56. Nevaeh
It’s Tuesday morning, and I’m a little late for work. I sent in the article yesterday after getting Leonard’s approval, but Ms. Martin hasn’t emailed me back any improvement suggestions, which made me smile. She must think I’m improving if she has nothing to comment on.
My feet bring me to my desk, but no one seems to be missing me yet. Relief briefly washes over me before I concentrate on everything that I have to do today. I haven’t finished editing the photos from the weekend yet, the ones Mrs. Lu sometimes uses for different articles written by Gillian.
I’m about to start on the first one when Genevieve appears in front of me, tapping the papers on my desk to get my attention.
“Come with me,” she says, and I swallow hard. Disappointment lingers on her face, a frown playing on her lips.
“I’m sorry I was late,” I blurt out as I follow her to the main office, thinking that must be the reason why she is upset with me.
“It was only three minutes, Nevaeh. That’s not why I have asked you here,” she explains, sending a wave of fear through me. My eyes shift to her desk where Mrs. Lu and Ms. Martin sit.
Anger has taken over my bosses’ features and I’m convinced panic mine. I stop at the door, not moving another centimeter. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
“You lied to me,” is the first thing that comes out of Ms. Martin’s mouth. Disappointment also covers Mrs. Lu’s face, but she doesn’t say a word.
Genevieve gently grabs my arm to pull me inside, closing the door behind me to keep this conversation private. I’m about to ask my bosses what it is I’ve lied about when Ms. Martin finds her voice again.
“How many times did I ask you if something was going on between you and Mr. Romana?” she asks but doesn’t give me a chance to respond. “Many times, Nevaeh, and you lied to me every single time. Before you attempt to do so again, I suggest you come to take a look at what a good friend of yours sent me,” she states and holds out her phone, a video of Adrian and me dancing and kissing at ‘Bourbon House’ playing on the screen.
My face is barely visible, and if someone hadn’t told her it was me under that cowboy hat, I doubt she would have recognized me. It was too dark, too crowded.
I cover my mouth both because I’ve been caught and because I feel extremely violated. A friend of mine sent that video? Who the fuck would do that to me? Certainly, no one I went there with, right?
“I’m sorry,” I manage to croak out, but my throat is dry. It’s the only thing I can say, not that Ms. Martin would have given me a chance to speak more anyway.
“What are you sorry about? Hmm? That you got caught?” I shake my head, too stunned and overwhelmed to reply. “That’s the problem with sleeping with two men, Nevaeh, one of them will always get hurt and look for payback.”
My breathing hitches as realization dawns on me. Lincoln took the video. He must have gone to that bar, too, recorded us, and sent it to my bosses.
Nausea consumes me, and I try to keep the room from spinning. The pain of his betrayal rips my heart in half. We aren’t on speaking terms, but I never thought he’d ruin my career to get revenge.
“Listen, I can explain. Lincoln and I have never had a physical relationship, and Adrian and I—” I start, but Ms. Martin stands up and slams her palms onto the desk, making Genevieve, Mrs. Lu, and I jump.
Ms. Martin’s pink dress sways from side to side at the movement, anger covering her features. A few strands of her blonde-gray hair fall over her face, but she doesn’t seem to care as she yells at me.
“No, you listen, child. You have given us a lot of headache for someone we only hired because her father paid us to!” she yells, making my body freeze.
Time stops as all the blood rushes out of my face.
“He what?” I ask, making Mrs. Lu’s eyes go wide.
Clearly, Ms. Martin wasn’t supposed to tell me that, but her anger let it slip. Tears shoot into my eyes as I sink onto one of the chairs, my legs no longer capable of holding me upright.
“Did you really think things just came that easy, Nevaeh? That a journalist who just started at a company would climb up the ladder so quickly?” she asks, shaking her head in disbelief. “Wake up, child. The world doesn’t work that way, especially not the world of Formula One.”
“Tell me what he did, please,” is all I manage to say, tears collecting in my eyes at the betrayal.
“He paid us to give you a chance. For the first two months, your salary was paid by him as well,” Mrs. Lu explains, but my head is spinning and her words sound distorted. “We didn’t have a position open, so he paid us to open one. He asked for you to be in the Formula One department too, but he wouldn’t tell us why.”
Ms. Martin’s voice is a lot harsher as she continues explaining what my father did.
“When he found out what happened with Gillian and the deal you made with Adrian, he started contacting all of the Formula One teams, convincing them to let you write those articles for every other driver. The ones who didn’t want that, he paid to convince them otherwise. He was behind everything, your success, the reason you got to write those articles. It was all him, none of it you.”
Tears spill down my cheeks as my heart shatters into a million pieces.
“You can’t seriously have thought things would be so… so easy. Do you think other journalists whose fathers aren’t the team principal of one of the biggest Formula One teams would have made it as far as you without much of an effort?” Ms. Martin asks, but it’s a rhetorical question and one she answers as quickly as she phrased it. “No, Nevaeh, they wouldn’t have.”
I can’t take this anymore. The lies, the betrayal, all of it makes my heart ache worse than I’ve ever experienced before, worse than when the doctor told me I’d never be able to play tennis competitively again.
“We can’t keep you on any longer. If a video like this were to get out, the credibility of our company would be questioned. Not even your father can pay us enough money to keep you on, Nevaeh. I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Lu is a lot gentler and more understanding about this situation, but it doesn’t make it any easier either.
“I can’t, I can’t breathe,” I say as I stand up once more and make my way toward the door.
They already fired me so there really isn’t a reason to stick around and have an anxiety attack right there in the office where I don’t feel safe.
My fingers barely hold onto my phone as I struggle to make my way down the stairs and into the hot summer day. I cover my mouth once more when I’m outside, this time to muffle a sob combined with a scream of pain.
None of it was my doing.
None of it was my achievement.
It was Papa’s money, the one thing I’ve been trying to get away from since I started working at Griffin Sports. I was so proud of myself for getting the job, but it was all because of him, not because of who I am, my achievements, nothing.
My arms wrap around my chest while I look around the place I call home. Ms. Lu and Ms. Martin sent me here for what? Why did they turn my life upside down if they only hired me because of my father? Or was it Papa’s idea, too? Is that why he was so adamant about me moving, to chase my independence? Because it was his idea all along?
I feel sick to my stomach.
I guess it makes sense that my father is capable of something like this. He helped Lincoln get a seat at Grenzenlos because of his best friend. He meddles, interferes, and buys people the chances they wouldn’t be given otherwise.
“Are you okay?” a woman asks in French, and I nod, not realizing how much of a scene I’m making until that very moment.
Everything is so messy and complicated now, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve risked everything for a job that wasn’t even mine to begin with, and I hate my father for what he’s done. All I’ve tried to do is establish my own life. Why didn’t he let me? Why did he have to interfere?
Everything was a lie.
Tears stream down my cheeks, but I wipe them away when determination takes over.
I have made a life for myself. Monaco is where I feel at home, which is not something I have ever been able to say about any other place I lived in. None of the other places felt like this, but they also didn’t have the family I found in Val, Gabriel, and Adrian.
I’m running now.
My apartment is only a ten-minute walk from here, and I make it there in seven. I’m texting Adrian to meet me there, more tears streaming down my face. I’ve just lost everything. I lost my job, my relationship with my father is even more damaged than the one with my mother, I’m going to lose my apartment and will probably have to move somewhere cheaper, find a job somewhere else. But I’ve got him, and he’ll catch me now.
I know he will.
He’s at my apartment ten minutes later, not bothering about knocking but simply bursting inside to wrap me up in his arms and let me sob into his chest.
It’s not even anxiety that has me breaking down. In a way, I wish it was. It hurts a lot less than the heartbreak that’s making me cry.
The last five months have been a lie. Everything I was working toward wasn’t mine, and I can’t help but fall apart a little at the thought of only having made a name for myself because my father paid people to get me a job, paid them to further my career. He told me people were praising me, but it was all because of him.
When I manage to say this out loud, Adrian holds me even tighter.
“He may have been the one to get you the job, but you earned it, Nevaeh. You were such a brilliant journalist, the press officer of Formula One hired you through Griffin Sports to write that article for the charity event. If your first article hadn’t impressed at least some of them, they wouldn’t have agreed. I know my team was mind-blown by your work, and that has nothing to do with him. That’s your achievement, Nevaeh, not his.”
I try to acknowledge his words, but I’m hurting too deeply right now to accept them. To let them sink in.
“How could he do this to me?” I ask, leaning back to look into his eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought this would be good for you, that you’d never find out. It was his way of meddling, like parents do, without realizing the repercussions of his actions,” he explains, and I nod along to his words before more tears and sobs leave me.
“I feel so lost now,” I admit, wiping my face with my hands.
“I know, but, I promise, I’ll stay by your side while you find yourself again. I’ll remind you of who you are until you don’t feel so lost anymore.”
He seals that promise with a kiss, one I desperately melt into and cling onto because I love him. I love him so much, a part of me is glad we don’t have to hide our relationship from the world anymore.
I just wish that part was big enough to make my father’s betrayal sting less.