Author's Notes:
'Natalie's Valentine' is my entry for the Valentine's Day Story Contest 2016.
Everyone deserves to love and be loved so I thought I might contribute a story which celebrates that.
All characters engaging in sexual relationships or activities are 18 years old or older.
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"Scott's a big jerk!"
Natalie blushed furiously as she realized she'd just shouted that out loud on the crowded Monday morning train. On top of the terrible heartache she felt from his breaking up with her the night before, with a text message no less, now her face burned with embarrassment. There was always one lunatic in the train. This morning it was her.
She leaned her forehead against her arm holding the overhead rail so she could hide her face. Her other arm clutched her shoulder bag tight to her stomach to keep its contents safe from pick pockets. In the two years she'd lived in the city she'd already discovered how clever their hands could be and she couldn't afford to replace her laptop again.
Natalie looked at her reflection in the window she was facing as the train made its way through the tunnels towards the core of the city. The twenty four year old woman looking back at her was... pretty. She allowed herself that. Next to the other passengers she looked positively tiny at 5' 1". Her cheery and smart looking red overcoat hugged her body and hinted that she was maybe a little top heavy. Truthfully, she had a small amount of extra padding all over but there was just a little more in the chest area. Her mother teased her that the booby fairy had been over generous to her at puberty. Her body was otherwise normally proportioned, if petite. Finding fashionable clothes that fit her unique dimensions was a struggle.
She had thick auburn hair which fell in waves to her shoulders. Her naturally long lashes and pale green eyes were behind serious but attractive dark framed glasses perched on a nose with a slight upturn at the end. She wasn't knock down gorgeous or tall and willowy like the models that continuously paraded through the office she worked at but she was pretty. Maybe cute was a better description. Or not good enough. She closed her eyes and fought back the tears. Biting her lower lip, she used the pain to push back the sadness.
Natalie gave herself a shake. She had to stop this moping! She had so much to be thankful and happy about! She made it out of the small town she'd grown up in, had her own small apartment on the outer edge of her favorite city, and best of all was working her dream job!
She did website production and design for Audacious!, one of the boldest and strongest voices in the fashion industry. She used her not inconsiderable skills as a web developer and graphic designer to add ease of use and more importantly brilliant style to a website that was once considered to be the least fashionable sites in fashion.
When she'd interviewed for the position she'd come equipped with a demo of what their website
could
look like under her skillful hands. The interviewer was so desperate for change she immediately called one of the junior execs and had him sit through the demo. He in turn dragged Natalie before the other execs who were in the midst of having their regular weekly meeting. Once more Natalie ran through her demo and impressed the entire team with her ideas for bringing them into the future. She had the job before she left the building that day!
Alex, her first boyfriend, had been the executive assistant of the junior exec who pulled her into that meeting. Unfortunately, he turned out to be more enamoured with her potential for upward mobility in the company than her. They'd dated for four months until he discovered she was happy with her current position and had no intention of going after the president's job. He dropped her and latched onto a new and aggressive executive who joined the company shortly after her. Natalie later heard Alex and his beau were both fired for having sex on the president's desk... and getting caught in the act by said president.
Scott worked in the Operations department. Natalie had to work closely with the OPS team as her work was so dependent on the servers and the software running on them. He had flirted with her unmercifully until she'd agreed to go on a date with him. Yes, he was a nerd but so was she... to an extent. They had some common interests and the first few months had been really great. They had finally reached the physical side of the relationship and while she admitted she wasn't dazzled by his abilities in the bedroom it had been nice. Two weeks later she got the text. Coward!
She was dreading the technical meeting she had to attend in the afternoon. He would be there. Natalie dabbed her eyes with a tissue fighting back new tears.
No! She would be cool and professional. If the opportunity presented itself for her to speak with him as an adult to get closure she would. A shiver ran through her. She could certainly talk a big game but sometimes she regressed to her small town timid nature.
Natalie came out of her daze as she'd reached her stop. She joined the crush to get out the doors and up the escalators to ground level. The February winds were biting and she was glad she only had a block to rush along to get to the front door of her office building.
She went inside and took the elevator up to the twentieth floor exiting into their reception area. Sitting behind the desk was Linda, a friend she'd made at the office. She was equally petite in stature but had very pale skin and raven hair in a pixie cut. Linda was one of their receptionists and immediately noticed Natalie's reddened eyes. She shot her friend a concerned look as she spoke on the phone but Natalie just gave her a smile and wave as she slipped away to her desk at the far end of the floor. It was quieter here and Natalie was able to hang up her coat, flip on her workstation, and bury herself in her work. This was as close to bliss as she was going to get today.
She surfaced with a start at 11AM when her phone began to chirp. She glanced over and saw it was the main boardroom calling. The exec team!
"Good morning, Natalie speaking!" she said, as cheerfully as she could.
"Oh thank god you're in, Natalie! Please join us in the boardroom!" The line went dead. That was Maggie her boss calling.
Grabbing her laptop she rushed down the hall and passed the reception area where Linda was still trapped by the phone. She made big eyes at Natalie to get her to stop and fill her in but she just pointed to the corner boardroom and rushed by.
Knocking on the door Natalie stepped inside. She immediately noted the glum face on Maggie and their lawyer whose name eluded her. He rarely left his office. The president was sitting back in her chair with a look that said someone's head was going to roll. Natalie hoped it wasn't hers.
"Natalie, we have a problem. Two actually," Maggie said, glancing at the grim look on the lawyer's face. "Our Valentine shoot has to be scrapped. Two of the models didn't have work visas and one was underage." Natalie looked at her boss in surprise. "Then we learned the photographer got his hands on the design and layout of the article and sold it to a competitor. We have to come up with new content and have it ready for the site by Thursday night!"
"That's not a lot of time..." Natalie murmured and heard a snort from the head of the table. Her eyes flicked in that direction and froze as she was trapped by intense blue eyes.
Sonja Ellison was a force of nature. Gravity, the tides, hurricanes, and Sonja Ellison. Each was undeniable. Each got things done. With her 5' 10" height and her sleek, toned body she could easily be mistaken for one of the models who visited but her drive and charisma could not be contained.
She actually had been a supermodel when she was just a couple of years younger than Natalie. Fresh from Sweden she was an instant success with her striking beauty and bold presence but after just two years of walking runways and gracing magazine covers she tired of being the billboard for fashion trends. She wanted to be a key player setting those trends. The name of her website, Audacious!, was based on the insult hurled at her by a famous designer when she'd abruptly left the runway at one of his shows and told him she was destined for more than he could offer. Granted, for the name she dropped the 'Bitch' part of his insult. Ten years later she was going strong and that designer wasn't more than a footnote in history.
"Our Natalie has a gift for understatement." Sonja gusted out as she released her anger and ran her slim, long fingered hands through her white blond hair which she kept short and perpetually tousled. "Please take a chair..." she said looking for an open seat. The room was a little crowded this morning so she reached behind herself and pulled a chair up beside her as she moved hers over to make space.
