Authors: Anna Belle
Maria noticed his mood change instantly.
"You look a lot better Mr. Greco." She commented. "You should really go there more often." She said, curious about where he went that fix his mood so drastically.
"I was at a small restaurant." He said honestly, letting her mind wonder about who he was there with.
He loved to play these small games with Maria. He wanted to make her mind wander about who he could have possibly taken out for dinner, but he didn't want to give her too much information so she would find out.
He came into his personal office, which overlooked the city of Austin in his penthouse. He yelled out of the room for Maria to make some sandwiches for dinner and that she's free to do what she wishes after. He liked to be alone in his home, to be able to think without distraction. He worked late into the night, e-mailing his findings thus far to William before turning off the monitor.
He went downstairs into the kitchen, poured himself a drink and went out on the large terrace. He looked up at the full moon, admiring the way the moonlight hit the pool. He grabbed one of the chairs and brought it closer to the pool, loving the freshness of it all and the fact that this was possible in the middle of a busy metropolis like Austin.
As he gazed into the distance and sipped on his drink, he began to think. He felt how his muscles slowly relaxed and how much he enjoyed the quietness and stillness of his high oasis.
The sound of knocking knocked him back to reality. He walked into his penthouse and looked through the peephole of his large door. To his surprise, it was Marie, looking as angry as he'd ever seen her. He sighed and opened the door.
"Marie!" He announced loudly, trying to sound enthusiastic.
He smiled at her, hoping that his happiness would rub off on her. Maybe she didn't have a problem with him and she had troubles with work, he hoped.
"You are just ... you." She said, pointing her finger at him.
"A horrible man!" She finally let out.
"And what did I do to deserve such a lovely compliment?" He tried to joke with her.
"Jokes? It's always jokes with this guy." She shook her head.
He had never seen her so angry before and, worse of all, he didn't even know what caused it.
"Marie? What's going on?" He tried to calm her by placing his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't touch me! You think I'm stupid and I won't find out who bought that wine for me? You followed me!" She screamed at him. "You're a stalker now Nathan?! That's low, even for you!"
"It was a complete accident that I saw you at that restaurant."
"Why didn't you say anything to me, if you happened to be there "just by accident"?" She asked, still furious at the fact that she could never get away from this man. It seemed to her that he followed her everywhere she went.
"I didn't mean to seem like a stalker and sorry you wasted your time trying to find out who sent you the wine."
"You're acting all stupid now, you really don't understand the type of trouble you caused me with this?" She asked, seemingly more furious than before.
"What trouble?" He asked seriously, noticing how close she was to crying.
"I turned out to be the real idiot." She said as a tear rolled down her cheek.
Nathan instinctively came close to her and hugged her, laying her head gently against his chest. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her go.
"Let me go! You're the one that caused all of this!" She yelled out as she hit his chest with her hands.
"I didn't mean for this to happen." He tried to explain himself. "What happened? Why are you like this?" He asked, still confused at why she was crying.
"Bruce lost it from jealousy." She said as she looked up at him, tears streaming down her face.
"I can't say I'm sorry about that." He said and immediately regretted it. "Hey! I was joking!" He quickly added as she got even angrier and tried to push herself away from his arms. "I'm sorry it came to this." He said and hugged her even closer. "Come, tell me what happened." He said softly as he pulled her into his penthouse and closed the door behind her.
"I thought Bruce bought me that wine, since I was meeting him at the restaurant." She said in one breath. "I thanked him when he came to dinner but he said that he never ordered anything. You can imagine how I felt and how he felt. Like two idiots, we stared at each other, unsure of what to say."
"Marie, I'm sorry, really I am." He wiped her tears with his hand. "I only had the best intentions." He said as he gazed into her eyes, they sparkled with her tears.
Without thinking about it, he dropped his head and looked for her lips. She helped him find them. He felt how she didn't resist and he eased his way into her.
A second later, she moved away from his embrace. She blinked her eyes furiously, her lips moved, but she couldn't get anything out. Her cheeks turned a bright shade of red.
She moved her hands around, unsure of what to even do with them, then she just stopped and looked at him. He stood at the very edge of the pool, on the terrace. With all her strength she pushed him and Nathan fell into the cold water.
She turned around, grabbed her things and disappeared into the penthouse.
Nathan heard the large door of his penthouse open and slam shut. At that moment, he couldn't even understand what happened to him. The cold water completely rattled him. He couldn't believe that she could do that, to push him into the pool like that.
He made his way to the edge of the pull and climbed out. Still confused at the suddenness of it all, he made his way into the penthouse and straight to the bathroom.
Marie jumped when the door to her office opened. She held her breath as the door opened to reveal her father.
"Seems like you were expecting someone else." He noticed the paleness on her face.
"No, I'm not expecting anyone. I was too focused on my work so I didn't hear you knock." She tried to lie.
"You were never a good liar." He said with a smile.
"You tried though, but let's hear the truth now." He pulled a chair out and pulled it in front of her desk.
"I lost control yesterday." She looked away from him, not really sure how to tell him the truth.
"Not like it's the first time." He said with a laugh, trying to make her smile.
He hoped that whatever she did, wasn't really as bad as she was trying to make it seem.
"It's the first time I've lost control to this degree." She said as worry appeared in her eyes.
"Marie! What did you do?" He yelled out.
"I pushed Nathan in the pool." She admitted and immediately covered her face with her hands.
"Which pool?" He asked, not believing what his daughter just told him.
"A small pool in his penthouse."
"Marie ..." He shook his head in disbelief.
"I know now that it was wrong but ..." Her shoulders sunk.
"That's why you jumped when I came in, because you expected him to come in."
"I hope I don't see him today."
"You know that Nathan didn't even come in today? He didn't even let me know." O'Conner looked worried. "Who knows what happened to him. God, I hope he didn't hurt himself or get sick from that cold water." He got up from his chair.
"Nathan didn't come in today?" She looked worriedly at her father.
O'Conner moved towards the window and leaned on it.
"You should go and check up on him and apologize." He ordered her. This was the first time that he did that but, right now, he didn't have a choice.
"I can't." She shook her head.
"What do you mean you can't?" He asked, a bit furious at the fact that she would even answer back to him.
"It's like you don't even understand that our future and this companies futures rest on him! It's like you don't understand that from his report and his view of our company ..."
"Alright! I'll go." She cut him off.
"I really don't know what's gotten into you lately, but every single time you are with that man you do something stupid and rash." He looked worriedly at her.
"He brings it out of me ..." She shook her head. "I don't know, he's the only one that can get me that upset."
"I know why, and you know why too." He crossed his arms on his chest.
"No, it's not why you think it is. Whatever happened then is in the past."
"Do you even feel anything towards him?" He asked her, hoping that she could work out her feelings towards the man, regardless if she would answer him or not.
"I don't know. I feel bad for what I did to him and I can't think about anything else at the moment."
"Do you know when a person is sure that they don't feel anything towards another person?" Since she just looked at him, he continued to explain it to her. "When that which is happening to the other person doesn't make any sort of impact in their life." He added, hopeful that she would understand what he was trying to get across. "And it seems to me that you're very shaken up about what you did to Nathan."
"Of course I'm shaken up about it, but that doesn't mean ..."
"I don't want to argue with you." He interrupted her, turned around and headed towards the door. "When you come back from Nathan's, please, tell me how he's doing." He added and closed the door behind him.
Marie sat in her office, alone and confused.
Bruce tried to work, but he just couldn't focus. All he could think about was seeing Marie with that expensive wine, bought by a man that he didn't even know.
When they were back in his apartment, he heard as she called someone. Curiosity got the best of him and he slowed down to hear who she was calling. He stopped completely and listened in when he heard that she had called the restaurant they came back from. She asked for the name of the man that bought the expensive wine for her table. He heard as she whispered, "Nathan".
After that, he turned around and left his apartment. He knew who Nathan was, the entire company talked about him. He discovered recently that Nathan was the one sent in from New York to examine the company and he was the one personally working with O'Conner.
But, he still didn't know what he had to do with Marie.
He was angry. He thought that he could just go to her and ask her about Nathan, but he knew that she would never tell him. She was stubborn like that.
Because he really didn't know anything about this mysterious man, he decided that he would ask around about him. Everyone in the company seemed to know him well, so he figured that some of his questions would be answered. He wanted to know if he was really the one that bought the wine for Marie and why.
As much as he hoped that nothing was going on between them, ever since he heard Marie whisper his name, he has felt a pure kind of hatred towards him. He felt like a rabid animal whose territory has been taken. He didn't have much reason to think like that, since that man just recently came, and Marie has been professional with him for some time now, but still, something didn't feel right.
He spent too much time and effort to just to give her away to some stranger. He's always loved Marie and wished for nothing more than to marry her and build a family with her. He wanted to enjoy her beauty, her smile, and in everything else that he loved in her.
As he thought about how to subdue his rage towards the stranger, he thought about Adam; a man whose worked for the company for well over two decades. He knew that he could trust that man and that he could find out a lot from him, so he got up from his chair and immediately went to see him.
Like he expected, he found Adam in his office going over paperwork.
"How's it going?" Bruce asked as he lightly knocked on his door.
"Ah, same old." He replied, not even bothering to look up.
"Yea, I've been pretty swamped as well. Once we sign the contract with the guys from New York, I can just imagine the mountain of paperwork that we'll have to do."
Bruce felt confident now that he could steer the conversation into what he was really there for, maybe even without Adam knowing.
"Don't even start with me." He said, shaking his head.
"I heard that Nathan Greco was an expert though, and that he should be able to make the transition very smooth for us."
"He is. Even when he worked for us, he was a natural. Very hard working man." Adam looked up and leaned back into his chair.
"Why did he leave?"
"None really knows. Some say that he was homesick, being a New York native. He came here originally just for schooling, so it might be because of that. Or, as some are saying, it could be due to Marie."
"Marie? What, where they together or something?" His face went pale.
"There were whispers, especially when her fiancé left the state but none has really confirmed it."
"Listen, do you need anything? I have a lot of work to do and I don't like to talk about meaningless topics at work." Adam added.
"No, sorry, I just wanted to see how you were doing." Bruce answered quickly, trying to hide his confusion with everything that he's found out.
"Ok then." Adam said as he grabbed his papers once again and got back to work.
"Yea." Bruce said as he turned around and left.
Now he understood why he felt such hatred towards Nathan. The jealousy in him burned deeply. He tried to calm himself by repeating what Adam said to him, that none was really able to confirm what happened or if anything happened at all.
He went back to his office, locked the door and put the blinds down. While he tried to focus on work, Marie's face is the only thing that kept appearing before his eyes. He couldn't wait for her to come to work so he could see her, and maybe get some answers for all the questions that flew around his mind.