SLOW HANDS

Chloe and Timothy returned from their trip as a couple, but he had to go back to his home and so did she. After a Sunday of fielding curious questions from Bryce and his brothers about where she had been the past week, Chloe was relieved to go into work on Monday. She wasn’t ready to admit to them that she and Timothy were anything more than business associates. She loved them for their undying loyalty and their absolute faith in her. But for some reason she was reluctant to confess to a relationship with Timothy.

She was late, thanks to a traffic snarl that lasted an entire hour and an already late start from her apartment. By the time she made it off the elevator, it was closing in on noon, and her mood was in the toilet.

When she saw Caroline, she knew something was wrong. The usually cheerful receptionist eyed Chloe with something that looked suspiciously like pity, and she refused to hold her gaze for long. Not even wanting to know what that was all about, Chloe bypassed her usual meet and greet with Caroline and headed for the sanctuary of her office. To her surprise, Ann was waiting for her.

“Hello, Ann,” Chloe said as she came in and tossed her briefcase onto her desk.

Ann’s face was drawn, and she looked like she was dreading talking to Chloe. In her hands was a folded newspaper or magazine. Chloe couldn’t tell.

“Chloe, there’s something you need to see. Everyone else has already read it. I tried to call you but couldn’t reach you at home.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Chloe’s stomach sank. She didn’t like the look on Ann’s face or the way she was coming at her with that paper. Ann plopped the newspaper on Chloe’s desk and it was then that Chloe saw it was a gossip rag. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Ann, what are you doing reading that crap?” she asked.

“Look at it, Chloe.”

Ann jabbed her finger at the photo spread and the headline. Chloe looked down and all the blood drained from her face. She had to grip the edge of the desk to keep her knees from giving way. There were pictures of her and Timothy from the Packard Enterprises party. One was of them dancing and her laughing up at him. The other was of Timothy kissing her outside. Her hand was splayed over his chest and there was no mistaking the fact that they looked like lovers. The headline blurred in front of her, but she got the gist. It was all about Timothy and his new ‘catch’ and was it coincidence that Timothy had allegedly signed a contract with Golden Gates Promotions, the agency where his lover worked.

She scanned the article, but she was too furious to continue past the insinuation that she had spent the last several weeks doing whatever was necessary to land Timothy’s business.

“That’s not all,” Ann said grimly.

She walked around Chloe’s desk and jostled the mouse so that her screen came up. She typed in a URL and navigated to an advertising community site that hosted a blog and a message board, mostly used by advertising professionals. There in the latest blog post was the picture of Timothy kissing her along with the announcement of Timothy going with Golden Gates Promotions. The subtitle was short and to the point, and made no bones about the way they thought Chloe landed the account.

Chloe sank into her chair, stunned. Absolutely and completely stunned by what she’d read.

“My God, Ann, what do I do?” she whispered.

Ann squeezed her shoulder in sympathy, but her eyes told Chloe she was at as big a loss as Chloe was as to how to handle it.

“Does everyone in the office know?” Chloe asked painfully. “Have they all seen it?

And what do they think?”

“Well, Godfrey hasn’t been back in, so I don’t know if he’s seen it. I know Evan and Jason saw it because I was in Evan’s office with both of them. Jason didn’t have much to say but Evan was pissed.”

“At me?”

Ann shook her head. “I don’t know, to be honest. Besides, he has been upset for a while before this came up. You know, Christina found out about him and the lady from the party and she moved out. I think she might leave him.”

Chloe couldn’t believe her ears. She looked at Ann with a stunned expression on her face. That party was beginning to look like a curse instead of a blessing.

“So I doubt he is mad at you,” Ann continued. “He’s not the type to get angry before he hears your side. Besides, you got the account. It shouldn’t matter to him how you did it.”

“That’s true, I guess. It only matters to me.” Chloe said sadly.

“I’m sorry, Chloe. Really sorry.”

Chloe put her hands over her face. “I was stupid, Ann. I was stupid, and now I have to pay the price. I knew something like this could happen and i didn’t listen to my intuition.”

The sound of someone clearing their throat had Chloe looking up toward the door. Evan stood there, an indecipherable expression on his face.

“Ann,” he said. “Would you leave me and Chloe for a moment?”

“Of course,” Ann murmured as she hurried away.

Tears burned Chloe’s eyes. She was holding on by a sheer thread.

“Want to talk?” Evan asked.

It was that question that did it for Chloe. If he’d been angry or if he’d been indifferent, she could have handled it, but the simply worded request broke her down. Her shoulders shook, and she lowered her head as a sob welled from her throat. It appalled her that she’d cry in front of her boss. But there was no holding back the release of the crushing pressure that had been building over the course of the last few weeks.

Evan didn’t say or do anything. He just stood there while she gathered herself together again. When she looked up, he sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk and waited for her to speak.

“It’s not how it looks,” she said as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

He glanced at the spread out paper on her desk. “Well, it looks like you two are a couple…Or lovers… is that wrong?”