Tongue Tied

Chapter 11

                   

Clapping, whistling, and glasses clinking erupted from the audience as Sean Ashworth left the stage. He'd spent a short time explaining how Harper Media would be working on the campaign, and then took only three questions from the press before making a grand exit in which champagne spilled out of his glass with every step he took descending the steps.

I stood at the back of the ballroom in shock. I was more angry than surprised though. How could Alec do this to me? I turned around to see him standing in the doorway with a look on his face like a five-year-old who'd just found out his pet fish died. When he saw how livid I was, he retreated back into the hallway out of sight. Unable to keep a lid on my rage, I marched right after him, ending up halfway down the corridor in front of the painting we'd previously been standing by.

Alec looked devastated. He loosened the knot in his tie as if it were choking him, swallowing hard and frowning at the carpet before looking at me again. "Bree, I-"

"You can explain?" I interrupted, placing my hands on my hips in expectance. "Oh, this better be good, Alec!"

I was fuming. I doubted there was a single thing he could say that would make me refrain from dragging him back into the ballroom and embarrassing the hell out of him in front of everyone.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair, some strands of his bangs falling down again when he cleared his throat to speak. "Look, I didn't mean to hurt you. I-"

"So this is the deal you had to go to Los Angeles for!" I snapped, shooting daggers at him. "This is why you held me up so I couldn't see Sean!"

He hung his head in shame. "Bree-"

"No! Shut up!" I barked at him, getting right in his face. I felt kind of stupid since he was so much taller than me and I had to stand on my tiptoes, but I had a point to make and I wanted him to feel guilty. I wanted him to feel like absolute shit when I was done dressing him down. "You knew how important this deal was to Corbin and Hilliard! You knew what this meant for me as an ad agent! You knew how hard I was working to get this client! And you didn't give a damn, did you?"

"I-"

"Did you?!" I yelled louder.

I knew I was making a huge scene but I didn't care. Dozens of people had filtered out of the ballroom by now as the event was coming to a close, and Alec and I had quite the audience. I knew people were staring but that was the farthest thing from my mind. All I could focus on was making Alec feel like crap for stealing my potential client, and if having an audience made him feel worse, I was entirely okay with that.

He grabbed my arm, forcing me to follow him into a nearby laundry room. No one was in the room and the only noise was that of three washing machines and a dryer tossing clothes around. Alec threw his body into a small metal chair beside one of the machines and rested his chin on his folded hands. He stared at the cracked tile floor while we both waited for the other to speak.

"I never said I didn't care, Bree," he breathed, still staring at the floor.

I stood in front of him with my arms crossed, tapping my foot impatiently. I couldn't understand why he'd done this to me. I knew we were competitive but that didn't mean we had to hurt each other over it. I had no doubt Mr. Hilliard and Mr. Corbin were going to blow a gasket when I told them what happened and which agency Rutherford Laurence had chosen. I was ready to throw all the blame on Alec, even if some of the fault might be mine.

Before we'd called a truce, Alec and I had been the most competitive people in the local advertising industry. We both had goals of acquiring the biggest clients and impressing our bosses to work our ways up the ladder. We had dreams of moving out of North Carolina and either working for one of the huge international agencies or starting our own. We both had long lists of things we wanted to accomplish, and we didn't care who we screwed over to achieve them. Alec had stolen numerous clients from me when I worked for Parker and Associates - which was probably another reason Genevieve still hated me - and I'd sweet talked several of Harper Media's clients, offering services they couldn't refuse to get them to move over to Parker.