Bring Him Home Chapter 7

He was looking at me, so he was awake and I presumed he could hear me, but once again he was just staring at me. I decided to just over look that and launched into my apology,

"I owe you a huge apology Sir, you caught me at a really bad time last week, I'd had had a horrendous day and I was on my way to a very important meeting when I bumped into you. I really shouldn't have lost my temper with you the way I did, I'm not proud of my actions and I'm so so sorry. Will you please forgive me?"

I stood looking at him expecting him to at least acknowledge me but he did what exactly what he'd done so far, he just stared at me. His green eyes were so cold and detached but the intense green colour almost unnerved me, I couldn't decide if he hated me or if he was just annoyed at me for interrupting him. The stare continued to burn through to my soul, it was so intense it actually started to make me feel uncomfortable and I started to fidget. I was a master at waiting for people to talk, I had to be in my profession, so the fact he was getting to me wasn't lost on me.  I wanted him to at least accept my apology but it looked as though it wasn't going to happen so instead I decided on another tack.

"Well I'll leave you to your day, if you need anything, a hot meal, a shower, anything, my offices are on the 9th floor of the building you were outside of when I ran into you. Please don't hesitate to come up if you need anything. In fact here this is my cell phone number and email address, you can contact me there anytime"

He took the business card off me and for the first time looked away from me as he studied the card. I took the opportunity to turn away from him and I started to run another lap of the park. By the time I was running back towards the bench I could see it was empty, he'd gone. It was only then I realised what an idiot I'd been, how the hell could he call me or email me? I just had to hope he took me up on my offer of some hit food.

I made my way back to the office ready to face the rest of the day, I needed to call the top people on my client list and explain about the video, chances are most of them wouldn't see it but I knew if it was getting hits most of the employees in the organisation would watch, someone was bound to inform the bosses.

Rosalie was waiting for me as I walked through the reception doors, that itself was never a good thing,

"Boss we need to talk, the video is getting a huge amount of hits and we have already had calls from some industry reporters following the story because whoever has put out the amended version is obviously making sure that the right people in our industry see it."

It was time to work so I called a staff meeting and told everyone to clear everything they could from their diaries. I had a quick shower and changed and we all sat down in the conference room.

"So how many actual clients have called in? I asked

Esme was on the ball and she had all the answers to my questions

"Well Bella we haven't had any calls from clients but we have had calls from four of our competitors wanting to know if you were off loading clients and we have had six calls from reporters, most were either local media or industry reps"

"Ok I will start with the local media" offered Kate

"And I will be forceful but very pleasant with the industry people, they should know better than to get involved with this, as far as I'm concerned this is a set up by one of our competitors and they should be able to realise that"  Irina said.

"OK  and also to both of them, remind them of all the good deeds Bella does but they don't bother reporting, tell them that we will be sending them a press release about this company's charity work and the fact that Bella was the guest speaker at International Women in business conference last month. Another fact our local media decided not to mention."  Rosalie was pissed and that usually means someone is going to get the backlash.

"That leaves our competitors and our clients" Rosalie was on a roll.

"I'm not even giving our so called peers the satisfaction of speaking to them, chances are one of the ones that called actually released the video anyway" I said as Alice flounced back into the room.

"I need that list please Esme, Jasper agrees that one of them could be involved" she said as Esme moved to email her the list.

"So clients, I suggest we divide them up, I will take our top ten clients, Rosalie take the next ten, Esme the next and Alice you pick all the smaller ones. Just make it short and sweet, no need to explain the in's and out just explain that we are aware of the video and if they would like to discuss it with me I am available to see them or video conference with them. Do not apologise for me, it was a private moment between me and the guy involved and it does not make any difference to how I work. Let me be clear about that to all of you, do not apologise for me, ok?"

Everybody understood what I was getting at and started to leave the table.

"Just before you go I wanted to tell you that I just saw the guy again, he was resting in the park while I was running, I gave him my business card and told him where our offices were so if he comes up or someone different calls for me, I want to know immediately please"

"Boss, why did you have a business card on you when you were out running?" Rosalie asked with a smile on her face.

"You never know when you might need one Rosalie, don't you always have your cards with you?" I asked her

"Oh yes I always have them with me but I can guarantee that I use mine for a totally different reason to you, outside of work of course!" she added as she left the room.

I really worried about her, I had visions of her cards being in some really strange places!

Everyone was on the phone, I could hear the all talking and depending on whom they were on to their demeanour and tone was very different. Judy was manning the incoming calls and logging anyone that needed an immediate call back, luckily at the moment it was the odd new enquiry along with suppliers of ours that needed questions answered on existing and developing campaigns.

As I sat in the conference room alone, I poured a coffee and tried to get my head in the right place to speak to my top ten clients, I had built a solid relationship with all of them and I was hoping that they would see the incident for what it was, a one off moment of madness, but as I sat there all I could see was a pair of bright green eyes. I couldn't clear the image of the intense stare and now it was as though his scent had invaded my nostrils, I hadn't been aware of it before but now it was as though he was close by ,I could smell the muskiness of old dirty clothes, mixed with fresh rain and the outside and it was very disarming. I sat looking out across he concourse to the spot where I had walked in to him and I tried to work out how old he was and how he had come to be homeless. No matter how much I tried to concentrate all I could see was a pair of green eyes.

Thank you so much to RITA01TX for an amazing banner for this story. It's over on TWCS if you want to go look at it. She is responsible for all five banners for my stories so please send her lots of love.