Page 13 of A Secret Escape

“ Y ou ready?” Angela grins at me from across her desk, her eyes sparkling with that mix of mischief and encouragement I’ve come to rely on.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I reply, trying my best to sound confident, but low in my stomach, a familiar flutter of nerves bubbles up. It’s not about the presentation – the promo video is solid. It hits every beat Eric asked for and then some.

No. The nerves are about something – or someone – else.

Marcus has been Creative Director on this campaign since day one, always present in meetings, always listening.

He’s offered the occasional note, always thoughtful, always right.

But today’s the big reveal. Today, he’ll see the full scope of my vision.

And that has my heart doing a ridiculous rhythm in my chest.

As if on cue, the lift doors chime and I turn around to see him.

Marcus walks down the corridor, bending one arm at the elbow to adjust his cufflink as he moves, looking maddeningly good in that fucking navy suit that fits him so perfectly, it makes me want to cry.

Angela follows my gaze and smirks. “Lila. You’re doing it again.”

“What? No!” I spin around so fast I almost knock over the large cup of coffee slowly going cold on my desk.

“I was just… looking for Stephen. I need to ask him something before the meeting,” I say, sw eeping my hand through my hair and hoping that the heat spreading across my face hasn’t manifested in an instant shade of bright red.

“Uh-huh,” Carter calls from the sofa nearby, not even looking up. “You’re definitely looking for someone, alright.”

“Shut up.” I crumple a sheet of paper and throw it at him.

“What?” Carter laughs, getting up and coming over to stand behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders as he leans over playfully. “We all know how much you want him,” he teases. “How much you need him. How much you want to marry him and have his babies !”

“Get off!” I laugh, giving him a playful shove and glancing behind me to make sure Marcus is nowhere within earshot. He’s standing by the water cooler near the front of the office, a good twenty metres away, talking to someone from accounts whose name I can’t remember.

Angela cackles as Carter stumbles backwards dramatically, mimicking a slow-motion fall, one hand clutching his chest in feigned shock before he drops back into his chair. The three of us burst into laughter, Carter’s antics helping to settle the nerves in my stomach, albeit momentarily.

“Do you know what you’re wearing tomorrow?” Angela asks.

I don’t try to stop the smile that creeps across my face. “I got the cutest dress the other day! It’s a little black dress, obviously -”

“Obviously,” Angela interjects. She knows as well as I do that my wardrobe consists of about twenty different versions of the little black dress.

“This one only has one shoulder though, going down across the chest here, with a thin strap here,” I demonstrate, tapping my right shoulder as Angela’s eyes sparkle with curiosity. “And it’s got like, a nice little gold detail across it. It’s dead cute! ”

Angela’s eyebrows shoot up, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. “Ooh, check you out! Do you know if you-know-who is going?” she teases, raising her eyebrows and lifting her chin to indicate towards the water cooler, where Marcus is still hovering.

I refuse to turn around again and try to fight a smile, but a twitch at the corner of my mouth betrays me and I can’t stop my eyes from lighting up as I picture him seeing me in that dress.

I shake my head because unfortunately, I don’t know whether he’s going or not, and I may or may not have been thinking about little else the past few days.

“Seriously, babe, it’s been two fucking years. Have you ever even had a private conversation with him that hasn’t been in a meeting or a passing bit of chat in the staff room?”

I’ve never told her and Carter about the coffee shop run-ins, and thankfully they’ve never seen us there together.

Those mornings are the closest we’ve ever had to a proper conversation that hasn’t been directly about a project, but even those have never lasted longer than about five minutes, and that’s on the lucky mornings.

“Oh my God, Carter, I completely forgot, you totally missed it yesterday!” Angela exclaims. “Lila practically combusted when we ran into Marcus in the lift!”

“I did not !” I mutter, burying my face in my hands.

“Ooh, this I have to hear!” Carter asks, leaning over the edge of his desk toward Angela. I shake my head but it doesn’t stop her launching into retelling the horrifying story with an evil grin on her face.

“Stephen was saying that he needed some of the things clearing from last week’s smoothie event to the storage closet on the fifth floor.

He didn’t directly ask us, but you know how this one is, bloody throwing herself at any opportunity to get up there,” she says and Carter bursts out laughing as I drop my head down onto my desk in mortification .

“So, I’m carrying this big ass cardboard cutout of a fucking smoothie, and Lila was trying to carry a stack of files that, I kid you not, were the slightest breath away from falling and going all over the fucking floor!”

“They were a lot heavier than they looked!” I cry, trying to defend myself despite knowing it’s futile.

She throws a sarcastic glance my way before focusing her attention back on Carter. “So, there we are, carrying these big, bulky, heavy things, we just about manage to press the button for the lift, when the doors open and who’s standing there?”

I glance at Carter between my fingers and have to hold back a smirk at his expression. He has his hand over his mouth in a wide grin and his eyebrows are raised up high, his whole body just waiting to explode with laughter.

Angela goes on. “Mister Dreamboat himself, looking all smooth, suave, sophisticated, as he does, and he ever-so-casually asks, ‘ Going up ?’”

She pauses, looking at me to see if I want to take over the narrative but I shake my head, taking a sip of coffee as another excuse to not have to look at either of them.

“Well, Lila here, smooth talker that she is, starts stammering about, oh, uh, no, I don’t know, oops, haha, silly me. I mean, uh, yes, please, fifth floor, please, marry me, sir, please,” she mocks in a high-pitched voice, flicking her long braids over her shoulders with every few words.

My hand shoots up to my mouth to stop me spitting my drink everywhere as my other hand grabs the nearest thing it can find and launches a red marker across the table at her, which misses its mark by a mile .

“You are the fucking worst!” I exclaim, picking up my cup for another sip.

She laughs. “So, he holds the lift door open for us, and he offers to take a few of the files off Lila to help her out!”

“What an absolute gent,” Carter says.

“I know, right!” Angela beams.

What Angela doesn’t know is that I appeared to have lost my ability to breathe when his hands brushed mine in taking some of the files from me.

Aside from the time Carter sent me flying into Marcus’s arms at Elevation nearly a year ago, and the very occasional brush of our hands when he passes me my coffee, it was the only time his skin had come into contact with mine, and it was electrifying.

The time in the lift going from one floor to the next had been simultaneously endless and also far too short.

“Then, he actually helped us carry them to the storage cupboard and placed them on the shelf, and then said ‘ see you later,’ and walked off, but not before giving Lila a killer smile. I mean, seriously, if looks could kill, that smile would have finished her off, for sure,” Angela concludes.

“Whatever,” I say, refocusing my gaze back on the screen in front of me and downing another gulp of coffee.

“Fuck, babe,” Carter says, shifting back in his chair to look at his screen with an amused smirk.

I shake my head, tapping the screen to play my video back one final time. I pause it, zooming in to slice a quarter of a second off one of the clips at the end and add an extra filter to brighten the neon glow around the text. Perfect.

** *

One hour later, I’m standing at the head of a large conference table in one of the glass-walled meeting rooms, my video ready to play on the digital screen behind me. Angela and Carter are sat on either side of me, laptops open in front of them.

Stephen enters the room, followed by Eric Sinclair.

“Eric, you remember Lila,” Stephen says, the door closing behind them.

“Pleasure to see you again, Mr. Sinclair.” I reach my hand out to shake his.

“Likewise. I love what you’ve been doing on the campaign so far. Can’t wait to see the final pieces for tomorrow’s opening.”

“Thank you. We’re really looking forward to it.”

A moment later, Jenny, one of the graphic designers comes in, followed by Lauren, the PR rep. They all take their seats around the table.

Where is he?

I try going over my notes in my head, glancing back at the still frame of the video on the screen behind me – bold colours, neon lights, the image of the venue in the background.

Lead with the concept.

Emphasise energy. Excitement.

Show the video. Highlight the engagement numbers.

I swallow, reciting the details in my head.

22,000 likes. 6,000 comments. 2,700 shares and reposts. You’ ve got this.

I take one final breath and turn to face the room, ready to introduce my concept, when the door to the meeting room opens again and my throat freezes.

Marcus walks in, tall and composed, with his usual air of effortless elegance. His eyes briefly meet mine as his mouth opens into a wide smile, his head dipping with a nod of acknowledgement before he takes a seat beside Eric. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, resting his notepad on the table.

Every single word I just had on the tip of my tongue has evaporated, leaving me with a blank slate where my presentation used to be.

Lead with the concept, a voice in my brain reminds me, but nothing comes.