Page 24 of Embracing Love

“We’ll leave that until the end. Let’s deal with the procedures first. Once you’re in Milan I can take over with Flight and that way we’ve covered both bases.”

She couldn’t see how since it made more sense for her to be in Milan when the most pressing thing was the Flight campaign. Unless he wanted her out of the way.

And he would want her out of the way if he truly believed she wasn’t helping the campaign.

Wait until she got home tonight and called Nadine. Tanya felt the heat flushing through her body and she desperately wished that Michael would leave.

Not just from the Paris office, but from her office.

As if answering her prayers, he suddenly stood up. “I’d better get to my next meeting.”

Relief soothed her electric-shocked veins.

“Oh,” he said, turning back as he stopped in his path, “I didn't see your name on the list for the annual convention in Sacramento. Why not?”

Because he’d never mentioned it to her and she thought her primary role had been here. “Because I was busy with the implementations I didn't think I’d be needed.”

Michael Zimmerman turned to face her and raised his eyebrows. “You are a valued member of the team and your knowledge and expertise are much needed.”

She wondered how true that was.

He cleared his throat lightly, and lowered his voice. “I don’t want you to think that anything from the past will ever affect your standing in this company.”

Had he really just referred to that incident? It was the closest he would ever come to it.

“I’ll add my name to the list.” She replied, holding her voice steady.

“Good. Dorothy will be there and I think it would be good for team bonding experience for you to come. You’re still very much part of the Zimmerman Group.”

Tanya raised a weak smile.

With the office now hers once more, Tanya slumped back into her chair and let out a low mangled moan. The quietness of the room soothed her frayed nerves.

Things were now starting to move on with Flight and here was Zimmerman taking it away from her. She’d worked hard, late days, long days, lonely evenings, on this and other matters, and there hadn’t been a peep out of head office. She’d been fine, getting along by herself.

Until Gabriel Valois had poked his nose in and made a complaint. That had been when it all started; Zimmerman’s confidence in her had been shaky ever since. It was no coincidence that he’d unexpectedly turned up now.

She’d made the mistake of believing that Nadine might have her back. But Nadine hadn’t even forewarned her about this latest development.

Life was bleak enough as it was. All she had was her job and she’d screwed that up too.

Whether he played a big part or not, Gabriel Valois had set off some sort of chain reaction, Anger flared deep in her belly at the thought of him, mounting at the idea that Zimmerman would be here for a few weeks.

And he was sending her away to Milan.

He might have been in Milan but she had a feeling that ultimately his destination and plan all along had been to come to Paris, no matter how he tried to disguise the fact. Which only pointed to the fact that Nadine would have known this all along.

The pleasant bubble she’d been in—the one on her return from Gabriel’s office—now burst and she was itching to take her anger out on someone. It would be too early to call Nadine yet she was tempted to pick up the phone and call her at home, where she’d probably be in deep sleep now.

Tanya felt jittery. She got up, placed her hands on her hips and walked around the desk trying to decide her best course of action.

She didn't want things to sour between her and Nadine though she felt that lately things between them weren’t as open and as easy as they had once been.

Had she given Nadine an insight into her head by telling her her innermost secrets? Perhaps Nadine wasn't just an easy ear for her problems? Maybe Nadine had been trying to sound her out?

And maybe the conclusion she and Zimmerman had reached was that she wasn’t quite up to the mark.

She got the impression that she had failed, and once again she was plagued by feelings of self-doubt.

---