Exposed Engagement

Dean’s phone rang and he groaned, turning to the other side hiding his head under the covers trying hard to ignore the persistent sound.

His door burst open, and he heard footsteps thudding through the floor until they reached his bedside table, then the alarms stopped ringing.

Dean sighed and snuggled deeper into his bed wishing for sleep to reclaim him.

“Don’t even think about going back to sleep” said his friend in a voice that was clearly not pleased. Dean didn’t respond. Hopefully, Keith would be leaving soon and letting him catch a few more minutes of sleep.

Dean’s covers were suddenly pulled away inevitably depriving him of any ounce of sleep he was trying to reclaim. Glaring at Keith, he found him looking back at him with murder in his eyes.

“What the hell is wrong with you so early in the morning?” He asked and Keith threw the covers on the bed.

“Me?! What’s wrong with YOU! Your alarm had been ringing like a freaking fire alarm! And here I thought I would get some peace and quiet if I sleep over at your place,”

“You’re the one who invited himself in,” Dean retorted, “I usually have no trouble waking up when I have the motivation…” he added grumpily getting up.

“Motivation? You mean that assistant from hell?” Keith asked.

Dean remained silent. The Assistant from hell was a nickname Keith had given Nadia upon their first meeting. For good reasons…

There was a time when Nadia barged into his house threatening bodily harm when he ghosted a meeting. And unfortunately for Keith, he was present that day.

To Dean it was just part of their daily basis. Although he regretted sleeping in that day very much.

“Why are you still here? Just leave already. Did you get tangled up with another clingy woman?”

“As a matter of fact, no I didn’t…” Keith began and Dean raised an eyebrow, “It was two women…” He added.

As expected,…

“But I should be asking you the same question. You returned late last night,” he said as he handed him a mug of coffee.

“I was visiting Nadia…” He said simply.

Keith coughed barely stopping himself from spewing his coffee. Ready for his reaction, Dean simply waited for him to finish saving his own life from choking on coffee.

“Woah. You even go to her house? Did you finally manage to confess…” Keith asked, Dean snorted.

“You’re talking as if we’re high school girls,”

“Well… You’ve had a crush on her for the best part of five years so I bet you would be making a schoolboy confession soon. With all the blushing and stuttering,” Keith teased.

“I didn’t exactly confess. I did ask her to marry me though…” He said and Keith leaned back looking at him with wide eyes.

This time his reaction was more calm.

“You’re kidding…”

Dean explained then what transpired last night and Keith listened his expression growing more pensive when he mentioned Luke.

Dean felt his ire rise at the mere thought of Nadia being with another man. But the memory of Luke’s wide blue eyes, his chestnut curls, and his small chubby hands as he bravely reached out to shake his. Dean had been thinking about him since last night. About how Luke’s very existence tugged at his heart more than it shocked him.

To think that a jerk knocked her up and left her alone to raise a baby… Not that she seemed to need anyone to help her take care of Luke, but still...

“So to sum it up, you asked her to marry you again and she kicked you out of the house.” Keith finally said.

“She did,” Dean admitted remembering his last glimpse of Luke shyly waving him bye, as Nadia pushed him out of the door. 

At least she hadn’t resigned…

“What in the world came over you?” Keith asked and Dean sighed.

“I don’t know… I just…”

Dean didn’t know why. He had known about his infatuation with Nadia for years now, and he tried hard not to show it at work because he knew how risky starting a relationship with an employee could get.

Especially since Nadia was someone he couldn’t risk losing. The woman was running his life and the company. Without her, he would be lost.

But when he saw Luke, and how Nadia smiled down at him and ruffled his hair as he clutched into his skirt, it dawned on him that Nadia had been fighting this battle alone for a long time.

Working for him and raising her son alone. He wanted to be there for her. And then the idea of marriage popped into his head and he blurted it out.

If he was being honest, his proposal had more to do with his serious attraction to Nadia rather than his convenient idea.

“So, what are you going to do today?” Keith asked interrupting his thoughts.

“I need to talk to my parents and clarify things,” This was the last thing he wanted to do.

“So, you’re giving up,” Keith said, “Or was it the boy… I guess a readymade family is a bit too much…”

Dean glared at his friend.

“Luke had nothing to do with any of this,” Dean defended, and Keith smiled.

“So, her son’s name is Luke… You’re having it bad if you grew attached to her son too…”

“What are you getting at Keith. If you’re here to be a jerk then leave,” Dean told his friend who smiled seeming to enjoy the situation.

“You concocted all of this because you liked her in the first place. Why are you giving up now,” Keith asked.

“I’m afraid that I will lose her if force things like this,” Dean admitted, and Keith leaned forward.

“Well, you certainly forced things. You could have gone through other different ways to ask her out. I mean other than during lunch with your parents,” He said with a smile annoying Dean.

“Don’t rub salt on it, I’m already regretting acting so rashly. But now I have no choice but to go through with this. I need to make it work. But Nadia isn’t budging on me clarifying things to my parents,” He explained.

“Well, didn’t you say that your father was the one who gave her the job when she was pregnant, and in need for a job? She must feel indebted to your parents…”

Dean nodded. He had underestimated his parent’s attachment to Nadia too. They were so glad about her being his girlfriend that Dean was shocked.

Hearing his phone ping he looked down. He frowned reaching for it. It was unusual for his PR department to text him directly. Usually, they went through Nadia for anything they might need because she was much faster at handling anything related to that.

He looked at the email and paused for a moment before rereading it again.

Damn… Things just blew up out of propotions.

****************

Let’s suppose that luck is not on your side for a day… 

That would mean that you would have to endure one really bad thing that day, and a few other little annoying things that would have no other great consequences on her life.

That’s what Nadia thought an unlucky day would consist of. But no. She came to know that that is not all there is to it. Apparently, fate thought that Nadia wasn’t suffering enough in her daily life so she decided to add up some spice to it. Except that the lid came off and Nadia ended up with more spice than she can handle.

From a marriage proposal, she didn’t know about, to the news that put her in a bad mood. Then just as her day was looking up, the source of her misfortune had to visit her, propose to her again this time looking like he was freaking serious about it, and distract her from her laptop long enough for her to lose track of the hacker trying to break into her system.

Great! Just wonderful!

As she sat on her desk, the next day, Nadia yawned as she looked through her laptop. She’d stayed up all night hoping that the intruder was going to reappear again. But they never did…

Sighing one more time, she picked up her tablet and looked over Dean’s schedule. He was supposed to come to the office late because he planned to go talk to his parents this morning.

After his ridiculous proposal, Nadia barely had the time to ask him about his last sanity check when her laptop began to beep again. She’d barely had enough time to chase him out declaring that they would talk at the company and then return to her laptop to find that it was already too late.

She was going to freaking murder Dean Wess!

“I heard from Development that some hacker struck again last night, WhiteFlower was there to stop them though,” Someone said from the office around the corner.

Nadia smiled at the phrasing as she listened in to the conversation.

“I heard that the company was barely able to hire them with a high salary. Can you imagine how much he gets paid just for warding off a few hackers?”

“Some people are bound to have it easy in life. Lucky bastard,”

Easy life… Nadia’s life didn’t feel remotely as easy as she thought it should be. Especially these days.

“How do you know it’s a guy?” 

“Well, if it’s a girl, then I would be all for seeing what she looks like. The genius hacker who stole the attention of every tech company in the country…”

People always assumed that good IT experts are mostly men. So she wasn’t exactly bothered by the statement.

“I heard that White Flower is actually one of the IT people who work at the company. Imagine if it was one of the beauties of our department?” One of the employees said and Nadia smiled.

“Yeah, that would make for a good movie. Imagine if Miss Rowell was WhiteFlower. Imagine how sexy that would be,”

Well, as flattered as she was, their conversation was too close to the truth for comfort. Even though she knew they were joking.

“Hey, didn’t you hear the rumor about Miss. Rowell?”

A chill ran down Nadia’s spine at that announcement, and an email reached her from the PR team. When she opened, she sat there shell-shocked as she watched the content of the email.

“… She’s dating the boss…” an employee said but his voice drowned in Nadia’s mind.

The picture before her was that of Dean entering her apartment building and then leaving it with her picture on the side. The article said something about a company dating scandal, but all Nadia could think about is her picture plastered over the article, her full name written in there.

As if a bucket of water was poured over her head, Nadia remained frozen in a state of shock. Then as realization began to dawn on her, her hands began to tremble as she checked the email.

Maybe it was that kind of article that the PR team intercepted before it got out… But no. The article was already on the top search on the internet, and so was her name and Dean’s. Everybody knew who she was, and what she looked like. Over a million people knew her face now. 

And that person could be among them.

Nadia was out of her seat and rushing downstairs as soon as she thought of Luke. She needed to go get him!

Remembering that she took a taxi to work that day, she made her way to the lobby only to be stopped by the bodyguard waiting there.

“You can’t, Miss Rowell,” He said putting a hand before her and then motioning with his head toward the lobby. It was swarming with people holding microphones and cameras and expectantly waiting for her like vultures waiting for their prey.

Nadia felt lightheaded as she saw the sight before her, and the bodyguard supported her back as he pulled her back into the elevator taking them back into its safety.

“I need to get out of here,” Nadia told him, and he shook his head.

“It would be better to stay in here, Ma’am. We’re trying to reach Mr.Wess right now,” he explained, and Nadia shook her head vehemently.

“No! You don’t understand! My son, I need to go see him! They could have gotten to him.” She told the man and his eyes widened at her revelation.

She never mentioned Luke to anyone at the company, so this piece of information was definitely new to him. The man’s eyes softened for a moment before he sighed.

“There’s another way through the back. I will help you get out through there,” he told her and she nodded.

Leading her out of the elevator, he took her to a backdoor leading to an alley behind the company. By then, Nadia’s phone was ringing nonstop, and she looked to find Dean calling her.

“Nadia! I’m so sorry, I never expected things to escalate like this,” Dean said through the phone but Nadia was numb with shock.

“Luke, I need to get to Luke,” she said.

Dean remained silent for a moment before answering.

“Where are you right now?” He asked.

“At the backdoor. The bodyguard is leading me out,” She answered.

“Okay, I will be there in a moment,” he said hanging up. But before she could reach the end of the alley, she heard it.

“She’s here!” Someone said behind her, and she saw a crowd of cameras run toward her.

She froze there for a moment remembering a very similar memory. She was being chased again like last time. And they were filming and scrutinizing every single thing about her. Nitpicking her life while chasing after her as if she was some kind of freak show pointing their fingers, cameras, and microphones at her.

Her hand instinctively went to her stomach but this time there was no bump there that she needed to protect. No, this time, the precious thing she needed to protect was far away from her, and probably facing the same situation without her to protect him.

Luke…

His smiling face came to her mind just as the bodyguard took her hand and began running toward the other end of the hallway cursing under his breath. But it was already too late, they were catching up to her, asking her questions and filming her. Showing everything she had been hiding for the whole world to watch.

Destroying the makeshift peace, she had worked so hard for five years to create.