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“Yes, I'm going to have to leave. You see, I don't think this is what I need to be doing and it's complicated.”
Ms. Cruz stood in front of her and blocked her path.
“You're right, Ms. Tingles, it is complicated, and a lot of things are about to happen but the one thing that is not going to happen is you are not leaving before you go into that boardroom.”
Jessica wasn't prepared for Ms. Cruz to say no. When she realized that the woman was serious, Jessica brought herself to her full height and got ready to push past the woman. All of her thoughts, though, were stopped when they both heard the boardroom door open.
“Jessica, we're ready for you.”
It was Ms. Prince's voice, there was no denying it. Jessica turned around and started to do what she thought was the death walk into the boardroom. For a moment she actually did consider just running out of the door, but she would still have to address this. With her head held high, she walked into the room ready to face the music.
She looked at the smiling faces at the table dreading having to tell them she wasn’t interested, then her gaze fell on Brian. Brian? Her Brian. He was dressed in a casual shirt; his hair was windblown and behind him she saw a suitcase. Why was he here? Jessica gave him a tremulous smile and he gave her a full fledged one back. It took all she had not to run to him.
“Um, Ms. Tingles, would you please take a seat?” a man at the table asked.
“It seems we have a situation that we’ve never run into before. You see, we have two highly qualified candidates to take the interim CFO position.”
Jessica heard a gasp from Ms. Prince. She looked over at her and realized that maybe this wasn’t Ms. Prince’s show after all.
“I appreciate your confidence in me,” Jessica said. “However, I think that Brian Cholan is more what you’re looking for.”
Brian smiled and several members of the table gave a small laugh.
“Well, Ms. Tingles, Mr. Cholan just presented the financials that you gathered and corrected. He says you’ve been doing it for awhile and thinks that experience is invaluable,” the older gentleman at the head of the table said.
“Really? What about the meeting?” she asked Brian. He stood up. “I couldn’t even tell you what happened. My phone died and I didn’t have a charger. I didn’t get your message until on my way back. I thought I needed to think, so I drove back and hit traffic.”
“Your place was a hit. People didn’t come until later because they thought the name said when it opened.”
Jessica covered her mouth and then went to Brian.
“Ms. Tingles?”
Just hearing the gentleman broke into her thoughts and made her remember where she was.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
The man smiled.
“I won’t keep you long. We’ve decided the both of you will be the interim CFOs. Butler is a large enterprise, we will decide at the next board meeting which areas of the company you both have, so we will be able to evaluate you both fairly. Now it seems that you two need to address some other issues that you don’t need the board for.”
“Yes, sir,” Brian said as he pulled her out of the board room. When they were standing in front of Ms. Cruz’s desk, he handed Ms. Cruz his suitcase.
“Have that sent to Peace,” Brian said. Ms. Cruz looked confused and so did Jessica. Then without warning, Brian picked up Jessica into his arms.
“What are you doing?”
“I heard you had an accident and I wanted to make sure that you weren't walking around on that ankle.”
“The swelling has gone down and I can walk just fine. I'm just walking a little slower.”
“It doesn't matter, I wanted to carry you anyway and I have a car downstairs waiting so that we can talk along the way.”
“Brian —”
“No, let me go first. I'm so sorry and I was so wrong. I shouldn't have left, and I shouldn't have given you that stupid ultimatum about breakfast.”
Jessica could feel the tears running down her face, but she wouldn't miss a single word he was saying.
