Emmanuelle
I sat at my desk, waiting for Marco to return from his lunch break so that he could sign the documents I had worked on all morning. My phone kept ringing, our contractors were getting impatient and so was I.
Where the hell is he... I thought to myself.
Marco had been in a good mood lately. He was sober, focused on work and was overall in a better state than before. He did not tell me this himself but anyone who truly knew him would be able to tell that his behavior had changed.
When he left he said that it would not be long, yet it seemed like it was taking forever. I tried to reach him but my calls were declined which made my mind work overtime on overthinking. By the fourth time my phone rang and I had to answer a rude contractor, I was done waiting and decided to go to Marissa and have her take care of this.
I walked out of the office and to my surprise Rosie was sitting at her desk. This whole time I believed that Marco was on a lunch break with her.
"Hey, I thought you left with Marco."
"Nope." Her answer was short and harsh. Usually, she would give more information than needed when I asked a question or said something regarding Marco. However, by the lack of interest that she displayed on her face I guessed that they were not on good terms.
"Do you know where he went? I've tried to call him about two times but couldn't get through."
"I honestly don't know," she sighed. "Look, I don't want this to be awkward since he's your brother and our boss. But, it's best that you hear this from me before you hear it from someone else," she gulped. "We're not together anymore. And now he doesn't tell me about his lunch breaks or anything else. So, yeah."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. You okay?"
Her eyes drifted down to the keyboard. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "If I knew that it would be this hard to work with him now that we're not together, I would've stayed on my old department."
"Yeah, I can imagine how you feel. But, don't stress too much about it, okay? Give him some time, I'm sure he'll come around and be himself again."
"Oh, no. I'm okay, don't worry about me. Go do your thing before we get an angry mob of contractors on this floor." She joked.
"I'll be right back."
Just before the elevator doors closed I was able to catch a glimpse of Rosie wiping away the tears on her cheeks. My heart hurt for her because it made me wonder how much more painful it would have been if I stayed home after Dimitri treated me the way he did, especially now that Gia had temporarily moved in.
The elevator ride seemed longer than normal, only because of the hurry that I was in. The moment the doors opened I rushed into Marissa's office without knocking.
"Mari," My power walking came to an automatic stop when my eyes met those of someone that had disappeared out of my life a few months ago without any notice.
Marissa looked spooked by my presence as though I had just caught her doing something that I was not supposed to see or know.
"Hi, Tobias." There was a short pause between saying hi and his name.
Tobias' eyes shifted to Marissa who was standing a bit too close to him and only moved away when I greeted him. Anthony instantly crossed my mind when I saw them so close to each other.
"Hey, Emmanuelle." He smiled. "It's been a while. It's nice to see you again." He scratched his throat and stood still for a while before he walked up to me and gave me a hug that was extremely awkward.
"Oh, uhm." It was so unexpected and happened far too fast for my brain to signal my body to hug him back that I did not do it which made the situation even more painful than it already was.
Meanwhile, my sister was quietly watching us with her arms folded in front of her as one hand held her heart. Her body language screamed guilty which made my mind play a game of putting 1 and 1 together, but I refused to believe that I could actually be right. She would not do such a thing to Anthony.
"Yes, it has been a very long time. It's like you disappeared off the face of the earth," I said to lighten the mood. "When did you come back?"
"Yeah, I– uhh, I had to take care of some business in Monaco. Family business that is, I came back on Monday."
Monday was four days ago. Yet, my sister did not mention anything about his return even though I had asked her if she knew how he was doing at least two to three times since I had last heard from him.
A wave of utter silence hit us until I could not deal with it anymore.
"Am I interrupting something?"
"No, no, no." The two of them answered at the same time.
"Okay," I nodded. "Marco's on his lunch break and I need to send these away so I was wondering if you could take a look at it and sign it on behalf of the company." I decided to focus on why I was there in the first place.
"Yeah, yeah. Of course." She reciprocated in a rather shaky voice.
She quickly skimmed through the documents before she signed the pages and as soon as she was done I was ready to take my leave.
"Thanks," I smiled at her before I turned towards Tobias. "It was good to see you again, Tobias. Don't be a stranger." I rushed out with the same speed that I went in there with.
I could not shake off the feeling that something was going on between them even though they were not doing anything scandalous.
"Okay, stop." I said out loud like a crazy person. Rosie and Marco's breakup was enough drama to deal with for the day, there was no room for Marissa and whatever could be happening between her and Tobias.
I convinced myself that I was just overthinking and decided to leave it at that. There was no need to let matters that did not involve me bother me.
"I'm back." I announced to Rosie as if she could not see it herself.
She remained still and since I already knew what she was dealing with I did not bother her any further. When I pushed the door open I saw Marco sitting behind his desk.
"I saw your missed call. I tried to call back but no answer." He said as soon as he saw me.
"I called you like two times about these contracts but you didn't answer so I went to Mari. You must've called when I was there, I left my phone in my bag."
"Right, I forgot. I'm sorry."
"Taken care off, but you get to drop these off at general affairs since you forgot to sign them."
He chuckled, "Alright, only this time."
He took the documents out of my hand and placed them in envelopes.
"Are you going to Mr. Tribbiani's house too after work?" He then asked.
I gave him a quizzical look. "No? What for?"
"Oh. No, I heard Marissa talking to Gia about going there to see how the, you know— the decorations are coming along for tomorrow night."
"Right, the surprise party Mattia planned with Gia's father which she already knows about."
"And is now also planning." He nodded at me with raised eyebrows, his look screamed 'unbelievable'.
He was right, at times I would look at my sister and her friend and wonder what goes through their minds.
"Okay, I'll be back soon."
"Don't. You said that about lunch and came back five hours later."
"Don't exaggerate, it was hardly three." He gave me a smooth almost flirtatious wink.
We left work exactly at five o'clock this Friday because Marissa needed our help with the final touches that had to be made. Yet, she was not home herself at the time that we came home.
"Where's Marissa?" Marco asked Anthony who was joined by Dimitri in the living room.
"She just left with Gia, she'll be back soon."
"What did she need help with?"
"All of this shit." Dimitri complained.
Marco wiped his forehead, "I thought all of the arrangements were taken care off."
"Oh, they were. But, Gia requested one that is put together by her boyfriend." Anthony looked at Dimitri with such irritation. "Thank you for that." He said sarcastically.
I almost chuckled.
"Fine, let me help." Marco sat down next to Anthony.
"I'm going to say hi to Tia really quickly." I only addressed Marco and Anthony, but I could feel Dimitri's eyes burn through my skin.
"Tia," I wore a huge, genuine smile on my face until I saw the mess. "What is going on here?"
"Nuelle," She turned off the stove and transferred the burning hot pot into the sink. It was placed in a larger pot that was filled with cold water. Tia stepped back from the sink and looked at me. "You are early today, did you come with Marco?"
"Yes, he is in the livin groom with the others. What are you doing?" I looked around the room.
"I'm making my famous chocolate cake for Gia. It is not much but I still wanted to do something for her."
This was the cake that Anthony and I had every year for our birthday during the time that we lived abroad. It had become some sort of our family tradition. Yet, there she was making it for Gia and telling me that it is not much when I always viewed it as such an important part of my birthday.
Everyone was bending backwards to make Gia feel comfortable and have her way, it baffled me.
"Nuelle," I felt a nudge on my arm. "Why aren't you replying, you have me talking to myself."
"Sorry," I apologized once I realized that I had zoned out. "What were you saying?"
"I said, Gia took me out to the mall this morning to buy a dress. It's really beautiful, you'll like it."
"That's nice of her."
"What are you wearing tomorrow?"
A t-shirt that says happy birthday bitch and ripped jeans...
"I don't know as yet, I'll see."
I held Tia company whilst she finished the cake, even helped her with the frosting. After finishing up she popped the cake in the fridge and we went to the front to checkup on the guys.
"Wow, not bad." I complemented Marco as I leaned on his chair. He looked up at me and wiggled his eyebrows.
"It's me," He said with such arrogance that was somehow attractive.
"Cocky much."
"It looks good now so I get to be cocky. You should have seen what Mattia had done with it." He chuckled.
My smile fell of my face the moment he mentioned his name. I felt Dimitri's eyes on me and when I looked up they connected with mine. His face was straight, I could not read his emotions. He looked at me the way he used to when I moved back home. The brief moment of connection that we had seemed to be long forgotten.
"I think I also deserve some credit." Anthony's voice took my attention away from Dimitri.
"I think you all deserve praise, Gia will be grateful." Tia said in her motherly tone.
"We'll see about that," Marco stood up from his chair. "Okay, I did my part. Now, I'm going to shower and hit the mall really quickly cause everyone seems to have an outfit ready except for me." He continued.
"Take Nuelle with you, maybe she can find something." Tia stopped Marco from walking away.
I did not know how to react upon the different reactions to Tia's words. Anthony did not seem to think anything of it and continued working on the flower arrangement, Dimitri on the other hand seemed affected in some way since his eyebrows were pressed together which made him looked displeased.
"You can come with me." Marco rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt.
"Yeah, sure." I followed him up the stairs to get myself ready.
I struggled to dress myself and changed two to three outfits that I had worn plenty of times before, yet this time they all looked bad on me.
"What the hell is wrong with you." I whined, speaking to myself.
Why are you nervous to go out with him this isn't a date or something. Why do you care he didn't ask you out, Tia suggested this. Damn it, Tia...
I refused to accept that my nervousness was the cause for my unusual behavior until I jumped and clutched my heart like a nervous wreck when I heard a knock on my door.
"You done?" His voice sent shivers down my body.
"Yeah. One sec." I almost fell, trying to get my jeans on as fast as possible. I paired it with a black, long sleeved blouse and my leather boots. I threw my phone and wallet in a small backpack that completed the all black look. I added simple gold hoop earrings, a thin gold necklace and loosened my hair. For my makeup I did my eyebrows, added mascara and lip gloss.
"Okay," I took one last look in the mirror before I opened my door to Marco standing with his back towards me.
"Hey," he turned around within seconds of hearing the door open. It took a moment for us to realize that we had chosen to wear the same color.
Great, now it's awkward...
"After you." He motioned with his hand.
The car ride was quieter than the ones we had shared for work until Marco decided to play some music.
"What do you think of getting? A dress?"
"Hmm, dresses aren't my favorite thing to wear."
"You looked great in the brown one you wore for our dinner."
My heart fluttered. My right leg lightly bounced up and down.
"Doing okay?" He spoke in a softer voice. When I turned to him his eyes were glued to my lips as he darted his tongue against his own. I immediately turned to look away.
"I spoke to Rosie this morning." I changed the subject to one that had been lingering on my mind.
"Yeah, what did she tell you?"
There was a moment of silence as it dawned upon me that it may seem like I was interested in knowing about his love life— which I was but I did not want him to know that.
"She told me that you guys broke up."
"And you need me to confirm that to be able to believe her?"
"Wh– no. That's not it."
"No? What is it then?" He turned the engine off as he faced me, a smirk plastered on his oh-so pretty face.
"Just making conversation." I instantly regretted my decision of bringing this up.
"We did. I'm also not seeing anyone else," he paused for a millisecond. "You know, in case you're wondering." He got out of the car before I could reply.
"I wasn't." My words flew over the top of the low sports car.
We coursed the shopping mall, going in and out of a few shops mostly because of me. Marco seemed to already know where he would get his stuff, therefore he let me run around the place like a little kid in a playground as he patiently followed me.
"What about this store?" He asked when we stopped in front of a luxurious boutique.
"No, because it looks really expensive."
He smiled, "Come on." He stepped into the shop. He had his hands in his pockets which gave off that careless vibe.
"Comment ça va, Marco?" A fabulous older woman approached us.
"Mira," The two hugged each other, sharing kisses on the cheeks. "ça va bien. You look– as beautiful as ever." He held her hands.
Of course...
"Ahh," she blushed as she playfully smacked his arm. "Who is this?"
"Not what you think." He was quick with his reply. "This is my sister, Emmanuelle."
Sister?...
My entire life I wanted them to refer to me as their sister, yet the emotion I felt when Marco introduced me as his sibling was not what I expected it to be. I always believed that I would get overwhelmed by such happiness and fulfillment, but no trace of these emotions could be found in this moment.
"Sister? Okay, I don't need to know." She dramatically threw her hands up. "Why you are here— that is important to me."
Marco chuckled, "Emmanuelle needs an outfit for a party."
"Gia's party?" When she rolled her eyes we became best friends in my mind.
Marco nodded.
"Okay, follow me." She led me to a hall filled with clothes.
"You want to outshine the star," she leaned towards me and whispered, all whilst she was still looking at Marco. "You wear one of these." She motioned towards a row of six extravagant clothing pieces.
"Oh, no. She will definitely not like that." I shook my head, smiling.
She waved her hand at me in a dismissive manner, "Okay, then one of these." We moved to another collection.
I went through the collection, checking each tag for the price when Marco's voice boomed from my left side. "Don't worry about the price." He stood tall, his arms folded in front of him.
"I have to. I have about one more week before my next payday." I said, immensely proud that I could say this.
He walked up to me, "I said— don't worry about the price", he took a black dress from the collection and held it in front of me. "This one will look good on you."
"The dress code is white."
"I know."