Page 32 of Yours, Truly

Today I was battling with the biggest client on my account; Samuel Jonas. He was the biggest brand I had and I’d been working with him for years, close enough that we had become friends. His brand was growing fast, like Christian Dior style fast, with complete ranges of not only fashion and accessories, but had branched into all the beauty sectors. He was an in-demand brand with the younger generation and he thanked me for my marketing.

Samuel would add a sneaky commission for me whenever he hit the quarter in sales. He even told me that when he gets as big as Dior, he would need an internal marketing manager and that would be me, but he knew this would be a couple more years. So, it was understandable where his concern came from, this would cost him a lot of money.

“I can assure you Samuel, this case will not affect your business… you know you can trust me,” I reasoned.

“Gigi, I really wish I could believe you. It’s not personal, you are incredible, but the company doesn’t look good right now if I’m honest and I have to protect my business.”

A soft knock on the door as it cracked open a little and I motioned whoever it was to come in. Nate was standing there in a suit and a briefcase, accompanied with a sympathetic smile.

“I just don’t trust the company Gi” Samuel continued down the line.

“Why don't you take today to decide, put together a proposal that works for you and email it across to me. Your business means so much to me and so do you, please reconsiderSamuel.”

Nate sat in the chair opposite me reaching for my hand. I heard a sigh on the other end of the phone.

“As it's you, I'll draft something up,” Samuel agreed.

“You won't regret it” I smiled enthusiastically, relief washing over me that I had kept Samuel on. For now. It bought me a bit of time. I wasn’t going to let him down; this was a promise I intended to keep.

“I hope I don’t. I’m trusting you, take care Gigi.” He hung up the phone and I threw my head back on the chair, taking a breath before addressing Nate.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?” He asked concerned as I closed my eyes to compose myself. I was feeling a mix of emotions; sadness, anger, frustration, exhaustion. I couldn’t wait for this court case to be over.

It was nice to have Nate here but even the comfort only lasted for a moment, I knew the real reason he was here.

“I've lost five clients today due to this fucking court case,” I ranted, all my hard work was just being tossed in the bin "and that's why you’re here isn't it?”

“Yes.” He looked away from me and towards his briefcase resting on the table beside him. We never spoke about the case outside of work, it was confidential, and to be honest I really didn’t want to. It was bad enough at work. It was good to keep the two things separate.

“Let’s have it then,” I snapped. He hesitated as he handed me a brand-new file, one I didn’t recognise. It wasn't the usual one, I had seen that one hundreds of times, so much that I knew allthe small creases and markings on the tatty old thing. “What's this?” I opened it slowly to see the content spilled on the pages.

“Another client reached out to me with the same issue and there is a solid case for it.”

I skimmed over the file, panic rising within me. And there it was, Gigi Henley, leaked all across the new file. He reached across the table and took my hand in his as I read on, my eyes showing my alarm at the untrue statement in detailed accounts appearing in front of my eyes.

“When was this?” I asked. I began to panic; this was going to ruin my reputation. The client had left no stone unturned to make sure my name had a black mark, lies upon lies filled the document accentuating statements of me leaking his data and campaigns to damage his business, an account of blackmail I had carried out towards him for a fair price. This was clear it was a personal attack.

“A couple of weeks ago, this would be a completely new case itself ,even once the other one is over but instead of this only being the company, this time it’s also…”

“Me. Wait… a couple of weeks?” I tried to calculate back as I remembered Nate’s file on my bed. “The day of Ivy’s hen do?!”

“I'm sorry Gi. I wanted to tell you but I couldn't. I had to wait until I got permission to present this to the company.”

“None of this is true Nate. I’m going to lose my job.” I panicked, my brain in overdrive as I tried to work out who had put this in. There it was at the end of the document, I recognised the client’s name; Mr Richard Cato.

The man who had sexually assaulted me. A wave of nausea took over my body, forming a bitter taste in my mouth and a lump in the back of my throat ,wanting to force its way out.

I wanted to throw up just from seeinghisname again. I tried to push back down all the buried feelings that rushed to the surface. It was as if I was reliving the nightmare he had placed upon me. I felt my body tremble in fear and my skin felt like it was riddled in fleas as the images of that day flashed in my head.

It happened very subtly at first. When I took him on as a client he had a flirtatious banter, then followed the inappropriate comments. I never responded. I brushed them aside thinking it was just his personality and I was new on the job. I was warned that some of the male clients were a bit flirty to get a lower quote, but my gut was telling me it was something else. I had asked Jennifer, who had been in the business longer than me, about flirtatious clients and she shrugged it off, saying it was part of the job and that was the end of that.

One day, it had gotten out of control, he tried to touch me inappropriately at a one to one meeting I had with him in our conference room. Flashbacks of his hands on me, even when I told him no, scolding him for his inappropriate behaviour. But he ‘liked a feisty woman, it turned him on’, I think he was convinced it was foreplay.

From then on, the company passed him over to Clyde as they didn’t want to ‘lose his business’. He was an arrogant middle-aged gentleman with a great mindset for business, buthe also treated women like objects and had very old fashion viewpoints.

I wasn’t going to disclose this to Nate, I wanted to but it wouldn’t affect the outcome of the trial and I didn’t want to relive what had happened to me. I fought so hard to push all the events back into the locked vault in my mind, trying to keep the shaking and nausea to a low level. I could fall apart when I was alone, right now I was at work. I needed to protect my job more than my mental health.

To draw Nate’s attention away from me, I threw the file on the desks, realising this was a personal vendetta because I didn’t give the client what he wanted. Me.

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