I turned around and marched out of the club.
I knew it was over between us, there was no way back from the fight we’d just had. Then there was this girl, Mandy, and I knew there was something going on between them.
I felt incredibly lonely suddenly. This was not how I wanted this evening to go. I’d been looking forward to switching off, to seeing my boyfriend, and have a few drinks, maybe dancing and staying up late. I had not wanted to have a fight with Dax, to say things I didn’t want to. I knew it was the job, the stress of the past few weeks getting to me. It hadn’t helped that I’d seen that girl all over Dax, knowing they were probably far closer than they should be.
I went home and found our apartment dark and quiet. I got into bed and pulled the covers over my head, wanting to sleep and forget about the whole bloody evening. By the time I got up the next morning, my head was throbbing with a monster headache. I got dressed and dragged myself off to work.
I was in a bad mood and feeling rotten. I avoided the others, getting coffee and settling down to work at my computer. I checked my emails and started doing my usual sweep of social media updates. There were some Facebook pages going live for some of the products and I had been supervising the process with the designers and the developers. There had been a rush to finish the project as management apparently wanted the pages live by the end of the week. There was still a bit to be done and I pushed myself all day to finish writing the copy and get the pages ready. I worked through lunch, enjoying the pressure of the deadline to take my mind off other things.
Then, at around three o’clock, Diaz called me into his office.
“Turns out we’re not going live after all with the Facebook updates.”
“What?”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“I just heard. There was a meeting upstairs…Carol met with the CEO, I think. They’re rethinking the individual pages.”
“Are you kidding me?!” I thought my head was going to explode, like in one of those cartoons. The fury building up in me was frightening. I had suggested one page for the brands and had been told to instead build individual pages for each product in the brand line. It had been a staggering amount of work, and now, like that, they were having “a rethink?”.
“This is good news, right?” Diaz was trying to calm me down. “At least, you can go home and have a weekend. No need to rush anything through today.”
I thought of the weekend ahead, two days of thinking about nothing but my failed relationship and my horrible job. It was all too much.
I walked out of Diaz’s office and straight past my computer.
“Hey, where are you going?” Tash asked me as I walked past her desk.
“I’m going to have a little chat with Mr. Sweet Cheeks,” I said.
“What?”
I knew I was crossing a line, that I was about to do something I would regret. But I didn’t care anymore. I’d been pushed too far, and I’d had enough.
I stood at the elevator and pressed the button. Tash came after me.
“Wait!” she called, but the elevator opened, and I got in, closed the doors.
On the executive floor, I got out and walked straight to Matthew’s office. I knew which one it was. It was at the end, a big glass structure with a huge area outside for meetings and who knew what else. I walked straight past the personal assistant who tried to stop me.
“Wait! Who are you? Do you have an appointment?”
I could see Matthew in his office, talking on the phone. I didn’t knock on the door but walked right in. The secretary followed closely behind me, trying to talk me out of going in but I ignored her. Matthew turned around and saw me, frowned, and ended his call.
“I’m sorry Mr. Waterstone, she barged right in!” his frightened PA said.
“That’s right,” I said. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
Seeing him sitting there in his designer shirt with his bottled water and his expensive watch ticking off the minutes of his day in exquisite detail made me angrier than before. It was like he was better than anyone else, sitting up here in his glass tower stepping on other people’s lives in his exquisitely handmade Italian shoes.
“Can it wait?” he asked, sounding so civilized and polite that I thought I would physically attack him.
“I’m afraid it can’t.” I said, trying to copy his tone.
He stared at me and said to his PA, “You know, Wanda, it’s fine. Let me deal with this.”
“But, what about your…”