In fact, I had a wonderful time, and despite the outcome, I would do it all over again.
“Hadley’s calling me,” Rohan said. “What do you want me to tell her?”
“Should I talk to her?” I asked. “I mean, she is my boss.”
“I’m sure the two of you will talk later,” Rohan said. “And by the way, Abby, good job holding your own in that conference room.”
“How do you know about that?” Colin asked.
But all Rohan did was turn his phone around.
He rejected Hadley’s phone call in order to show us the news stories popping up in droves. Pictures of me standing in the media room. Quotes I’d given that tried to bat the media hounds away. Reassuring statements that nothing that had happened between Colin and I would in any way jeopardize anything to do with the company.
The articles kept popping up as often as we fucking blinked.
“If we wait much longer, we won’t be able to get out in front of it,” I said.
“Spoken like a true public relations hire,” Rohan said, grinning.
“None of you need to worry,” Colin said. “I know what to do.”
“What?” I asked. “Brief me so I know how to handle the situation out there.”
“Oh, you’re not going back out there. I’m slotted to give the farewell speech that dismisses the conference after the last keynote speaker gives his final speech. Until then, you’re staying back here with everyone. You don’t move anywhere unless you’re with me.”
In any other world and at any other point in time, I would have fought back. I would’ve asserted my independence and made sure this man understood I could hold my own. But I was overwhelmed and woefully underprepared for how to handle a situation like this.
So, I nodded in agreement before he kissed my forehead.
“Good. Now, I gotta go get mic’d. Stay right here,” he said.
My eyes widened at the gesture, especially given the situation we were in. I could tell everyone was taken aback as well, but Ted had a telling grin on his face. I swallowed hard and pulled my coat tighter around my body, trying to shield my heart that was currently slamming up against my sternum.
It felt like the entire world could see it on a silver platter.
Rohan picked up a phone call and walked away as Maggie and Ted stood at my side. They tried to make idle chit chat while the last keynote speaker took the stage, but I was too distracted. Colin had made his way to the other end of the stage and was smiling at me, trying to offer me any solace he could as the last keynote speaker rambled on.
Part of me wanted to know what he was closing the conference with, but part of me knew that it was wise if I wasn’t in the loop.
Colin eventually took the stage to wind down the conference as a whole and the audience went silent. A hushed anxiousness settled over the entire auditorium and I thought I was going to vomit on my shoes. My hands were shaking in my coat pockets as tears rose to my eyes. Maggie wrapped her arm around my shoulder and tried to calm me down, but I shrugged her off so I could breathe.
I felt stifled and sick, and the only thing I wanted to do was find myself back in the protective embrace of Colin.
“I want to thank everyone for coming to this conference. It’s been wonderful and eye-opening, to say the least. I don’t know about any of you, but I’ve learned a great deal from the wonderful speakers we had this year.”
There was a polite applause that trickled across the audience before Colin drew in a deep breath.
“But there is also a person here that I’ve learned a great deal from. While she didn’t speak today, you all know of her by now, but I’ll introduce her anyway.”
“What the fuck is he doing?” I asked.
“He’s fixing things the only way he knows how,” Ted said.
“Which is—?”
But all Ted gave me was that shit-eating grin of his.
“Her name is Abby Thompson, and she’s the woman in the picture that has been circulating for the past hour. You know, the woman in the bar with the winning basketball team jersey on.”
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“Go KSU!” someone from the audience exclaimed.
“There we go!” Colin said. “That’s the spirit. Let me tell you a little something about Abby Thompson that the press doesn’t know. Abby Thompson is not only intelligent and well overqualified for her job, but she can also admit when she’s made a mistake. I learned that she has this insane talent for taking fluent and legible notes without once looking down at the page she’s writing on, and she has this uncanny ability to pick apart people while making herself look like she doesn’t know a damn thing.”
A small chuckle rose from the audience as a lazy smile crossed my face.
“I first met Abby on a plane ride over the holidays. Ironically enough, our plane landed prematurely right here in Wichita because of bad weather. She begged, cajoled, nagged and shamed me for a ride into her hometown, which happened to be only thirty minutes south of Minneapolis, which was where I was headed. So, despite my reservations, I caved to the holiday pressure and gave this strange woman a ride.”
The audience warmed considerably, and several smiles could be seen on the faces of the crowd.
“Thanks,” I said, murmuring.
“Oh, this is gonna get good,” Maggie said.
“I learned two things from her on that road trip back into Minnesota,” Colin said. “I learned that I’d allowed my business to take over my life and that I’d allowed my business to harden me to the beauty life could afford me. You see,
