settling himself in for the duration.
‘Forget Plan A. I am so beyond Plan A it’s not even funny,’ she answered, a tad more irritably than was perhaps wise, given that it was she who was asking for help and not the other way around.
The heartbeat-altering grin made an appearance. Ethan seemed to find her waspishness more amusing than insulting. He probably never found himself in embarrassing situations.
Taking another deep breath, Nora focused solely on Fern. ‘The problem is, I can’t do my pitch today, on account of a little accident, which doesn’t need a whole Q and A,’ she insisted as Fern stepped forward with a frown on her face, ‘I’m absolutely fine—I simply…need to cancel. And come up with a suitable excuse. I mean I know fact is stranger than fiction,’ when Nora heard her voice rising alarmingly she began pacing, to try and outdistance herself from her own stupidity, ‘but in this case fact sucks. Fact turns me into a laughing stock and I can’t afford that—’
‘Is she always this hyper?’ Ethan asked Fern, as if she wasn’t there.
‘No way. Only when she’s done something…oh, good grief, Leonora, have you been multi-tasking again?’
‘Only a little bit,’ Nora shot out defensively, before squeezing her eyes shut in mortification, because really, who had ever heard of a CEO not being able to multi-task?
‘We’ve talked about this. You know nerves and multi-tasking and you don’t mesh. I swear, for someone so ultra-efficient in every other aspect of life, it beggars belief. What’s happened and why on earth don’t you put the bag down?’
Nora winced.
It seemed a show-and-tell was on the horizon.
‘It is kind of shoe-related,’ she whispered as she started lowering the bag from where her arm was hidden inside, ‘it’s kind of a,’ she gulped and went for broke, ‘help, I’ve super-glued my shoe to my hand, kind of a mess.’
The bag floated silently to the floor and the next thing she knew, Ethan was standing in front of her turning her hand one way and then another, as if she were some sort of interactive museum exhibit.
‘How on earth..?’
‘Oh, by all means, let’s share.’ Nora’s head bobbed up and down as if she couldn’t wait. What was one more ounce of mortification? ‘Let’s see. Well, this is one half of a pair of vintage Eleanor Moorfield shoes. On my feet, these shoes say: This woman knows what she’s about. You can trust her with your business—with your life, which is why I intended to wear them today for a pitch I’ve been working on for weeks. Sure, I may have, technically, been supposed to fix the sole of this one yesterday. But, sometimes life gets in the way and anyway, I found some glue this morning on Fern’s desk and, well, some of the glue must have seeped out while I was pressing the sole closed. By the time I had finished running over my presentation, and,’ Nora’s head dipped as she mumbled, ‘taken a couple of work calls,’ she waved her hand-shoe combo in his face, ‘this, had happened.’
‘Fascinating.’
Nora’s gaze shot to Ethan at the quietly mumbled word. With the heat of humiliation stinging her cheeks, she really could have done with both hands free to fan herself, or at the very least, hide behind.
‘Did I mention Nora is addicted to multi-tasking?’ Fern chimed in helpfully.
‘There’s no way I can win a business pitch like this. Doesn’t exactly make for a great hand-shaking experience, does it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ethan said, his grin full. ‘You’d get my vote for originality. My guess is he certainly wouldn’t forget you.’ He stroked his fingers over her hand. Heat zinged all the way up her arm and into her neck. Okay, so snatching back her hand might send a signal that she was affected by his touch, but at least it would shock her brain back into working. And, a working brain would be good. If only to stop her feeling like some silly ingénue under his gaze.
‘He is a she,’ she answered. ‘And believe me…she won’t be so easily charmed, especially since it’s one of her designs that’s attached to my hand. I’m going to reek of ineptitude. Not exactly the look I was going for.’
‘Never mind all that,’ Fern said. ‘You should be in hospital getting that seen to.’
Hospital? Nora hadn’t really done hospitals much lately. Not since her father—skidding her thoughts to a halt, she tucked her tongue between her teeth and started pacing again. There had to be another way. ‘Ooh, quick. I need your computer.’
‘My computer? Sure but—’ Fern got out of the way in time for Nora to plonk herself down at her desk in order to slowly, single-handedly Google: How to remove superglue.
‘Ha,’ squinting at the screen, she clicked on several entries. ‘Right. I need something containing acetone chemicals.’ She scrolled down the page. ‘Otherwise known as…nail-varnish remover.’ She turned to Fern, who was looking over her shoulder. ‘Here’s the part where you tell me you never leave the house without nail-varnish remover?’
‘Oh, sweetie.’
‘Nooo! Come on,’ Nora looked skywards, ‘I asked for help and everything. Oh,’ Nora sat bolt upright as a new thought occurred. ‘Shops. Shops will save me.’ She looked at the expression on Fern’s face. ‘If they were actually open, that is.’ Whose bright idea had it been to have the meeting at 8 a.m. anyway? It was like some sort of weird conspiracy.
‘I have to win this pitch, Fern. I have to. I can’t f—’ Nora broke off and hung her head as the full enormity of what she’d been about to admit hit her. The last thing she needed was to give Fern the impression she was about to crumble if she failed.
Her vision blurred as she looked down at her hand. She’d have to cancel the pitch. So be it. These things happened. Except, usually she did everything in her power to ensure that these things didn’t happen. Not to her. Providing strong leadership had been what she’d been trained to do by the best in the business—her father. She hated that lately, every business move she made, had her questioning herself. When she’d heard on the grapevine that Eleanor Moorfield was thinking about returning to London, Nora had suited-up, taken the gamble and approached her directly. Now, it stung to have to admit that a little multi-tasking may have defeated her and made her look as if she wasn’t quite as super-efficient and in control as she liked to appear. It was beginning to look as if she deliberately sabotaged her own success.
She breathed in sharply. She did not like the sound of that. Not one little bit.
‘Why can’t you ask someone else to do the pitch for you?’ Ethan asked from where he was stationed the other side of her. ‘You must have account managers who usually handle this sort of thing.’
‘I don’t want to ask any of them to handle this particular meeting for me,’ Nora answered, realising the statement looked as though she couldn’t delegate. Why hadn’t she said something more along the lines of: she liked to lead by example or keep her hand in? Not that she needed to explain herself to him.
‘Why don’t I do the pitch for you?’ Ethan asked.
Nora’s mouth dropped open and she craned her head to look up at him as if he was insane. The raised eyebrow she got back in response suggested its owner cared not one jot what she thought
