GRACE.
Director Lancelot Howard looked so pleased to see me, I cringed, wishing he could make it less obvious.
I bet he was thinking he had finally won me over. The main problem I had with men who were rich and handsome enough to get any woman they wanted, whenever they wanted, however they deemed fit.
Lance was one of those kind of men. Alpha Connor Shelby was definitely at the top of the list.
There I go again! The same name, the same person I was trying so hard to wipe off my mind. I hated to admit it, but he was the only reason I agreed to let Director Lance drive me to work today. And with the smug look the director was giving me, I wished I could take back saying yes and agreeing to his offer.
He made me generally uncomfortable. He was too focused on himself and the impression he would be making on others. I wasn’t sure I had met the real him yet, if at all it existed.
He rushed to open the door wielding his heavy air of chivalry, smiling down at me provocatively as I slid into his magnanimously expensive car.
He was trying really hard. Too hard, enough to make a conscious person like myself feel pressured.
He rushed into the driver’s seat and instead of starting the engine, rested his palm on my hands like it was something he did every day. “Thanks for saying yes, Grace,” he gazed at me with a serious expression, his eyes darker than the usual brown.
Slightly irritated, I pulled my hand from under his and sent him an obviously forced smile. Certainly, he wasn’t deluding himself into thinking I had agreed to go out with him, only because I had said yes to his driving offer, right?
He chuckled at my discomfort, started the engine and drove out of my compound’s driveway onto the streets.
“How is Laurel?” he asked on a lighter note, facing the road.
“She’s fine” I replied curtly.
“Who’s babysitting her tonight?” he asked in a non-committal manner.
“My friend Jody.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” he smiled and fell silent, even though it was obvious he had lots to say but couldn’t because of my cold treatment. So he drove us quietly all the way to work.
I alighted from the car as soon as he turned off the engine, before he could perhaps decide to be unnecessarily chivalrous, coming down to open the door for me himself. I wouldn’t have it. This was where the both of us worked, and people here liked to stick their noses into other people’s business.
I expected Michelle my colleague who had an obvious crush on the director to give me an earful tonight. After all, she saw me step off his car as she was coming down from hers.
Director Lance’s office was above everyone else’s. He rarely came out during work hours for anything related to work, asides press conferences.
“I guess Grace wasn’t as tenacious as she acted after all.” Michelle started mumbling even before we both had the chance to settle into our individual cubicles, after the director went upstairs of course. “After acting all standoffish and impenetrable like the great wall of Berlin had nothing on her,” she scoffed under her breath.
I ignored her and dived straight into work. We were both on permanent night shifts, and that if course meant we had more to do than day workers, so listening to her was going to distract and slow me down.
I had a child to take to school by morning, she didn’t.
“Who has seen the latest news from Starcent?” Emma Lee, our Editor-in-Chief swept out of her office in all her redhead glory, holding her tablet up. She wasn’t supposed to still be at work since she was a day worker and our head editor. But she was a workaholic, a perfectionist whose OCDs wouldn’t allow go home until she was done with her day’s work.
Often, she worked late into the night. I didn’t particulaly have anything against her, of course, except that she made life harder for us. It was usually a thing of joy whenever she took a day off, something she rarely did.
So, about the Starcent thing, I and the others who were busy typing away on their computers looked up, fully aware Emma Lee wasn’t expecting an answer from us.
And even if she was, I believed a lot of us had no idea what she was talking about, as evidenced by the blank look on our faces.
“Alpha Connor Shelby was seen in Dior’s Diner, close to Essex, and the reporter thought he came there to meet a woman, according to the article and pictures here.” She jabbed her finger at the open pages of a magazine.
Uhuh. Can I ever escape from this man for heaven’s sake? I gritted my teeth in frustration. Everywhere I go, Connor, Connor and more Connor.
There were stifled gasps in the room as though he was too special to be found in Essex. Well guess what y’all, I made him come there! The subject of the article you’re going to purr about is seated right here with you.
How could I ever let myself get involved with someone whose life was out there in the public like a monument?
“And I know other dailies would be scrambling for an exclusive interview with him this time, so we have to triple our tenacity in a more rigorous manner.” Her voice came out forcefully some of us had to cower on our seats.
“But his secretary has always turned us down, Ms. Emma,” Michelle the gutsy one pointed out almost in a whisper to our Editor who frowned and took few steps closer to her cubicle.
“Why do you think I said to triple our tenacity?” She continuously tapped one of her foot on the tiled floor. “You’re always the first to point out a problem rather than give a solution, Michelle.”
She turned to face everyone else, leaving Michelle whose face fell with embarrassment.
“Start thinking of a way to get through Alpha Connor’s secretary. Don’t stop, keep sending letters and keep calling till they give us a chance.”
She sauntered off to the exit but stopped at the door.
“Ms. Steph?” she said to the youngest worker among us, a blonde beautiful new face. “Start working on the interview, let’s be positive that they give us a chance.” She finished and strolled out the door, back into her office.
I went back to work, flooded with relief that I wasn’t the one asked to prepare the interview for Connor Shelby.
The sheer awkwardness and absurdity of it. Imagine asking him the questions regarding the identity of the woman at Dior’s Dinner, by me, the very woman at Dior’s Diner.
This whole thing is last headache I needed in my life right now.