ELEVEN
“I GOTTA STAY ON GUARD, I’M BEING SMART AND PLAYING MY CARDS RIGHT.” G HERBO
ONE YEAR LATER
The funny thing about getting your life back on track was that nobody warned you how exhausting it would be.
For months, Nina was confident that she missed the pressure of yearning for success.
She replaced Jio with meetings, responsibility, partnerships, and literally drowned in it, but was she happy?
Did she truly have peace or was she just filling several voids that were empty due to the lack of his presence?
She wasn’t searching for contentment. Shit, she didn’t even care about being happy anymore, but the young girl in her that had read Romance books way before it was her time did at least desire to be fulfilled by something…
anything. So far, the only thing that had filled her cup and overflowed it was him.
The distinction mattered because happiness was fleeting. Happiness was a good meal. A promotion. A vacation. A new pair of shoes. Happiness came and went whenever it pleased. Fulfillment was different… it lingered.
At least that’s what everybody kept telling her. Nina wasn’t entirely sure she believed them.
The black Range Rover eased into her reserved parking space beneath Marcelle & Co.
headquarters just before eight o’clock. The familiar sight of her name printed neatly on the executive parking sign still felt strange sometimes.
It wasn’t because she hadn’t earned it or wasn’t earning it on a daily basis, but it was due to the fact that her parents subtly reminded her how stupid she’d been to give it up for a short period of time.
They gloated in the fact that she’d come crawling back.
Nina had done a good job of pretending like their words or lack of emotion towards her didn’t bother her, but without Jio and his family, whom she’d grown close to, she was heavily affected.
The garage buzzed with activity around her as employees hurried toward the elevators while struggling to balance coffee cups and laptop bags. Delivery drivers maneuvered carts through loading docks.
She remained seated inside the vehicle for a moment after turning off the engine.
The habit started shortly after returning to Marcelle & Co.
Every morning, she had sixty seconds to get her mind right.
But one minute sometimes turned into three, and depending on the night she had before, three could easily become thirty.
It was a time stamp for her to remember who she was and WHOSE she was before she walked through the doors of her family’s company.
Nina Marcelle was more than the granddaughter who took over.
She was more than an Ivy League graduate.
She wasn’t just Jio Gotti’s ex-girlfriend.
Nina was trying her best not to live by the standards that others had set for her.
She was just Nina… a girl who, behind all the titles and accolades, was…
actually, she was still trying to figure that part out.
Who was she without Jio? What did her life look like after work ended? Sadly, the problem was that she still wasn’t sure who that woman was. The realization followed her more often these days. Success had answered many questions, and simultaneously, it created several new ones too.
Her phone buzzed. It was Ava, her new assistant.
“Good morning,” she answered on the third ring.
“Hey, just checking to see what’s your ETA.
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Am I late for something?” she questioned just to be sure.
“I called because your publicist has called ME three times.”
Nina smacked her lips. “For what now?”
Stacey had become both a blessing and a tiny pest, but only when she wanted her to step out of her comfort zone.
She’d transformed her from a corporate executive into someone that people wanted to hear speak.
Nina had been booked and busy. Panels. Live talk shows.
Interviews. Magazine features. Headlining at leadership conferences.
Commencement speeches at the top ten schools in the country.
You name it and Nina Marcelle had done it or was making it happen soon.
She wasn’t complaining but sometimes it did feel like she was less of a CEO and more like a traveling motivational speaker.
“A news station reached out and─”
“I’m coming up now. I haven’t had coffee yet,” she gave a silent warning that this wasn’t the proper time for the conversation at hand.
“See you in a minute, your vanilla latte awaits!” Ava promised.
“God, do what only you can do today. My life is in your hands. I trust you with every part of me. Let your light shine through so others see all of you and none of me. Bless this day. In Jesus name I pray, amen,” Nina said a quick prayer.
While she felt weak in many areas of her life these days, one thing that had been strengthened was her relationship with Christ. The best decision she ever made was to get consistent in her walk and it’d truly been the highlight of the past three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.
Nina credited God in every interview. Proudly boasting that she was nothing without her Heavenly Father.
The elevator ride gave Nina just enough time to prepare her mind for another day.
Once the doors opened onto the top floor, better known as the executive floor, she was greeted with the hustle and bustle that she’d grown to love.
The phones were ringing, a mixture of different talks was happening that she overheard: Marketing.
Finances. Legal. A minor spat between two employees was being resolved by HR in one of the meeting rooms. Nina made a mental note to ask Ava for the tea.
The smell of coffee mixed with a freshly lit candle wafted through her nostrils as she made her way into the corner suite office.
Deadlines were approaching all across the board, which was why she had a change of clothes in an oversized LV bag swung over her shoulder in case she pulled an all-nighter and wanted to change into something more comfortable.
Ava appeared in lightning speed. The young girl, not too far from her in age, moved with the efficiency of somebody who secretly enjoyed organization far more than normal people should.
“Investor meeting at ten,” she started off with the happenings of the day.
Nina nodded.
“Marketing presentation moved to eleven.”
“Can we do 12:30?” She knew that she would be hungry by then and wanted to eat in peace. Nina wasn’t a huge fan of lunch meetings if she didn’t already know you.
“Well, the call with your mom and the foundation is at one.”
Nina rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“Black Enterprise wants a follow-up interview.”
Her assistant saw how shocked Nina was at the news. “I told you that you were famous now.”
Nina rolled her eyes playfully and warned her, “Don’t start.” She didn’t want to be associated with that word… at least not yet. She wasn’t confident that she’d done enough work to be considered famous.
“I'm serious.”
She turned around and stared out into the gray skies.
The view from her office was everything.
The floor-to-ceiling windows were a girl boss’s dream come true, even if her future had been handpicked for her by her family.
Nevertheless, she was still grateful. There was a brown-skinned girl somewhere on her knees, praying for an office that resembled hers.
She took nothing for granted. Nina whispered, “You will do great things today.”
She tossed her headphones over her ears and entered into a no-distraction zone. She was lucky to be able to be productive in her office. In contrast, in her circle of corporate colleagues, everyone collectively agreed that they got more work done everywhere except the office. Nina was the opposite.
Home was her safe haven and she would rather burn the midnight oil in its designated space than to bring it home. Hours ran away from her, and before she knew it, the days began to blend together from meeting to administrative work. She made decisions for a living.
Decisions were made though and budgets were approved while campaigns were in the final review stage.
This was her life now and what a good one it was.
In the midst of meetings, Nina conducted a few one-on-ones with employees to solve problems, speak life into many, and made a few promises of promotions and raises to others.
She was aware that she wasn’t doing the work alone and wanted to reassure her team that their sacrifices weren’t going unnoticed.
It felt like she’d been on go since she stepped off the elevator, which was true, so by six p.m., she was downright exhausted and was struggling to focus long enough to do anything else that required her to use her brain.
It was the perfect excuse to skip out on dinner with her line sisters. It was her mama’s idea for her to reconnect with the ones that lived in the city, about seven of them in total.
The group chat had been active all day. Nina had been threatened twice that if she didn’t show up, then they were done with her, this time for real.
Apparently, she had canceled three separate outings over the past month. According to them, this made her a terrible friend, and unfortunately, they weren’t wrong.
Nina stared at the messages, per usual she was overthinking a simple response.
For her, the truth was uncomfortable and she’d always struggled with saying no.
She missed something that she had yet to really have, and that was a group of friends that she could trust. Friends who weren’t attached to business relationships and needed something.
Friends that didn’t come through the likes of someone else.
Yes, she had Danyelle, but she felt like she’d left her when she needed her the most. She was currently on sabbatical in Spain.
“I gotta do this for me,” she told her with watery eyes the morning before her departure.