Chapter 5. Prepared By Trevor Finch

By Wednesday morning, Trevor’s name was on her presentation.

The cover lay on Helena’s desk, beneath a coffee cup. Diana could see her own title, her own opening image, and the words Prepared by Trevor Finch, Senior Account Manager.

“You’ve changed it already,” she said.

Helena shut the door. “Is it personal? You and Valenti?”

Diana looked at the page. A lie might protect her work for a day. Then Trevor would have something else to use.

“Yes. It’s new. I didn’t know who he was when we met.”

“If we win, people will say we won it in his bed.”

Her face burned. “Putting Trevor’s name on it won’t change who built it.”

“He presents. You answer technical questions.”

“Disclose the relationship. Have someone else at Valenti assess us.”

“Diana—”

“Taking my name off doesn’t remove the conflict. It just removes me.”

Helena looked down at the cover. She didn’t move the cup.

⁂

That night, Gabriel texted.

I said I’d call. It’s late, and you have a pitch tomorrow. Sleep well, Diana.

She sat on her bed with the laptop open beside her. She could tell him. One word from him might put her name back on every slide.

But then she would never know whether she’d won her work back or been given it.

Technically that’s a text, she wrote.

Technically you haven’t hung up.

She smiled despite herself.

Goodnight, Gabriel.

Goodnight.

She waited for the small pressure behind her ear. There was nothing. She closed the laptop and put the phone down, wishing she had let him call.

⁂

On Thursday, an architect named Theo Marlow got into the wrong elevator with her.

“These skip fourteen,” Diana said before the doors closed.

He stared at the sign. “Please don’t tell anyone I design buildings.”

She laughed. They stepped out together, and he noticed the supplier quotes in her hand. By the time the correct elevator arrived, they were discussing the spring price increase and he had stopped treating her like a helpful stranger.

“You checked the current rates,” he said.

“I like my buildings to cost what I say they cost.”

“Radical approach. I’ll try it.”

He was consulting on the tower’s façade. He would be sitting in on the pitch. Diana was glad there would be one friendly face in the room.

Then Gabriel walked in halfway through Trevor’s introduction, and she forgot every other face.

He hadn’t told her he would be there.

On Monday, he listened while she described the proposal. She’d given him her number. Kissed him. Now he took the chair at the head of the table and looked at the screen as though she were another piece of office furniture.

Diana.

She gripped the pen.

His mouth hadn’t moved. His fingers tightened on the table once, then went still.

She looked at the people beside him. Kate and Nathan were following the slides. Theo was making a note. Nobody had heard her name.

Trevor continued using her words.

Anger steadied her. He was being paid to speak for her while Gabriel was apparently doing it inside her head. She was tired of both arrangements.

When Kate asked why their materials budget was higher than the other bids, Trevor began talking about quality. Theo interrupted gently.

“Which suppliers changed their rates?”

Trevor turned a page.

“And who built the cost model?” Theo asked.

“I did.”

Diana stood. “I built it. I have the current quotes.”

Helena said her name softly. Diana didn’t sit down.

“Before you assess it, there’s something else to disclose. I spent Saturday night with Mr. Valenti. I didn’t know who he was at the time. My manager knew before we came here.”

Don’t.

The word pressed against the inside of her skull. Gabriel was watching her now, every trace of indifference gone.

She kept her eyes on him.

“You don’t owe anyone the details of Saturday,” he said aloud.

“I owe them the truth about who made this proposal.” She turned to Kate. “I’d like Mr. Valenti to leave while you assess it.”

For a moment he didn’t move. Something bright crossed his eyes.

Then he stood.

“Agreed. Kate, Nathan, the decision is yours. Theo’s advice carries weight. Mine stays out of it.”

He left without looking back.

Diana stared at the closed door until Kate held out the cable for her laptop.

“Show us your numbers, Miss Bennett.”

She did. The supplier quotes, the risk of delayed samples, the alternative stone that could arrive six weeks earlier. Nobody interrupted to improve her wording. Trevor sat with his unused remote between his hands.

At the end, Kate closed her notebook.

“We’ll make our recommendation by Monday. If Hans gets the contract, we’ll want you to lead it.”

⁂

Outside, Helena stopped her.

“You made me look like a coward.”

Diana’s stomach dropped.

“Because I was being one,” Helena added. “Your name goes back on the deck.”

She walked away before Diana could think of an answer.

Theo caught her at the plaza's edge. He held out a card with addresses in three cities, including Lisbon and Osaka.

“It’s a door,” he said. “Not a job offer. That would be tacky if we were about to work together. But if Hans ever stops deserving you, call.”

Diana reached for the card as the glass doors behind Theo opened. Gabriel stepped out, then stopped. His gaze dropped to the small rectangle passing between their hands.

His jaw tightened. For a moment he looked ready to cross the plaza. Instead he stayed where he was, one hand closing at his side.

Theo glanced back. “Gabriel.”

“Marlow.”

One word, perfectly civil. Diana still felt the edge in it. So he could look at her now.

She thanked Theo and put his card safely in her bag.

She ought to have felt nothing but triumphant. Instead she kept remembering the word Gabriel had said without opening his mouth, and the way he’d left when she asked.

⁂

The courier was waiting outside her apartment that evening. Inside his long white box were roses and a card.

You made me leave my own meeting. Nobody has done that in ten years. Congratulations, Bunny. — G.

P.S. Dinner? Your call. Literally. I’m waiting for it.

Diana sat on her couch armrest. White roses. Her favorites since she was nine. She hadn’t told him.

She picked up the phone.

Bunny?

His reply came quickly.

You left a wedding with a stranger, a penthouse without saying goodbye, and me at a bus stop. And you twitch your nose when you’re about to win an argument.

I do NOT twitch.

You twitched at Kate. It was devastating.

She laughed. Then she looked at the flowers again.

How did you know about white roses?

The reply took longer.

The same way I knew your name. I’m sorry.

Diana called before she could settle for another text.

“I need an answer tonight,” she said when he picked up. “At the meeting. I heard you.”

Silence.

“I can keep wondering how much you know about me. I can’t keep wondering whether I’m imagining things.”

“You aren’t imagining things.”

She closed her eyes. “Then come here and explain.”

⁂

He arrived twenty minutes later. She opened the door herself and let him in. Eva already had her address; Diana sent a brief message that he was visiting, then set the phone on the table beside her.

Gabriel stopped in her small living room. His gaze went from the books to the roses in their open box. He looked almost out of place, as if he were ordinary.

Then he looked at her, and the familiar pull returned.

“You could barely look at me this morning,” she said. “Then Theo gives me a business card, and suddenly I have your attention.”

Gabriel’s gaze sharpened. “You think I was embarrassed by you?”

“What was I supposed to think?”

He stepped toward her, then stopped beside the couch.

“I couldn’t look at you without wanting everyone in that room to know that you left with me on Saturday. That I wanted you to stay Sunday. None of that belonged in a meeting where they were supposed to be judging your work.”

The answer caught her unprepared. She gripped the back of the couch.

“And Theo’s card?”

His mouth tightened. “I didn’t like how easily he made you smile.”

“He’d just offered me a professional contact.”

“I know. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

She looked at him for a moment. The coldness she’d carried home from that room began to ease.

“You should have told me you’d be on the panel.”

“Yes. I should have.”

She wanted to step closer, but she just looked at his mouth, remembering the words she had heard while it stayed closed.

“Was that you?” she asked. “In the washroom. At your apartment. Today.”

“Yes.”

She sat down because her knees had suddenly become unreliable.

He took the other end of the couch. “At the wedding, I felt you were frightened. I tried to reach you. I didn’t expect you to hear me.”

“You keep saying that as though it explains how.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then show me something I can believe tomorrow.”

She tore a corner from an envelope on the coffee table and gave him a pen.

“Choose a word. Write it while I look away. Fold the paper. Then say it the way you did before.”

His gaze held hers. “You’re sure?”

“One word.”

Diana faced the window. She heard the pen scratch, then the paper fold. He set it beside her hand.

A gentle, unmistakable pressure touched the back of her ear.

Marigold.

She opened the paper.

The word was there in his handwriting.

For a moment, she couldn’t move. Then she looked at his closed mouth and tried to do what he had done. She directed the word toward him deliberately, with all the concentration she could manage.

Again.

“Again?” Gabriel said aloud.

She hadn’t spoken.

His eyes widened. He looked more startled than she felt.

“Diana. How did you do that?”

Diana stared at him, the folded paper caught between her fingers. “I was asking you to say it again.” She heard the thinness in her own voice. “You heard me?”

“Yes.” Gabriel leaned forward, then stopped before touching her. Gold moved through his dark eyes. There were no candles here, no passing headlights to explain it. She watched the color change and stay.

“What are you?” she whispered.