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“I will wait as long as it takes.”
I nodded and thanked him, but I felt strange, as I went back to the bathroom. It was clear that Derrick was in some kind of mood, and I supposed that I was as well. I almost forgot about my cousin, until Angie was loud enough that I heard her. I picked up the phone and walked her into the bathroom.
“He is gorgeous!”
“I know.”
“No wonder you don’t want to give up work. I don’t think I would want to either.”
I agreed again, but it wasn’t really something that I wanted to talk about. It was a sore subject. I was still trying to get my head around Dalian and the promises as it was.
“Why don’t you get him to propose and then you can get rid of Dalian?”
Angie made it sound so easy. I scoffed, secretly wishing that the very thing she suggested would happen. Life wasn’t fairy tales though. It felt impossible. There was no way that it would ever happen.
9
Derrick
Augustine agreed to go out with me for lunch. I didn’t have to speak at the conference until later. She was quiet when I went to get her. I could hear her talking to someone, and I wanted to ask who she was talking to but knew that I couldn’t. I wasn’t her friend; this wasn’t a fun trip. I was her boss, and this was work. I needed to keep reminding myself of that.
A car drove us to a restaurant that I hoped she would like. It was a restaurant that I’d heard her talking on the phone to someone about and I knew that she wanted to go. Her eyes lit up when we got there, and she wanted to know how I knew. I just played it off like it was the place to go. I hadn’t heard of it, but we had gotten reservations, and I think I had finally impressed her. Augustine’s eyes met mine and she seemed a little watery-eyed. I knew what it was about. She was always an emotional person, but this was nice. It meant something, and I didn’t want to lose the momentum. I just had to keep it up. I had a mission for being here with her in Chicago, and it had nothing to do with taping promotional material. I couldn’t have cared less about that. I was here to find out who my competition for her heart was and to blow them out of the water.
We got a seat in the back of the restaurant where it was dark, and I could feel the electricity in the room. It was the sort of place one went to have fun. That was what I was looking for now, fun and whatever else I could get with Augustine.
She knew what she wanted, and ordered for me when I said I had no idea. It wasn’t food that I was familiar with, so I just went with it. I wasn’t that hungry. I just wanted to spend some time with Augustine.
“How is your room?”
Augustine looked nervous. “The room is really nice. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a place like that.” She took a sip of the water that was on the table.
I waved it off, the hotel was okay. I didn’t get into the accommodations or how I felt about them though. That wasn’t really a concern I had. The concern I had was how we were going to get along. I had high hopes for this trip. I was under the impression that all Augustine and I needed was a push in the right direction. That’s what this was, a nudge.
“Is there anywhere you would like to go while we are here?”
Augustine shook her head. “Here was the only place, and I can’t believe I am here. I can go home happy now,” Augustine declared.
“Well, that was easy.”
She agreed that it didn’t take much. I liked watching her so happy, and I would have never guessed that it would be so easy. I’d tried for months to impress her, and all I had to do was listen to her. I am sure that there was a moral to that.
We walked back to the hotel. It wasn’t but a few blocks, but it gave us time to talk a bit more. I was still trying to get information about the man she was going to marry, without making it too obvious that it was what I was trying to do.
“Are you really not going to tell me what is going on with you lately?”
“What do you mean?”
I scoffed. “You are getting married, and I didn’t even know that you were dating someone.”
“I keep my personal life personal. It is better than opening up the paper and seeing all of your exploits on the front page.”
I knew what she was talking about and that was one of the aspects of having money that I didn’t care for at all. Whatever I did, someone was watching, waiting to make a profit off of it.
“You can’t always believe what you read.”
“True, but with you there is a good chance that it is true.”
Augustine was throwing me zingers, and she thought it was funny. Tragically, I had been a mess when it came to women, but I was sure that it was because I wasn’t with the right one. Augustine felt like the right one. It was unfortunate that she was engaged and I was her boss, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t happen. I had faith that it was just going to make the path there a bit different. We were meant to be though, so it had to work out.
