chair and props her hands under her chin, excited to hear of this new development in my (thought to be comatose) love life.

“It’s not a secret admirer.” I try to brush her off.

“Oh, so it’s a known admirer?” She retorts.

“What? No, I meant it’s not an admirer of any kind. It’s just an innocent gift.” I say, becoming more and more flustered with her questions. I keep my eyes on my work because I don’t want to look at her. If I make eye contact with her, I’m done for.

I can feel her staring at me for a long while before she breaks the silence. “You know who their from, don’t you?”

My body goes stiff. “No I don’t.” There goes my plan to not lie.

“Bullshit. Tell me, who is it?” She continues to interrogate. “I won’t stop bugging you about this until you tell me who the flowers are from.”

I take a deep breath before walking around my desk and closing the door to my office. I then walk over to sit next to Rachel on the couch. “I think they’re from Alec.”

“Alec? Who’s Alec?” She asks.

“Alec Blackburn.” I say in a low tone.

I see her eyes light up in recognition. “Oh. How do you know that? And why is he sending you flowers?” She asks.

I walk over to my desk drawer to retrieve the hangover cures book and hand it to Rachel. “Because this came with the flowers.”

She took the book from my hands, confused as to what this had to do with anything. I motioned for her to open it. She does, and she looks back up at me with a look that said she was no less confused than before I handed it to her. “What does this have to do with anything? This could still be literally anyone.”

“It really couldn’t.” I let out an exasperated sigh.

“What are you telling me you share inside jokes with Alec Blackburn? Since when do you have inside jokes with Alec Blackburn?” She asks.

Her eyes burn into me so intensely I had to look away. “Since the reception.” I mumble.

“Why do I get the feeling that this is more than just a joke between friends?” She keeps trying to find my eyes but I keep finding everywhere else to look just to avoid her interrogating gaze. “Dariana, what did you do?”

“Why do you assume I did something? How do you know he’s not apologising for something HE did?” I defend. All she has to offer is a disbelieving blank stare in my direction.

“Okay maybe we did something; but before I say what happened I would just like to remind you of how emotionally vulnerable and wasted I was that night.”

Her eyes light up in realisation, “Dari… you didn’t.” She gasps.

“I did.” I shamefully admit.

“This is bad.“ she begins to say.

“I feel like you’re exaggerating this just a little bit, it was actually quite good.” I say, blushing at the memory. “Besides it’s not like it complicates anything.”

“It complicates a lot.” She whisper yells, not wanting anyone outside of my office to overhear.

“How? Cam and I are over, so I’m probably never even going to run into him again.” I say, shrugging off her concern.

“Dari,” she grabs my shoulders and forces me to look at her. “I was gonna share this with you over lunch because I know how much you love your work and how much you need the distraction, but I guess here goes my surprise. Almost a week ago a notice came across my desk of an open bid for a new building development in the finance district. It would mean really big business, so I went ahead and sent in a submission on our behalf. I checked, and the building is for a firm that has HephaesTech as a majority shareholder.”

“So what? Alec has many companies that he has invested in where he’s not directly involved in the day to day operations. Why should this be any different?” I ask, struggling to see how any of this has to be affected by Alec and I’s very brief affair.

“Not any where he’s got this high of a stake. Also, given how much the media loves to follow him around, I know he has yet to leave the city to go back to Birmingham. You know, where his main business is based.” She looks at me seriously.

I start to understand what she is trying to tell me. If we won the bid the contract, and it somehow comes out that there is potentially something between Alec and I, it would call to question the legitimacy of your bid; and the firm’s reputation and mine would be tarnished.

Rachel notices me growing more worried by the second. “But hey, we haven’t gotten the contract yet. And you said it isn’t a mistake you’re going to repeat.” She tries to sooth me.

I take a deep breath to try and calm myself. “Yeah, I guess so.”

A few seconds of silence pass between us where all that could be heard was the sound of my deep breaths.

“So… exactly how good was he?” She asks, switching back from my COO to my best friend.