Page 32 of Embracing Love

Chapter 15

Tanya sat at her desk in the small Milan office and read through the notes she’d made.

There were only a few more days left before she flew to Sacramento and she found herself looking forward to the weekend jaunt.

Just as in Paris, the people in this office were very friendly and she knew most of them, though there were many new faces from the last time she’d come here.

Yet she missed Paris in the way that she’d missed San Francisco at first. She had a better affinity with the Paris office—perhaps because she’d spent more time there and had known the people longer. Besides, for her Paris just held so much more allure.

The idea of spending six months here was hard to stomach. Work as always kept her busy and there was a lot more work to do here than in Paris; the managers here didn't seem as diligent as Thierry was and therefore it would take longer to put the systems in place.

She moved her papers out of the way and stared at her computer screen. With nothing else much to occupy her, she’d once again taken to following Vincent’s life. He now gave daily updates about his girlfriend's well-being through every stage of her pregnancy.

It was nothing short of torture for Tanya to stare at the status updates and images, yet she made herself do it daily. It was like a habit.

She’d worked hard on her presentation and found herself looking forward to being around friends again, even Nadine. Being in Milan had enabled her to get a little distance from the constant stress of the Flight campaign. She never realized, until she was away from everything, how frantic her life was. She’d had time to think about things in context and now she hoped that the underlying friction, of which she knew she was mostly to blame, would be dissolved by the time she flew out to the States next week.

The idea of seeing Nadine again made her feel a little anxious but she wanted to re-sync their friendship and to put things to right.

With that thought she felt a little cheered up. The thought of friends, of reconnecting relationships and returning to the Stormont suddenly had her looking forward to something.

~ ~

Gabriel had been staring at the number on and off for almost an hour and he hadn’t managed to do as much work as he’d intended this afternoon.

“Damn it,” he hissed, then picked up his phone and dialed her number.

The call was answered by the soft muted tones of a professional sounding Italian woman at the other end who announced the Zimmerman group offices in Milan. He asked for Tanya Braun and when the secretary asked him ‘whom may I say is calling?’ he replied, ‘A friend.”

He was half afraid that if he gave his name Tanya might not accept the phone call. She'd been slightly annoyed with him the last time they had met and as professional as she tried to be, he could see right through her emotional mask.

She came onto the phone and straight away he could tell by the tightness in her voice that she was already perplexed. “Hello?”

“Tanya.” He waited for the recognition to settle in at her end. It did and then heard a faint gasp, so faint that perhaps he might even have imagined it. “Mr Valois —is anything wrong?”

He laughed, if only to ease his own feeling of awkwardness at having called her when there was no logical reason for him to do so. “No,” he replied. “Why? Should there be?”

She seemed to hesitate before answering and he could almost imagine the expression on her face with her eyebrow raised, her head cocked to one side and exasperation written all over her face. It wasn't the response he normally evoked in a woman but for some reason Tanya Braun always seemed to be exasperated by him.

“You called?” she said.

“Yes, I did.” He said, slowly, and was stumped because he had no valid reason for calling her—except for the overwhelming desire to speak to her.

But he couldn’t tell her that.

“I was going through the proofs,” he said, quickly scanning through and finding the folders on his computer. What could he complain about? What logical, perfectly acceptable reason could he give?

“The proofs?” She sounded unsure. “I’m not sure which proofs you’re talking about. I haven't dealt with any of the Flight creative since I left. Perhaps you might be better off speaking to Mr Zimmerman? He’s is still in the Paris office I believe.”

She was trying to get rid of him.

“Michael was getting ready to return to the US. But don’t worry. I—I’ll check up with him on Monday when he’s back at the office.” Damn. He clenched his fist together.

“Okay,” she seemed distant again, and he knew she was analysing his motives. He’d made a complete idiot of himself and now he was struggling to find what he could run past her in a way that would not cast any suspicion on him.

“You know, Mr Valois—”

He interrupted her. “I thought we had moved on from Mr Valois.”

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