Chapter 6 Brielle
Brielle
The dim interior is bathed in a soft candlelight glow. Music is quietly playing in the background, almost too low to be heard over the sophisticated murmurings of the patrons. Everything is either white, gold, or glass as I glance around and take in the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever been to.
Damian tells the ma?tre d’ the name the reservation is under.
Apparently, Leon and Pam Vitale are already here. The ma?tre d’ takes my long puffer coat and hands me a ticket, all without batting an eye. Everyone here is dressed to the nines, and I imagine my puffy jacket sitting on a rack surrounded by furs and designer coats.
I pull at my dress as my belly erupts in a flurry of butterflies.
It reminds me of my freshman year of high school when I joined the drama club.
I auditioned for a small part as the townsperson in the production of Our Town.
I bombed the audition so badly that they gave me the role of hay bale, where I had to sit in the itchiest costume ever in the back of the stage for ninety minutes.
With a too-quick breath, I squash down my nerves, offering Damian a tentative smile.
“It’ll be fine,” he reassures me quietly, like he can see the panic that’s growing inside of me. I appreciate his encouragement, until he adds sharply, “Just don’t screw this up for me.”
His haughtiness actually helps. I huff out a chuckle, stretching my mouth into a happy smile, and gaze at him adoringly. “I’m enchanting to be around. Can you say the same?”
“Enchanting, no. Tolerable… sometimes.”
I think he made a joke, but before I can process it, we’re coming to a stop at a table in the center of the room.
A middle-aged couple grins at us with obvious delight.
The man is weather-beaten, deep lines creasing his skin, but the twinkle in his eye shines too bright to notice anything else.
The lady next to him looks chic and classy, almost in complete contrast to her husband’s rugged exterior.
Her eyes aren’t twinkling though. They have a shrewdness about them that throws me off-balance, like she can see under my skin.
“Damian, it’s great to see you in person. Please, sit, sit. Both of you,” the man says, rising out of his chair to greet us.
“Thank you for inviting us,” he says.
Damian pulls my chair out for me. I sit as properly as I can in this short dress as he tucks me into the table. His every move is filled with confidence and elegance. I rub my hands down my dress again, careful to make sure my smile doesn’t crack.
“Hi, I’m Brielle.” I reach over and shake Pam’s hand, then Leon’s.
Pam introduces herself and Leon for my benefit. I see her eye Damian, and I can’t help but think that she is unimpressed with his manners, or lack thereof.
“This place is beautiful.” I smile, pulling her attention back to me.
“Have you not been here before?” she asks.
“Oh, no,” I chuckle. The idea of it strikes me as completely laughable. Until Damian puts his hand on my knee and discreetly squeezes.
Shoot. Of course my very successful, very rich boyfriend would have brought me to nice restaurants before. Panic rises as I think of how to recover from that slip.
“Brielle and I prefer to stay in,” Damian says.
His lips tip up in a knowing smirk, and I can feel the blush rushing to my face.
He did not just insinuate that we’re just locked in his apartment doing the deed every day!
I look at him lovingly while simultaneously trying to set him on fire.
He gives me a warning look right back, and I turn to the table with a shy smile.
Luckily, no one seems to notice our little exchange.
Damian changes the subject, getting right into business. “Tell me about the adventure tours you’ve been running. Is that where you see the business going?”
Leon launches into a series of stories the adventures he and Pam have gone on.
“These experiences mean the world to us, but a lot of people don’t even know where to begin when planning for something like this.”
“Sure. And you cater to a variety of skills? Or do you prefer more experienced adventurers or more amateur ones?” Damian asks. He might as well have a notebook with the way he asks questions. It’s like he’s interviewing Leon rather than having a normal conversation over dinner.
“All skills, all levels, all the folks,” Leon shouts, unconcerned with Damian’s dry approach. “My tours have something for everyone. The ones we’ve got up and running already have been great. Real great.”
The server comes to our table just then with a bottle of wine. I follow Damian’s lead since honestly I have no idea if the wine is any good. I was more of a shots girl in my early twenties, and now I often stick to the hard seltzers you can find in a can.
Damian defers to Leon to make the call, but he is already waving the server away.
“I’m sure it’s fine. Fill ’em up,” Leon says to the server. He smiles at Damian and me. “I wouldn’t know the difference between a twelve-dollar bottle or a twelve-hundred-dollar bottle.” His laugh is infectious. It’s a whole-body experience, from his belly to his shoulders to his face.
I take a sip after the server fills our glasses, immediately choking on how dry the wine is.
Damian takes it from my grip, setting it on the table.
“A water, please,” he says to the server. Although his request is polite, in his low voice, it sounds more like a command.
“Sorry. I’m good. Just went down the wrong pipe,” I choke out.
Damian doesn’t say anything, his dark eyes staring into the server until he bounds away to get a glass of water for me.
As soon as he’s gone, Damian starts on how much CreativEdge can do for their business, in its current state and any future upscaling they may see.
My water comes a few minutes later, and as I take a sip to sooth the scratch in my throat, I can’t help but notice Pam’s eyes tracking him, bouncing between Damian and me as he focuses his attention on Leon.
Her shrewd gaze causes uneasiness to unfurl in my stomach.
I adjust my smile and reach out to rub my hand across Damian’s shoulder.
He tenses beneath my touch, and I see a flicker of emotion light up behind his eyes.
Is it frustration? Confusion? Interest? I can’t really be sure.
“Babe,” I start. “Maybe leave the work talk for a minute. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.”
The look he gives me makes my insides wither just a little. I talk with my eyes, telling him to back off the hard sell and get to know them as people.
He turns from me without a word, but his hand slides across the back of my chair, his fingers brushing across my upper back. Sparks lit up my skin like pinpricks of electricity. My breathing gets faster. My dress feels tighter around my ribs.
Pam says something, but I completely miss it, too focused on the sensation of Damian’s touch on my skin.
Get your head in the game, Brielle.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.”
Pam smiles a Cheshire cat grin. “What about you two? You must have some fun stories to tell.”
I lean into him, the spicy scent of his cologne tickling my nose.
Okay, I can do this. Flashbacks to fourteen-year-old me standing on that stage dressed as a bale of hay come to the forefront of my mind. I turn to face Damian, hoping he’ll take the lead.
The only thing we rehearsed was that we met six months ago at a party.
I have nothing else to work off. And if acting isn’t my forte, then improv really isn’t in my repertoire.
Once again, I am rethinking every decision that brought me to this point, as I have since the moment Damian showed up at my door instead of texting like I told him to.
Evelyn better be suitably happy that I managed to get that extra day off for her, I know that much.
“What about us? Oh, that’s sweet,” I say. My mind is racing so fast, but I can’t seem to pin down any normal relationship behaviors.
“We’ve been together for six months,” Damian says matter-of-factly. He couldn’t sound more rehearsed if he tried.
I stop myself just shy of rolling my eyes and plaster a smile on my face as I lean into him. “It’s actually our six-month anniversary today,” I add.
Damian hugs my shoulder, pulling me closer to him a little too tightly. My brain catalogs how good he smells and stores it in the back of my mind. All the while, I try to look like this isn’t the most awkward moment of my life.
In fairness, it’s not. I have my lovely cousin Cassie to thank for that honor, but it is still very clearly unnatural the way Damian and I are acting.
I pat his chest and pull back a little. He squeezes my shoulder, and for a second, I’m not sure if he’s going to let me go. “Brielle is an accountant at CreativEdge. She makes sure all of the financial stuff is taken care of so I can spend my time focusing on what really matters. You.”
I freeze. My blood turns to ice in my veins as Damian pitches Leon on all the ways CreativEdge is outperforming its competitors and how their client-focused approach extends throughout every level of the organization while we wait for our meals.
Watching Damian in his element is a sight to behold.
He speaks intelligently, listens intently, asks relevant questions that prompt Leon to keep talking.
I don’t know why it surprises me so much, but it does.
He’s a businessman, and a successful one at that.
Of course he knows how to talk to people or, better yet, get them to do the talking.
Fire still bristles beneath the surface though.
Why did he have to tell them that I worked for him?
We didn’t discuss that particular point coming into this, but I thought it was obvious.
No one respects the woman they think is climbing the corporate ladder the hard way.
Damian is so focused on his own agenda, making sure he highlights all of the ways CreativEdge can benefit the Vitales.
He couldn’t care less that he just destroyed my reputation oh so casually.