Chapter Six #2
Nick sat up, readjusting his tie and his hair.
His cheeks were as flushed as mine now and he took a deep breath, calming himself after this mortifying start to this meeting.
I knew everyone else in the room, and earned a couple of sympathetic smiles.
Most of them had been in their positions for at least a year except Mike, my dear friend, who was the newly appointed financial controller.
But there was a weird nervousness and tension in the room, which originated from the two unknown quantities present. The Northbys.
I turned to look at Oliver, waiting for him to break the tension with his irrepressible charm. But it was Nick who started speaking first.
‘Right, well, now that everyone has decided to join us,’ Nick drawled, ‘let’s get down to it.
’ He opened his notebook, and I could see a full page of meticulous notes that I suspected carried on to the next page.
‘We enter into this new phase of ownership with a change of direction. An increased focus on professionalism, integrity and service delivery will make Delacqua the hotel chain travellers think of when they are choosing where to stay in Australia. Oliver’s direction for this company is new and fresh.
He will drive this business to meet my standards.
And my standards for our management team are extremely high. We won’t be carrying passengers.’
I looked at him, struck with awe and a little impressed by how much authority he was carrying in his voice.
And while it wasn’t an effusively warm welcome, given that a single manager had swindled a significant amount of money from the business, it seemed important to set the tone and expectations.
New Nick was a force to be reckoned with.
But he also came across as a bit of a prick, as he spent the next forty-five minutes of the meeting interrogating everyone about their departments.
Whenever anyone would say something dumb, which inevitably everyone did given how nervous they were, he would roll his eyes and write a name down on his notepad, before peppering them with questions about figures, which there was no way they could have memorised.
Eventually, Oliver would intervene, taking sympathy on the red cheeks and stammering of his management team.
‘Are you seriously telling me that you do not know off the top of your head what your budget for last year was, Christine?’ Nick fired the question towards our executive housekeeping manager, Christine Anderson (legend, mid-fifties, divorced, came out as a lesbian two years ago).
Christine would normally know these figures, and she was also a fiery bitch. I fully expected her to put him in his place. Instead, she looked as if she was about to cry.
‘Right, well, I think that will do for today. We’ll do this again at the same time next week. I’ll have Abbey send an agenda and some notes for what we are expecting,’ Oliver said.
I almost heard the internal groans.
Nick was up and out the door before anyone else even moved. Then they all filed out, dejected. Ollie tried to make small talk with a couple of them to soothe them, but the clock read five past ten on Monday morning, and his entire team was devastated.
‘I’m going to go get a coffee down the street. I’m on the mobile if you need me, Abs. Did you want one?’ he said as we left the boardroom, handing me his notes from the meeting.
‘I can get you one?’
‘No, I like to walk. It’s a nice day. Gives me time to clear my head.’
‘Okay.’
I headed back to my desk and saw that Nick had taken Oliver’s seat. I walked into the office, putting down Ollie’s notebook while his brother’s dark eyes surveyed me. He stopped typing. I could see tension in his shoulders, so I walked through to the butler’s pantry and put the kettle on.
The kitchenette was so much nicer than my kitchen at home that every time I stepped foot in it, it made me want to move in.
The back wall was all attractively modern cabinet storage.
There was a wine fridge hidden in there, glasses, towels.
The actual kitchen side was a white marble galley.
There was even a dishwasher. I reached for the good china teacups and a pot.
He walked in and leaned against the benchtop, arms folded, lovely legs crossed. The room was completely screened off from the office and we were alone together for the first time today.
‘Where’s Ollie?’
‘He went to get a coffee.’
He snorted as if that was a weakness he did not understand. I tried not to shake my head.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘I’m making you tea.’ I scooped out three teaspoons of tea into the pot and poured in the boiled water, watching the leaves dance about before shutting the lid.
‘Why?’
‘You’re stressed, and I haven’t seen you drink or eat this morning.’
‘Did you make tea for Eric Linden?’
‘No.’
‘You have something to say, Abbey. Go ahead and say it. I didn’t appreciate your eye rolling during that meeting.’
I folded my arms and took a step towards him.
‘I’m a professional, Nick. I did not eye roll once, though the urge to kick you under the table a couple of times did arise.
If you felt my disapproval, maybe that was your inner voice telling you to step it back a notch.
What was the point of alienating everyone in the room? ’
‘I know exactly what I’m doing, Abbey.’
‘Was making everyone terrified of you your aim?’
‘Yes.’
I shook my head. ‘That is not who you are, Nick.’ Fuck. I dropped my eyes to the floor mortified. I had promised myself not to get personal with him.
He tilted my chin until our gazes met. His eyes were shining. ‘If they are terrified of me, Oliver can build relationships with them that work on a much better level. It’s a classic good-cop-bad-cop move. Understood? I don’t need them to know me, Abbey.’
I swallowed at our closeness and nodded.
I could feel the warmth coming from his body and I inhaled him deep in my lungs.
I almost crumbled and put my arms around his narrow waist under the gorgeous jacket.
But then I remembered where we were and who we were now, and I took a step back. Waited for his tea to brew.
‘I want to hold a launch party next Friday night,’ Nick said. ‘Would you mind booking the ballroom and organising an invitation for the staff and their partners? Make it black tie. Give everyone the chance to dress up.’
‘Done.’ I poured him a tea, added a dash of milk and gave it a stir, handing it to him with a biscuit on the side.
‘I don’t need you to make me tea.’ He sipped and then groaned over it. Tea from a pot was a winner. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.
I nodded and left.
***
The first week was done before I knew it. Nick and I had a couple of awkward moments, stepping through doors at the same time and then apologising. An interminable elevator ride.
I had to fight hard against Holiday Abbey.
She was my enemy with Nick. She noticed everything about him.
She could see stress in his shoulders and wanted to massage it out.
She wanted to push his dark curls back off his face and slide into his lap while he drank his fucking tea.
Holiday Abbey wanted to ensure he ate three times a day and laughed at least once an hour.
Holiday Abbey dreamed of Nick and not just Holiday Nick anymore, and it was terrifying.
And what was most terrifying was the knowledge that there was no Holiday Abbey.
There was just Abbey. And Abbey wanted Nick.
Still, his brother and I were a bit of a crack team. We got on well, getting through enormous amounts of work and managing to have a laugh occasionally. I don’t know if it was from our time in the resort, but I felt this genuine warmth and friendship from Oliver.
He had a good head for numbers, had a strategy he wanted to see the marketing team employ, and was engaged, with an excellent work ethic.
His drive gave him high expectations of people, but they were the same expectations he placed on himself.
He was a hard guy not to respect or like.
By the end of the week, we were taking turns buying breakfast and making coffee.
I had lunch with Mike on the Thursday and he gave me the lowdown on the week I missed, and we ended up – naturally – talking about the entire company’s current obsessive topic: the Northby brothers.
Mike Malik was my best bud at work. I actually could not even remember when we had first become friends or why, but I think I needed to do a financial report for Eric for some big meeting and Mike had taken pity on me.
He was thirty-four and the salt of the earth, with a Pakistani dad, and a mum from Penrith, and he had this gorgeous, rugged poshness about him that got him laid constantly.
He was swarthy and handsome, the most adorable human on earth.
‘Let’s talk about the Northbys.’ He pushed my leg as he said this, and his eyes enlarged to the size of planets.
‘Oh, God.’ I shook my head, not wanting to engage. ‘Can we not? Jesus Christ, remember the good old days when we talked about our shared love for Jon Snow.’
Mike ignored me. ‘Sir Brood-a-lot and Prince Charming. They are like a walking, fucking romance novel. I don’t know about you, but I always imagine Englishmen in period costume.
Puffy shirts and tight breeches. And, Abs, Sir Brood-a-lot is a Darcy, which is hot once you get past the fact that he’s an arsehole.
But Prince Charming, fuck me, I would definitely give that a crack. ’
‘I think Oliver is into girls, babe.’
‘How disappointing. Why?’
I shrugged.
‘Right, Abs. Let us talk about frocks for next Friday’s party. I have this emerald velvet tux, which is going to dazzle, hon. What about you? You wanna be my plus one?’
‘Urgh, I don’t think I’m going to make it. Things are a bit tight this week and I have nothing to wear. And I don’t know about mingling, I just … hate shit like that.’