Page 48 of Strictly Business

“What is it?” he asks, his voice thick and slurred with tiredness.

“We need to go over the pitch,” I say. “Or I can do it myself.”

He sits up and rubs his hands over his face and yawns. He shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I want to check everything too. Just give me a minute to go and splash some water on my face.”

He goes off to the bathroom and I grab his laptop and get settled with it on my lap. I find the pitch and open it ready for him coming back. The toilet flushes and he comes back into the room looking a lot more awake.

“Ok, let’s do this,” he says, sitting back down beside me. “But first, there’s something you should know. Now that you’ve woke me up, it’ll take more than just reading this to knock me back out again, and I think, being that you woke me up, that should be your responsibility.”

I lean over and kiss him.

“Ok,” I say, and I wink at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

CHAPTER35

Serena

I’m dressed and ready to leave. I know I’m early, but I would rather be early than late. My laptop doesn’t seem to have recovered from last night. It is still showing the green charging icon on the screen but that’s it. It isn’t actually charging, or it is charging, and its battery is full, but it still won’t switch on. My first stop when I get back to the office will be to the IT department to see if they can fix it.

I have packed it away along with the rest of my things. Ruth managed to get us a late check out, so at least we don’t have to lug our suitcases to the client’s offices, but I’d rather be sorted now and then after the meeting I can just get changed and chill out until we need to leave for the airport.

I get up and go to the adjoining door. I don’t suppose Wyatt is ready yet. I woke up well early this morning and after gathering my clothes from his balcony, I came back through to my own room to get ready. He was still asleep when I left him, his alarm set for an hour later than that. He’s probably up by now though and at least I’ll have someone to talk to if I go next door.

I tap on the door and push it open. I see the bathroom door is open and I peer around towards the bed, half expecting Wyatt to still be in bed now that I’ve seen the bathroom isn’t in use. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that actually, although he is sitting on the bed, he is ready.

“You’re ready,” I say with a smile.

“I could say the same about you,” he replies.

“I woke up early and once I’m awake that’s it,” I say.

“I was actually just about to go downstairs and get a coffee. Do you want one?” Wyatt says. “I know we can make one, but that’s just instant stuff. The one from downstairs is so much better.”

“Sure. I’ll have a latte please,” I say.

Wyatt gets up and pats his pocket and then spins around searching. He spots what he was looking for – his cell phone and his wallet – and he puts them in his pocket.

“I won’t be long,” he says. “Oh, while I’m gone, do you mind doing me a favor?”

“No,” I say. “What do you need?”

“Can you email Ruth the full pitch file. We’ll be using her laptop for the presentation because it’s got the best sound output. I have no idea how big Bellisario’s conference room is, but if it’s much bigger than ours, neither of our laptops would pack enough punch for everyone to hear the audio for the ad,” he says.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” I say. “No problem.”

Wyatt gives me a quick kiss and then he rushes out of the room. I start to go back to my room to get my laptop when I remember it’s still on the blink. I’ll have to use Wyatt’s laptop instead. I hope he has his passwords saved.

I open his laptop and the sign in screen comes up and then goes away, revealing his desktop without me having to sign in. So far so good. I click open his browser and go to his gmail account. I’m happy to find that yes, he does indeed save his passwords and I click use saved data and I’m in his email. I open a new message and type Ruth’s name in the address bar and select her from the list that appears. I quickly attach the file and send a quick message saying everything is there and in order and all she needs to do is save the file and hit play when we say so. If I was emailing her off my laptop, I would be worried she would ignore me, but she will think this email is from Wyatt and so I’m confident that she will follow the instructions to the letter.

Her response pings in almost instantly. A simple enough email – ‘got it’. I’m tempted to email her again, telling her to do something like make sure she is wearing yellow. Something I will be able to sit and enjoy but not something that will actually embarrass her, but I decide against it. Now isn’t the time for messing with anyone who is going into that pitch, even if they are really only there to watch. I know Wyatt won’t find it funny if Ruth asks him about it and he finds out I pulled a stunt like that before an important meeting. Still though, it’s funny to imagine.

I close the email and the laptop before I can be any more tempted to do something to mess with her and when Wyatt comes back with the coffees, I have the giggles out of my system. I tell him I sent the presentation and that Ruth acknowledged receiving it.

We sit side by side on Wyatt’s bed and drink our coffee – which he was right about; it is so much better than the instant stuff we could have made ourselves in the rooms – until it’s time to leave the room. We go down in the elevator and meet Ruth in the lobby as arranged. She isn’t exactly dancing with excitement to see me, but she does smile and wish me a good morning, a sentiment I return, so maybe she’s mellowing a bit. Or maybe it’s just her usual trick of being civil to me in front of Wyatt. Who knows. Who cares.

We all leave the hotel and head towards the client’s head offices.

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