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Chapter 9: Professional and Personal

The weekend was torture for Tony. All he could think of was his meeting with Michelle on Monday and how he was going to handle it. What was he supposed to say to her? With Abby in New York with her friends he had little to distract him. He called Chad Peterson who would be bringing Michelle to the meeting on Monday.

"Did you know that you were hiring my ex-wife as your replacement?" Tony asked him angrily.

"Of course, Tony. Her personnel file details her kidnapping and your actions. Everyone on the search committee knew the story," Chad told him.

"Then what the hell were you thinking? Why would you have offered her the job?"

"Tony, she was the most qualified candidate. I'm sorry. Believe me, we didn't enter into this decision lightly. The search committee considered all of the candidates and their qualifications. When we decided that Michelle was clearly the best candidate, we discussed the ramifications of hiring your ex-wife into the position. Our final decision was that she was the most qualified candidate and we couldn't let your personal history play any part in the selection process."

"Why didn't you warn me?"

"I wanted to. I discussed it with Michelle when she called us to accept the position. She told me that she wanted to tell you herself. It never occurred to me that she would just drop by your place to chat. I thought that she'd call you or email you. I'll be honest, Tony. When I spoke with Michelle I didn't get the impression that your divorce was quite this acrimonious. She made it sound like you parted on pretty friendly terms."

"Hardly! I went to prison for saving her life and when I got a pardon and came home she decided to leave me." Tony knew he was leaving out important details like the fact that he had been drinking heavily and refused to get a job, but at the moment he didn't care. "How could you believe that we parted on good terms?"

"Look Tony, I'm sorry. What's done is done. Michelle is the new special liaison to the NSA. You two are going to have to find a way to work together."

The two friends said a rather chilly goodbye and disconnected. Tony wasn't quite sure what to do next. He tried to stay busy by cleaning his apartment and doing laundry. When he finished that around 3 o'clock he started looking for something else to do. He considered calling Michelle to clear the air before their meeting on Monday but after starting to dial her number twice, he put down the phone and walked away from it. He had no idea what he was going to say when she answered the phone or why he was even calling, so he chose not to call her. He was grateful when some friends from work called and invited him to a Baltimore Orioles baseball game. He wasn't a fan of either team that was playing, but at least it got him out of his apartment and gave him something else to think about.

The weekend was torture for Michelle, too. She chided herself for being so naïve as to believe that she could simply show up at Tony's door and he would take her back. On top of that, she was embarrassed that she had shown up at such an awkward time. If she wanted to talk to Tony, she should have called first and set up a convenient time. She had put him in a bad position as well and wondered how his fiancé felt about his ex-wife showing up unannounced.

Monday finally arrived. Tony got to work around 7:30. His meeting with Chad and Michelle was scheduled for 10:30 and he found himself anxiously checking his watch every few minutes. Chad and Michelle arrived on time and were directed into Tony's office by his secretary, Becky.

The three sat at a table in Tony's office and began reviewing the week's intelligence reports that were to be shared between the agencies. Chad and Tony normally met for about three hours every Monday afternoon and then had a telephone conference on Thursday morning. They spoke at other times during the week if necessary. Tony and Michelle agreed that they would continue that practice. Today's meeting, however would probably take most of the day. There was a lot of information that Tony and Chad had to bring Michelle up to speed on.

The tenor or the meeting was cordial and business-like. They had a lot of ground to cover and Tony and Michelle didn't have a lot of time to think about anything outside of the information they were reviewing. With so much material to review, they decided to work through lunch. Becky called in a lunch order for them to a local deli and they ate while they worked. It was almost five o'clock when they finally finished and they said their goodbyes. Chad and Tony shook hands, while Tony and Michelle merely nodded at each other.

Once Chad and Michelle were out of his office, Tony practically collapsed in his chair. The day had gone better than he expected but had been emotionally draining nonetheless. Sitting next to Michelle, so close that their legs had brushed on more than one occasion, had been harder than Tony ever imagined. It took all of his self control to remain focused and keep thinking about work.

Michelle was wearing her hair curly again. He loved her curls. He wanted to bury his face in those curls, run his hands through them so that the ringlets twisted around his fingers. Her soft hand rested on the table near his. He couldn't help but remember putting a wedding ring on that same hand. His hands shook as he did it, but he knew then that she was the only woman he ever wanted. He wanted to go to sleep with her in his arms every night and wake to her beautiful face every morning. How could he have ever let it go so wrong? He knew that, although Michelle left him, the blame for their failed marriage rested equally on both of their shoulders.

As he sat at his desk, he imaged how good it would feel to make love to her again. As difficult as it was to stay professional today, it would be worse next week when Chad wouldn't be there. Michelle would be alone with him behind the closed door of his office and he wasn't sure that he trusted himself.

The phone rang and brought Tony back to reality. The caller ID told him that it was Abby. Despite Tony's reassurances, she was anxious about his first meeting with Michelle. Tony sighed. He didn't feel like talking to Abby right now. Ever since Michelle reappeared in his life just three days earlier his stomach had been tied in a knot. He loved her and he couldn't deny it but he and Abby were engaged. He knew that Abby loved him; there was no doubt in his mind about that. And he cared deeply for her, he truly did, but he could never love her the way he loved Michelle. Maybe he should break off his engagement now and try to reconcile with Michelle. Was Michelle actually interested in him? He wasn't sure. He didn't know if Michelle wanted him back and if he broke off his engagement and Michelle didn't want him back, then he had nothing. In that case, was it wrong to continue his relationship with Abby knowing that she would never be his true love? He didn't have answers to any of those questions and it was tearing him apart.

"Hey," he answered the phone softly.

"Hi," Abby answered back. "Is your meeting over?"

"Yeah, they just left."

"How did it go?"

"It was okay. We were civil. I wish you would stop worrying, Abby. Michelle and I are both professionals. We do our jobs and that's it. Even when Michelle and I were married, nothing personal went on at work. The line was drawn at the front door of the office."

Abby said that she understood but, in fact, she didn't. She had seen the look on Tony's face when he was talking to Michelle. It was a look of pure love that she had never seen directed at her. She had always feared that Tony still loved his ex-wife, but he treated her so well and made her so happy, that she wasn't particularly concerned about it until now. Now it scared her. Now she was afraid that she was losing him.

Tony and Michelle soon settled into their weekly meetings and conference calls. The first couple were tense, but they started to lighten up after just a few weeks. Although they weren't exactly friendly, they could at least ask each other how their weekend was. Answers to personal questions like that were usually only a few words or maybe a sentence long.

Tony's relationship with Abby seemed to stabilize but Abby could feel an overall change in it. She couldn't quite explain it, but when they were together, a little part of Tony always seemed to be elsewhere. Any time she asked Tony about it he became defensive and denied it.

The weeks passed and Michelle had now been in her new position for about eight weeks. She and Tony were just finishing up their weekly meeting. She said goodbye to him and stepped out of his office.

"Good night, Becky," she said as she passed Tony's secretary who was getting ready to leave.

"Good night, Ms. Dessler," Becky replied.

"See you next week."

"Oh, Ms. Dessler, which direction are you going when you leave?" Becky asked her.

"I'm going south, back toward Washington. Why?"

"There was an accident on southbound route 32. It's backed up for almost five miles. All of the southbound routes are swamped with people trying to avoid route 32."

"Damn," Michelle said. "Somehow sitting in traffic for the next couple of hours doesn't sound like fun."

By now Tony had heard the conversation and walked out of his office. "Sounds like you're lucky that you live north of here, Becky," Tony commented.

Becky smiled as she picked up her purse. "Yeah, at least I can get home. You're probably better off staying for a while and getting some work done, Mr. Almeida."

"That's what I'm going to do," Tony told her. "Michelle, if you want to stay, you're welcome to. We have our quarterly report due next month. Chad and I had a system for putting that report together but since this is your first one, we could use the time to work on it."

"That sounds reasonable. It's better than sitting in traffic," Michelle agreed. She walked back into Tony's office and set her laptop on the table.

After spending an hour and a half working on the report, Tony stood up to stretch. He checked a traffic report on the internet.

"Traffic is still backed up for miles. We're not going to get out of here for a while," Tony told Michelle. "I need a break from this report. Are you hungry?"

"I didn't have time for lunch. I'm starved."

"Would you like to go get some dinner? There's a pretty good little Italian place a couple of miles from here. We should be able to take back roads and avoid the traffic."

"That sounds like a good idea," Michelle said. She stood and picked up her purse.

Tony locked his office door behind him and the two of them made their way to Tony's car. Tony was right; he was able to avoid most of the major roads and they made it to the restaurant in about 20 minutes. Soon they were seated and looking at menus.

"The eggplant parmesan and the linguini with red clam sauce are both first rate," Tony told her.

A young waitress worked her way over to them. "Can I get you something from the bar?" she asked after greeting them.

"Are you having a drink?" Michelle asked Tony.

He looked at her silently for a second. "I don't drink any more, Michelle."

She looked up having momentarily forgotten that Tony's drinking was the main reason they broke up in the first place. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you had completely stopped drinking."

"I couldn't seem to do it in moderation so I decided I shouldn't do it at all. But don't let me stop you, feel free to have a drink," Tony said and then asked the waitress for an iced tea.

"Are you sure it won't bother you if I have a glass of wine?"

"No, Abby drinks and it doesn't bother me."

Michelle ordered a glass of wine and the waitress walked back toward the bar. There was an awkward silence between them for a few moments and they both focused on the menu. Soon the waitress was back with their drinks and they each placed a dinner order. Michelle sipped at her wine and began to feel herself relax. Their dinners arrived and soon their conversation had returned to normal.

"Have you seen Jack lately? How are he and Audrey doing?" Michelle asked between bites.

"I played tennis with Jack on Saturday. They're doing great. Audrey's pregnant."

"Really? I can't see Jack becoming a father again," Michelle said with a warm smile. She looked up and caught the eye of their waitress and indicated that she wanted another glass of wine.

"He's thrilled. Before they were married he was talking about having a family. I've never seen him this happy before."

There was a pause in the conversation as the waitress set down Michelle's wine. "So," Michelle said as she took the first sip from the glass. "When are you and Abby getting married?"

Tony was surprised by the question. They had both consciously avoided any personal questions. "We don't have a date yet. For a while we were talking about next spring, but we haven't really talked about specific dates recently."

"How long have you been engaged?"

"Since April," he told her. He knew what she was thinking. Most couple that had been engaged that long had already set a wedding date.

"Are you living together?" She was feeling much bolder now.

Tony was amused as he realized that it was the alcohol talking. "No, we have our own apartments but we're looking for a house."

"Oh, what area are you looking in?"

"I'd like to live in this area, but Abby wants to be closer to DC. She likes city life."

"City life is fun, but it's tough to raise kids in a city. I would think this would be a nice area to raise a family."

"I'm not sure that a family is really in our plans," Tony told her.

"Really? You always wanted kids when we were together."

"I don't know. It doesn't seem like a priority any more. Abby is pretty career minded. I'd still like to have kids, but I won't press the issue and right now she's not interested. Maybe we'll consider it someday, but not right now." Tony started to realize how all of this sounded. They had been engaged for months and didn't have a wedding date, couldn't decide where to live and couldn't agree on whether or not to have children. It didn't sound like much of a relationship.

Michelle was out of questions and looked down with feigned interest in twisting linguini perfectly around her fork. Tony took advantage of her silence. Two could play at this game.

"Look Michelle, I don't want to get too personal, but what happened between you and Bill?"

Michelle smiled a mirthless, almost embarrassed, smile. "It's a long and ugly story, Tony. One you probably don't want to hear." She looked back at her linguini.

Tony persisted. "Did you know that Bill called me one night? He was looking for you. I guess you two had an argument and you walked out. He got worried and, for some reason, thought you might have contacted me."

"You're kidding," she said looking up in disbelief. "He actually called you? What time was it? Why did he think I would contact you?"

"It was around midnight here. I don't know why he thought you'd call me. And he didn't say what happened but you two must have had one hell of a fight. I figured that you probably went down to that rocky stretch of beach we used to like but I didn't tell him. I felt that if you wanted to be left alone for a while, it wasn't my place to tell him where I thought you were."

"I guess I'm pretty transparent," Michelle said with a quiet chuckle.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, you figured out where I was didn't you. Not only that, Bill was right in thinking that I might call you," she sighed. "I was sitting on the beach and I needed somebody to talk to. Twice I almost called you but I ended up turning my phone off before I made the call."

"Of all the people you could talk to, why would you have called me?"

"I don't know. I thought you would listen to me and at the moment that was all that I wanted. I didn't want anyone to tell me what to do or to be judgmental."

"I wish you would have called me," Tony said softly. "I would have been happy to listen. What time did you finally go home?"

"I got in around 4 a.m. Bill was frantic," she smiled at the memory. "It was kind of funny watching him try and apologize."

"If you were mad enough to stay out until 4 in the morning, he probably needed to apologize."

"We both made mistakes. I wanted someone to care for me and someone to come home to but I didn't want to make a commitment and that was wrong. He wanted a wife and a family and he was willing to do just about anything to get that."

"What finally convinced you to marry him?"

"I was pregnant," she said quietly as she looked down at her plate. "I wanted the baby to be part of a family. I didn't want to be a single mother."

Tony couldn't conceal the look of surprise on his face. "I had no idea."

"Oh, it was a surprise to me, too. The problem was, that it wasn't a surprise to Bill."

"I don't understand," Tony admitted.

"This is so embarrassing," Michelle said shaking her head and looking away. She took a moment and collected herself. She had decided to tell Tony the whole story. She had never done this before. No one other than she and Bill knew what had really happened. She hadn't even told her parents. It was easier to let them think the pregnancy was accidental. They didn't like Bill all that well to begin with and telling them the truth seemed to be pointless. "Bill basically planned the pregnancy without my knowledge. He figured out when I was most likely to get pregnant. Then he planned a romantic weekend in the Napa Valley for that time frame. We went on a wine tasting tour. The only problem was that I was the one who did most of the wine tasting. I spent the whole weekend too drunk to realize that we weren't using any birth control. A few weeks later when I realized that I was pregnant, I was shocked. When I told Bill, he wasn't even a little bit surprised. That was when I realized that he planned it.

"I got so angry that I walked out. I eventually ended up at the beach. After sitting there watching the ocean for about eight hours, I decided that I was going to have the baby and that Bill and I should get married." Michelle looked away tears were forming in her eyes. The rest of the story was a little harder for her to talk about. "About four months later, I was at a meeting at CTU and I started to have really bad abdominal pain. I was transferred to Good Samaritan and they told me that I had a miscarriage. Without a baby, Bill and I didn't have anything to hold our marriage together. So we split up."

Tony reached across the table, covered her hand with his and squeezed gently. "I'm so sorry, Michelle," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Michelle said nothing and stared deeply into his eyes. The moment was broken as Tony's phone rang. "I'm sorry," he said as he reached for the phone. "Hello."

"Tony! Thank God you're alright," Abby exclaimed. "Where are you? I heard there was an accident on route 32 and you didn't come home and you didn't call. I was worried about you."

"I'm sorry, Abby. I decided to stay at the office to get some work done rather than sit in traffic. I should have called you."

"You're not at the office, Tony. I called there and got your voice mail. Where are you?"

"We worked until about 7:30 and then decided to get something to eat at the Italian place near work. We're just finishing up," Tony told her.

"Who is 'we'? Who are you with?"

"Michelle."

Abby was silent for a long moment. "I was practically sick worrying about you and you're having dinner with your ex-wife. Oh, that's beautiful, Tony!" Abby made no attempt to disguise the anger in her voice.

"Abby, we were working and we got hungry. Don't make this sound like it was a date." Tony was trying to defend himself but at the same time felt a little guilty.

"Call it what you like, Tony. I guess we'll talk later." Abby didn't wait for Tony to say goodbye before she hung up.

Tony put his phone away while he avoided Michelle's gaze. "I'm sorry that I got you in trouble with Abby," she said sincerely.

"She's not my mother, Michelle. I'm not in trouble. We didn't do anything wrong. I'll talk to her when I get home. I'm sure she'll be fine." Tony wished that he actually believed that.

Tony and Michelle left the restaurant and headed back to NSA. Tony dropped Michelle off near her car and they said their goodbyes. They both headed home confused and unsure of themselves. Tony knew Abby was angry and didn't know what he was going to say to her. Nor did he know what the future of their relationship was. He was finally willing to admit that it had changed over the last few months. Abby had been trying to tell him that, but he refused to listen. Before Michelle came back into his life, he was sure that he wanted to spend his life with Abby. Now he wasn't so sure.

Michelle drove home with thought wildly spinning in her head. Dinner with Tony had been almost magical for her. When he touched her hand she could feel a jolt of excitement rush through her. His phone ringing brought home the reality that he belonged to someone else now. She sighed. When she took the job at CIA Headquarters, she never meant for things to get this complicated.