Chapter Eight - Michaela
Chapter Eight
MICHAELA
“I’M SORRY, MICHAELA, BUT he’s not budging,” Elias says from across his oversized mahogany desk. The man across from me isn’t who I imagined when I found his law firm online. I pictured an older man — slicked back gray hair, glasses, maybe a bit of a gut — but that is not who I found when I walked into his office almost three months ago. Elias Donovan reminds me of Rufus Humphrey — if you know, you know. He removes his glasses from the edge of his nose and looks up from the papers in his hands. “He wants it back, in its entirety.”
“What is he going to do with it — propose to his next wife? That’s a little tacky, even for him.”
Elias tries to hide the smile in the corner of his mouth. “The center stone is very important to the family and—”
“I said he can have that one back.”
“And the condo? He wants to sell it, split the proceeds.”
“It’s my condo, he’s barely—”
“You’re both on the deed, Michaela. He has just as much right to want to sell as you do to want to keep it.”
I roll my eyes, I knew putting him on the deed was a mistake. “I bought that condo, Elias. He didn’t put a penny down on it, I just—”
“Doesn’t matter, he’s on the deed.” Elias offers a sympathetic smile. “Look, we can work on it, but we still have the ring to worry about. If you don’t want to give the whole thing back what are you going to do with it?”
“Throw it in the Hudson, probably.”
He can’t hold back his laughter. “Well, please refrain from doing so before the divorce is finalized.”
“No promises, Elias.”
Elias sighs and pulls a cloth from the desk drawer to wipe invisible dust off his glasses. “Michaela, you realize this could have been finalized if you weren’t holding onto the ring. I’m almost positive we could get him to budge on the condo if you’d give the ring back.” Setting his glasses back on his nose, he folds his hands in front of him. "What good is it to drag out the process for something you’re not going to keep anyway?”
He’s right, but that’s not the point. It’s the point that my husband blindsided me with a divorce without any room for discussion or the possibility of fixing it. “I’ll think about it.”
“So, what exactly are we doing here?” Caitlin follows me through the revolving door of the Woolworth Building — home of Villa Inc., NYC — the next morning.
I wave at the security guard sitting at the front desk, and she waves us through. “I wish I could tell you, Cait,” I press the call button for the elevator. “I know as much as you. All she'd tell me is there's something she needs help with at corporate. It's pushed back my probationary period, so I guess I shouldn't complain."
“At least we’re not late.”
“Sure about that?”
She checks her watch with a groan. “You’re a terrible influence.”
We aren’t late, yet, but we will be by the time we get upstairs.
The ride to the twenty-eighth floor takes less than a minute, but it's the longest minute of my life. When the elevator doors open, big, bold letters greet us — VILLA, INC. Underneath them a young redhead with bright red lips talks into the phone, and she holds her finger up to us when we approach the desk. The person on the other end drones on about something she doesn’t care about based on the look on her face, but the smile never falls from her lips. “Okay, well, unfortunately, I can’t give you that information. You will have to wait for a response from Mr. Fields... No, it doesn't matter who— Well, I'm sorry, but that's protocol. You can take it up with him when he gets back with you. Have a great day!” I wait for the smile to falter, but it never does as her attention turns to us. “Morning ladies, they should be in conference room two waiting for you.”
They? Who the hell is they — I thought I was meeting Nina.
“How is she this morning, Liv?” Caitlin asks.
“Seemed to be in a good mood when I got here, she’d already been here by the time I got in, but that was a while ago, so who knows what someone around here could’ve done by now.”
“You’re not inspiring any confidence.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Mrs. VD as much as her counterpart.” Before I can push for more details, the phone rings and she instantly picks it up.
“Sounds like we’re in for the time of our lives,” Caitlin says, looping her arm through mine. She begins to tell me more about the guy she has been seeing for two months as we walk through the halls. Apparently, he’s too good to be true, and in my experience, that means he is, but, I don’t want to burst her bubble. Besides, it worked out for Nick and Nina, right? That should give everyone a little hope.
The environment of Villa Inc. is drastically different from DV Designs. It’s nowhere near as warm and inviting, more executive. Offices are closed off, and the ones with windows have the blinds drawn for extra privacy. DV offices tend to be open and airy, with glass walls and splashes of color throughout the decor. Nina never wants it to feel like a typical office setting, she wants it to inspire creativity and make people feel comfortable. Unlike the feeling I'm getting right now.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The words tumble out before I can stop them walking into the conference room. At the far end of the table sits my worst nightmare — one of them, anyway. “What are you doing here?”
This has got to be some kind of joke, Nina cannot seriously be putting me on a project with Finnley Sheffield . I step outside and double-check the number on the outside of the door — Conference Room 2.
Fuck.
“You here to take my coffee order or something? I’ll take an Americano—”
“We are not your errand girls,” I cut him off.
“Then, you must be in the wrong place because I have a meeting with—”
“Michaela!” Nina hustles through the door with Eddie, her assistant, hot on her heels. “Oh Caitlin, I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Michaela asked if I’d accompany her, in case an extra pair of hands were needed,” Caitlin smiles briefly.
“So, who’s running the office?” Nina’s question is directed at me.
“Jamie and Erin are working—”
“Caitlin,” Nina interrupts, “head back over. I want to be sure the place doesn’t burn down and I can’t trust Jamie won’t start a fire. Michaela will be perfectly fine, they’ll have all the help they need right here.”
Caitlin offers me a sympathetic smile and mouths, ‘Good luck,’ before Nina closes the door behind her.
“Sheff, how was the flight?” Nina asks, settling into one of the seats across from him. Eddie falls into a chair next to her, typing away on his phone. I’ve been there, helping Nina take care of things on the back end, but that was when we were still a smaller firm... I can’t imagine what it must be like now.
“Davina, can I talk to you? Privately.” Finn glares at me from the corner of his eye.
"Finn, we need to— Okay, okay. Fine. Michaela, give us a moment, would you?"
She cannot be serious.
“Michaela, please."
With a sigh, I push out of my chair and step out into the hallway leaving the door partially open so I can still hear their conversation.
“You cannot be serious,” Finn hisses. “You want to put her on this project? Nina, she doesn't have any kind of experience with this type of thing."
“She’s one of my best assets, Finn. She’s a hard worker and very detailed, you need someone like her if you’re going to make this work.”
“Josh said you were about to fire her last week.”
Nina sighs. “Michaela is one of my best employees—”
“You mean friends.”
“Employee, she always has been. I truly think she’s the best person to fill in while I’m gone.”
“You came to me, remember? You asked for my advice. My help, I–"
"Exactly, your help! Not some random person from your office. If I wanted someone with no experience, I would’ve picked someone off the street. Instead, I came to you—”
“I have been more than fair to you with my time and resources, Finnley Sheffield.” The bite in her tone leaves a silence in the air. “While running not one, but two companies, I have helped you beyond what I should have without hesitation. I—”
“We’re both benefitting from this, Davina.”
“You want to continue to receive my help? This is me offering that to you and more… Take it or leave it.”
“I can’t believe this.” Second later, the door swings open to reveal an extra pissed-off Finn. He doesn't seem at all shocked to see me standing in the doorway listening to what was meant to be a "private" conversation. His eyes narrow. “Don’t fuck this up," he grumbles and pushes past me.
Nina continues to glare after Finn even though he has turned the corner out of sight. I swallow the lump in my throat when cold green eyes meet mine.
“Well, he’s a real treat,” Eddie whispers without looking up from his phone.
That’s one way to put it.
“Can we discuss what happened earlier?” I ask stuffing a piece of a California roll in my mouth. Nina offered me dinner at her place before she leaves to meet Nick somewhere out West in the morning, and I couldn't refuse.
“What is there to discuss?” She refills her glass with Chardonnay.
“The fact that you want me to work with the most impossible man on the planet.”
Nina chuckles behind her wine glass. “You wanted a change, right?”
“Anything would be better than working with him. Anything .”
“You’re being a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“I hated him growing up.” I make sure to emphasize the hated. “He has always been an asshole, I don’t know how Josh and Nick have stayed friends with him this long.”
“You didn’t seem to mind him at Josh's wedding.”
“There were hundreds of other people there to keep him preoccupied, and I did everything I could to stay away from him.”
Not that it worked, we still managed to run into each other.
“Look,” Nina sighs, “he’s a little rough around the edges, but Finn is not that bad. I’ve been helping him, but I don’t have the time to keep focusing on it. Besides, I think this is exactly the thing you need.”
"How is this the thing I need?" I stuff another piece of sushi in my mouth.
"It'll help get you out of whatever rut you're in. It’s only two weeks, that’s about all the time left before it goes to the board, anyway; but, in two weeks, if you're still adamant about it, I'll pull you off the project.”
Two weeks, huh? I can do that. I'll make it work. After two weeks, I'll ask her to take me off. Except two weeks will be the end of the probationary period she put me on. If I ask to be taken off… I bite my bottom lip, unsure if I want to ask this next question. “What happened to my month’s probation?”
“We’ll see how things play out.”
Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and for the first time, I see how tired she looks with dark circles under her eyes showing through her makeup. If she’s been working on the new DV offices and helping out with corporate and helping Finn with this project… I can’t imagine. Nina has always been there for me and helped me, continued to put up with me when I messed up, the least I can do is suck it up for two weeks.
"Fine," I sigh. “I’ll help him. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
“You can always call me.”
“And bother you when you finally have a chance to get away from the devil himself? I don’t think so.”
Nina rolls her eyes and finally asks what she’s been wanting to know since she invited me for dinner earlier. “Where’s David, by the way? I was hoping he’d be in town,”
No, she wasn’t, she’s just nosey.
“D.C.,” I lie avoiding her gaze. It’s not a total lie, I assume he is in Washington with Barnes, but I don't know for sure.
“Everything still okay with you two?”
"Yeah, we're fine. Busy, you know how it is." Without having to tell her, Nina knows something is going on, but she’ll wait for me to come to her. I should tell her. She won’t judge, but if I tell someone, that makes it real . And I don’t think I’m ready to admit this is happening to anyone but Elias.
“Listen, you don’t have to tell me, but I’m here when you want to talk.”
“He’s been traveling more than normal with Barnes,” I shrug and pick at the remaining pieces of sushi.
“Aren’t they usually on recess right now?”
“Not yet, still another week or two.” At least, that’s what I remember looking at the calendar last November. “The work never truly stops, does it?”
A soft sigh in return, “No, it doesn’t.”