Chapter 70
CHAPTER 70
ABIGAIL
I t was presentation day at Fit Gal and I was ready to rock and roll. Per Blake and Ashley’s request, my father was at my side as we walked in, and he let out a low whistle as we entered the expansive lobby.
“This is a pretty impressive place these kids have got here,” he said, grinning as he gave me a sideways hug. “Win or lose, kiddo, you were shooting for the stars with this one and I’m darn proud of you for getting this far.”
“Thanks, Daddy.” I hugged him back, then introduced him to Charlene, who was almost immediately completely charmed by him. Smiling as I watched him being the Nathan Walker who built a globally renowned firm from the ground up, I realized I was really glad he was here.
As much as he was proud of me, I was proud of him too and I was looking forward to introducing him to Blake and Ashley. Charlene laughed at something he’d said and the sound made me zone back in.
“Follow me please,” she said happily. “You guys are in the big presentation room today. Good luck, Abigail.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it for this one,” Dad boasted shamelessly. “She worked hard. She’s prepared. It’s going to be great.”
“I have no doubt, sir,” Charlene said, opening the door to the large room where we’d made our first pitches as well. “Help yourselves to some coffee and snacks. Blake and Ashley will be by shortly.”
“Thanks, Charlene.” As we walked in, I saw that Simon and George were already there. They were sitting side by side but not talking or even looking friendly at all.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought they were two strangers who just happened to be waiting in the same room for something. Simon smiled when Dad and I strode toward them though, rising to his feet and coming over to brush a kiss to my cheek before he shook my dad’s hand.
“Good morning,” he said warmly. “Are you guys ready for this?”
“As ready as we can be.” I smiled at him, leaving him with Dad as I approached the table. George didn’t get up or greet me, simply swinging his gaze to mine and studying me like he was trying to get a read on my level of preparedness. Trepidation snaked through me, but I didn’t let it show. “Good morning, George. It’s lovely to see you here. I’m glad Fit Gal gave us the opportunity to share the day with you both.”
He arched a graying eyebrow at me before he finally dropped his chin in a curt nod. “Perhaps they realized it was time to bring in the real experts.”
My eyebrows shot up, but I bit my tongue and swallowed my reply. Thank God, I don’t have to deal with this man every day.
I heard someone—probably Simon—huff out an exasperated breath behind me, but I didn’t acknowledge that either. Choosing to get myself set up instead, I pulled out my laptop and connected it to the closest port, then sat down and readied my presentation.
Dad went to grab us each a cup of coffee, his chest still broad with pride when he came to sit down next to me, but his gaze on George was stone cold. Neither man greeted the other and I could physically feel the tension ratcheting up in the room.
Thankfully, before it got so bad that I couldn’t breathe, the door opened again and Ashley walked in, followed closely by Blake. The siblings were both smiling and extending their hands toward our fathers, and my dad stood up, but George seemed intent on watching his interaction with them before he moved so much as a muscle.
“Nathan Walker.” Dad grinned as he shook Ashley’s hand first. “This is quite an operation you’ve got here. Abigail tells me you’ve got a production facility on the property as well?”
“Yes, sir.” Ashley smiled in that friendly, excitable way of hers. “We’d be happy to arrange a tour for you after the meeting if you’d like to see it.”
“I’d love to.” Dad shook with Blake next, the two men almost exactly the same height. “It’s good to see you again, son. We met briefly at the ball.”
“I remember.” Blake chuckled as he closed his free hand over their joined palms, then let go and took a step back. “Thanks for joining us today, Nathan. We realize you’re both busy people, but it felt important to have the CEOs present for the pitches today. Fit Guy has been in the works since before we launched Fit Gal. It’s a really big deal for us.”
“As it should be,” Dad agreed amicably. “I think you’re going to be very impressed with what Abigail and her team have prepared for you. They’ve been working hard, but I’m sure Simon has to.”
“Absolutely.” Simon inclined his chin and went to take a seat next to his dad, but I knew him well enough to notice the subtle tells that he was simmering with anger over George’s rudeness—and that he was embarrassed about it.
As his gaze cut to his dad’s, George finally let out of a sigh and pushed himself up out of his chair. He walked around the table and ignored both myself and my father as he focused on Blake, but he didn’t pay much attention to Ashley either.
“George Astor.” His voice was unnecessarily loud and booming in the quiet room. He gripped Blake’s hand so tight that I could see the tension in his fingers. Then he offered Ashley a tight smile and a curt nod, not offering her his hand as he withdrew it from her brother’s. “Are we going to stand around yakking all day, or are you ready to get this show on the road? As you mentioned before, we’re all busy people.”
The corners of Blake’s eyes tightened and Ashley’s lips pressed into a line, but she rolled out her chair at the head of the table and dismissed George from her gaze, turning to me instead. “Abi, why don’t you kick us off? We’re very excited to see what you’ve got for us.”
I took a deep breath and nodded, letting my dad squeeze my hand when he reached for it. I walked to the front of the room. Here goes nothing.
“Alright, let’s do this,” I said as I picked up the remote that operated the presentation and Blake switched off the lights. “Over the last few weeks, my team has been working very hard on the branding, the marketing plan, and the build-out of it all, so without any further ado, I’m proud to introduce you to our vision for Fit Guy.”
I clicked into the presentation and the first slide came up. I heard Blake chortle with what I hoped was delight and Ashley gasped but grinned. Our team had kept the turquoise and pink that Fit Gal had become known for, but we’d dirtied them up, as if someone had mixed a dark gray in with the colors.
We’d also put them on a black background instead of their customary white, and we’d used a gritty red for the name. While we’d kept a similar font to the loopy, girly script of the Fit Gal name, Fit Guy was emblazoned in much sharper, more angled letters and we’d made them bold as well.
Honestly, I was super proud of what we’d achieved, and as I continued with the presentation, explaining every aspect of our choices and the research that had gone into it, even I was impressed with the work our team had done. Whether or not we got the account, we’d pulled off something truly incredible, and exhilaration was making me feel all heady by the time I was done.
Blake and Ashley applauded me as I went to sit down. Thrilled with how flawless my presentation had been, I met Simon’s gaze across the table, surprised to see intense pride radiating from his eyes as he smiled at me. Silently wishing him luck, I nodded and watched as he rose from his chair.
He smoothed out his suit jacket, straightened his tie, then strode confidently to the front of the room and jumped right in. “The Astor team looked at the color wheel and chose the colors that are precisely opposite to what you’re currently using. Our designers assured us that these are complementary and that they provide high contrast, which makes for a high-impact color combination in your branding. Together, these colors appear brighter and more prominent, immediately pulling attention to your products in any refrigerator a potential client will be standing in front of.”
As he talked them through the Astor ideas, I loved how he really invested in the client. It was clear as day to see that he was really good at listening to what they wanted and implementing those ideas. On the flip side, I was really good with creative designs and content creation.
We’d make a fantastic team if we ever got to work together, but despite the idea having been planted in my head when Liv had told me about her and Charlie, there was no way Simon and I could ever work on the same client at the same time. I watched George closely from the corner of my eye, and he was cold as ice.
Nothing impressed this man, and he certainly wasn’t ever going to be interested in partnering with Walker. A real pity, considering that I suspected we would make a formidable team with Simon and me at the helm of a collaboration.
Either way, Simon’s presentation was great and I was darn proud of him. When he was done, he came back to the table and Blake switched the lights on once more, but he left the talking to Ashley, whose eyes were now shiny with excitement.
“Thanks to both of you, my brother and I have a very difficult decision ahead of us,” she said, smiling at my dad. “Nathan, if you’d like that tour now, I’d be happy to walk you through the facility. You’re welcome to join us, George.”
She tacked on the last sentence almost as an afterthought, but she smiled when George shook his head and declined. “I’d like to pick Blake’s brain about a few things.”
As she stood up and motioned for my dad to follow her, Blake sighed but turned to George with a tight smile on his face. For a man who’d wanted this account so badly, he hadn’t done a good job with the CEOs at all.
“You killed it,” I told Simon as we walked to our office together to clear out anything that might’ve been left behind. “I loved the colors you guys chose. The contrast really does jump out at a person.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but I don’t think that’s going to make a huge different. You were spectacular. They’d be crazy to go with me.”
My cheeks flushed, but I took his arm once we were in the privacy of our own office. Pulling him in for a hug, I plastered myself to his strong frame and murmured against his ear. “No matter what, it’s you and me, okay? I’ll see you for dinner tonight.”
He jerked his chin in a nod, arms closing in a vise grip around me before he let go and grabbed his last few things. Both of us knew we couldn’t be overly affectionate here, so he went back to the conference room to join his dad and I tracked mine to finish out his tour with him.
On our way back to our offices later, my father was in a ridiculously good mood. He couldn’t stop smiling and raving. “You did a fantastic job, sweetheart. I love that place and I hope we get the client, but even if we don’t, you’ve more than proven yourself. It’s such a relief.”
“A relief?” I glanced at him where we sat on the backseat of the car he’d gotten to drive us around for the day. “What are you relieved about?”
“Olivia is rocking the Houston branch, you’re in complete control here, and London and Liam have agreed to move to Miami to set up a new branch for us there. I feel like we’re good to go.”
I blinked hard. So that’s what London was going on about in Texas.
“They’re going to be amazing,” I assured him, smiling as I wondered whether the entire state of Florida was big enough for those two to be in charge of a branch alone together, but time would tell. “Thanks for coming today, Daddy.”
“Of course, sweetheart.”
The driver dropped him off at home and took me back to the office, and I spent the rest of the day settling back in there. For better or for worse, my time at Fit Gal had come to an end and all that remained was to await the results.
Later on, at home getting ready for dinner, I Facetimed with Hazel and Eden, getting them caught up on the meeting and my plans for dinner with the Astors. “Oddly, I’m not feeling that great about it. George was not welcoming to me earlier.”
“Maybe it’s just fear from the past?” Eden suggested.
Hazel snorted. “Or maybe it’s just because the man is an asshole. Don’t let him anywhere near your food and wait for the family to eat first before you take a bite of anything.”
I chuckled, happy when Eden started filling us in on her relationship with Josh before Hazel could convince me to cancel. Determined to be myself, I headed over to Simon’s parents’ house and did my best not to be intimidated by the mansion looming ahead of me.
My own parents’ place was just as big, but the Astors’ seemed darker and scarier somehow. Simon’s family had also always been very polished whereas my own was pretty go with the flow. It used to bother me, but I knew who I was now and I appreciated that my family was more laidback.
As I walked up the stairs to their front doors, I reminded myself that none of that mattered anyhow. I was here for Simon and the only thing that was important was the future he and I hoped to build together. This dinner was merely the first step in getting his family to accept that.