20

Dan heard the door slam and instantly knew what had happened, this was the exact reason he wanted to wait. She'd been through so much, had no confidence left in herself or in him, and who could frankly blame her, everyone had let her down, him, her father, her husband, her best friend. He'd always known this was a slow wooing process, and things had moved faster in the last twenty four hours that he intended. He knew the lengths he'd gone to, how much he'd planned, by five o'clock he'd know how she felt, and ironically the decisions were all out of his hands now. He just had to wait he thought with a grim smile, and hope that his eagerness the night before hadn't ruined his plans, shit, his future!

Pilar met her at the reception with a knowing smile.

"Well you guys were the talk of the place here last night! Everyone, and I mean EVERYone loves Dan!" When Katie smiled weakly, Pilar froze. "What have you done?"

Katie laughed awkwardly, "Will you stop reading me like this? I may not have done anything."

Pilar sighed, leading Katie into their shared office, "you will talk madam, do you hear?" Katie sat opposite her looking so remorseful that Pilar almost went easy on her. "Tell me sweetheart."

Katie sighed, "He stayed last night."

"That's a good thing?"

She shrugged, "it WAS good, but what if he regrets it." She grabbed her still swollen stomach, "what if he finds me repulsive..." That was the biggest thing for Katie, not whether he was right for her, or if he loved her...she couldn’t cope with him rejecting her. That was her biggest fear, and he could only reject her if she actually looked for his acceptance in the first place. That’s why she was keeping her distance - fear!

Pilar silenced her, "I have NEVER heard of a man finding a woman repulsive because her body has changed having HIS baby, and anyway, he loves you as you are querida, there's no way that anything would change that!"

Katie shrugged, feeling unexplained tears well beneath her heavy eyelashes.

"Do you want to push him away? Do this on your own?" When Katie shook her head Pilar continued, "I'm going to tell you the truth. You spend all the time managing everyone, everything. You thrive on pressure and stress. Now you have a man who wants to unburden some of that stress for you and you're scared of the lack of control! You've spent your life hating or not caring, now you love Daniel, and love Grace and it's new ground for you. No one has deserved you until now, but he’s trying, and I believe he really loves you. And it’s your turn now, YOU deserve to be loved."

Katie was open mouthed at her friend's outburst, "Wow! You sound like you've really thought this through!"

"It just makes sense querida; you don't feel you deserve love because you've never had it. But it's the opposite really, your father, Xavier, Marta...REALLY none of them deserved your love, not really. Dan knows he's been wrong and wants to prove that he's changed. I believe him. And the irony is, if you push him away both you and Grace will be worse off for it." She smiled as she took Katie's hand, "you're not a drama queen by nature, but maybe this is your little protest."

Pilar was right, she had to risk her own heart or lose Dan. That was the only choice, to try. She jumped to her feet, "Shit! I need to talk to him..." Katie glanced at her watch. "Shit, shit, shit, the meeting starts now..." She turned to Pilar, "are you sure you're ok to watch Grace?"

Pilar could barely control her smile, "of course, though I imagine Daddy dearest will be here any minute to snatch her away from her Tia Pilar!"

When Katie stepped out into reception Pablo, Ramon and four other managers were gathered talking.

"Ah! Here she is!" Pablo extended a hand in her direction. "The lady of the moment!"

Smiling she crossed the room to join them. "So we've got to get through these figures then I can present our plans after lunch?"

Ramon nodded, "yes, this is Miguel, he's from los bancos comerciales internacionales, he's been looking over the figures."

"Good. Let's go!"

They all headed deep into the Boardroom. Katie was dependent on the man from the bank saying yes, so she got embroiled in a heated debate over the nuances of her projected figures. They battled longer than they expected, emerging after the organized lunch party for the staff had started. So they all finally made their way to the dining room.

Katie had to do a similar presentation to the staff at all four venues. This was the first and thankfully had been based on the bank agreeing to all their demands.

She picked at the elaborate buffet, not really having the stomach for food. She looked for Pilar, so that she could check on Grace, but there was no sign of them. She had taken note of her friends' advice and at the first opportunity called Dan's phone, her heart pounding and feeling nauseous. There was no answer, so she hung up.

Half an hour later she was stood on the stage in front of a screen, most of the ninety or so staff at the hotel were gathered around the room, sipping the complimentary wine and still eating the buffet.

Smiling she introduced herself, Pablo and Ramon to all those who didn't know her. Then she started the well rehearsed spiel about the history of Juarez Industries, what they did, why they'd moved to Spain and outlined their structure.

As she flicked the presentation slides along on the screen to her left she addressed the crowd confidently, elaborating points with hand gestures, zapping through the bright and interesting slides. She was almost finished when the door at the back of the room opened and Dan sneaked in. 

Suddenly Katie's mouth was dry, her heart pounding, Pilar was right, she did love him, and she was scared. But as he perched on a stool at the back of the room, resting an arm on the bar, he smiled, a beautiful, sexy and seductive smile, without a hint of animosity that she'd dumped him earlier, and she suddenly felt that fear ease. She saw him order a drink then settle to watch her.

She tried to calm her racing heart, her breathlessness, then carried on, smiling and finding her train of thought once again. As she reached the end of the presentation, she broke into a natural smile, and turned to the room, all the upturned faces watching her.

"So we have a few imminent plans, mainly cosmetic at this stage," she clicked the slides on, wanting to display the new colour schemes and new uniform. "As you can see, this is a revelation in terms of uniform..." as the next slide flicked into place, people started to snigger, Pablo laughed, Ramon's eyes widened.

She was confused, she looked around, everyone was staring and chuckling. Only Dan looked nervous, his earlier smug grin gone. She turned to look at the screen and froze, her heart had almost stopped and shot up into her mouth, there instead of the pictures she expected, were nine large words in big bold letters in Spanish...

Katie Albasos es la mujer más cuidado y hermoso

(Katie Albasos is the most caring and beautiful woman)

She turned slowly to look up, Dan's eyes were watching her intently and she didn't know how to handle this. Now blushing profusely, she tried to move to the next image on the screen. Then her heart rose and dipped again.

This time in English, fortunately not all those present could understand, were the same huge letters - 

Katie Albasos is the woman of my dreams

People leaned together whispering, and Katie felt as though she was dying. Heat flushed her face as the whole room looked at her with varying expressions of humour and laughter.

Frantically she pressed the control to change the screen again, this time the gasps and sighs told her the ante was upped. Turning slowly she looked at the screen and gasped.

Katie Albasos, will you marry me?

I love you, please say yes!

Suddenly all embarrassment was gone, all she knew that Dan had contrived to do this, to tell the World how he felt, to risk ridicule and pain to make this such a public declaration. If he could do it, then so could she, couldn’t she? She almost laughed, there was no question any more, she needed him more than oxygen.

She turned back to the room, searching for his face at the bar, but his seat was empty. Panicking she started to visually scan the room, looking everywhere for the familiar face. Her eyes met Pablo and his smile told him he knew about this, but that was no surprise, he and Dan had been in cahoots for large portions of the previous evening. It'd be like Dan to tell him his plans. Which meant, she mentally calculated, that he'd intended to do this before last night, before they spent the night together, this wasn't a snap decision, a reaction to her running away. Even before she'd brought him back into her life, into her bed, he'd wanted this.

Like in an old Doris Day film, the crowd in front of her separated in a rift along the middle of the room, and there stood at the top, facing her was Dan. Jumping off the stage, she ran as fast as her work heels would carry her to dive into his arms. As he smothered her in a kiss, the whole crowd shouted and whooped in celebration, but then Pablo was on the stage shouting above everyone. 

"Cara! ¿Cuál es su respuesta?"

She pulled free of Dan's embrace and turned to look at the man she called her father, "what is my answer?" she broke into a smile, and shouted, "Sí! Yes! I will!" 

THE END.