Even After All

Part Thirty Two

Nodding she shook hands with the financial manager, then took the director to see the planned layout for cameras. Until that morning they’d been planning something fairly low key, all of a sudden they were talking forty different camera points and live feeds, live updates. The thought that she’d done the ground work and could relax for the next ten days confident in her preplanning was rapidly deflating; instead she wondered when she’d sleep next.

Max the director was a pleasant man, but he seemed to have very strong ideas of what he wanted, to the final detail. In the end they had to agree that he needed to email her the details so that she could oversee his planned changes. With a hand shake, he headed off to find his colleague, leaving her stood in reception overwhelmed by the morning’s events.

A debrief with Dylan, that wasn’t her ideal choice, not with so much running around in her head, she felt as though a clock was ticking loudly in her head.

Tapping on Dylan’s door she peeped in, then froze. Charlotte the presenter was perched on the edge of his desk, Dylan was sat in a seat in front of her, and both were grinning at each other. Mattie felt as though she had walked in on something. There was a tension between them, instantly palpable. She gave an apologetic smile, rallying her defences rather desperately.

                “Sorry, you asked me to come over...but I’ll be next door, whenever you want me.”

There was a poignancy to her words that made her sigh. Then she ducked out of the office.

“Sarah, can we chat about things? I need to run a few things past you.” She called out as she passed the open door to her office, Mattie knew it was a defensive move, but she didn’t want to be alone with Dylan, she wasn’t ready, her head was still trying to catch up with all that happened. She hated that she seemed petty and jealous, but that woman was all over him, and she was beautiful, all blonde hair and long legs, and more charisma than she could ever imagine. She knew that Dylan was naive when it came to women chasing him, but there had definitely been an atmosphere in that office, a tension, and she wasn’t ready to watch him start a relationship with a woman, not from this close up. But she would be, once she compartmentalised things. They had to work together, hell she was living in his home, she had to be grown up about this, but she needed to give her heart a little space to re erect some protection first.

Sarah was in the room before Mattie had reached her desk, “it’s all kicking off isn’t it. Brilliant. I’m so excited.”

Mattie grinned, “yep, live coverage on a sports channel, that’s more than we could ever ask for. So the demands for the day have literally trebled in an instant. You up for it?”

Sarah beamed, “meeting lots of famous people and maybe making an appearance on TV? How can I not be up for it?”

                “Great!” She opened a huge foolscap pad that had a whole list of things to do on it, “I’ve gone old school pen and paper as I’ve been thinking on the spot.”

Dylan had spotted the look of disappointment on Matilda’s face as she’d looked inside the office. It wasn’t until then that he realised how ‘friendly’ Charlotte was. Matilda always told him he was blind to the flirtations of women, but her look had made him see how it was. Stepping behind his desk, aiming to diffuse the situation he continued to address the issues that the TV anchor came up with, and all while remaining pleasant externally, whilst inside he wanted to push her out of his way and head off after Matilda, tell her she was wrong.

It took time to get the woman out of his office and when he had, he immediately burst into Matilda’s office with a pleading look on his face...only to find her and Sarah at the meeting table pouring over pages of details. Both looked up and smiled.