A/N: My apologies for a boring chapter--but stuff needed to be laid out and air needed to be cleared before we can move onto the good stuff. (And I promise there is good stuff coming!) Ya'll enjoy! Until next time--ya'll are the best--PCGirl.
Natalie smiled politely at the security guard at the front door and continued onto the elevator—it was Wednesday, which meant her week was halfway over. Things had been tense at work with her and Jared—mainly just on the premise that she didn't think he belonged here, and she was still hurt at the suggestion he'd made that she keep her child from John.
The John situation hadn't changed—and right now she thought it was best they kept their space from each other, not that he'd actually tried to contact her.
As she stepped on the elevator she heard someone call for her to hold it and she watched James Lansing step on.
"Good morning, Mr. Lansing, how is everything going so far?"
"Wonderful—I always admired your grandfather and the type of businessman he was. I wish I could have met him."
"He knew how to run his company," she nodded.
"And his family too."
"Yes, I suppose," she responded, thinking it was an odd statement for him to make.
"Here's a question—if both were in danger which would he save and which would he let fall—his family or BE?" asked the gentleman, a smirk appearing on his face at thinking he'd stumped Natalie.
"Knowing how resourceful my grandfather was I have no doubt that he would be able to do both without breaking a sweat. He knew without family there was no business—that's why he put all of us on the board when he died—he knew it would pull us through the mourning of his passing and would make us stronger both individually and as a company so we could fight off these takeovers and keep the company where it belongs, with his family," spoke Natalie strongly, knowing Asa would be proud of her response.
The rest of the ride was silent until the doors opened to her floor, "And furthermore, Mr. Lansing, if I hear of any other comments on this matter I will assume they are from you and will take them to the board to have you removed on the suspicion of being a threat to BE. Have a good day," she said then walked off, feeling for the first time like she truly belonged here.
"Morning, Natalie," smiled Gigi, she was sitting at her desk and though Jared was just a few short feet away Natalie ignored him while getting her messages from her assistant and then heading to the office.
"Ok, you know at some point you actually have to talk to me, right?" questioned Jared as he followed Natalie into her office and over to the table he was using as an office until his was finished being renovated.
Placing her purse behind her desk she looked at him with an inquisitive look on her face, the comment Mr. Lansing had made had started her juices flowing already and she would enjoy the satisfaction of ripping into Jared, "No, I don't believe I do—do I?"
"Ok, fine—I'll say it—I'm sorry for what I said about McBain, but I won't stand by and let him treat you like that. You deserve to be treated like a princess."
"First off, I'm no princess—second, you don't know anything about John—what he went through growing up or how he—," she stopped at finishing her sentence quietly acts when he's jealous. Looking at her watch she knew she had time before he first meeting of the day, "I—I've got somewhere to be—if anything comes up call my cell phone," she said as she picked her purse back up and left.
Natalie walked into the police station and instantly felt at home. She received smiles and greetings from her old co-workers, promising to stop back by the squad room on her way out, but first she needed to talk to John.
As she rounded the corner she saw Eddie walking towards her and tried to not make eye contact—he'd just started when she'd left last year, but even that small amount of time had made her think little of him, "Hey Natalie—how's it going?"
"Fine, and you?" she said, giving a smile that instantly told him she was just being nice and really didn't want to talk to him.
"Listen, I wanted to talk to you—since you and McBain have been broken up for nearly a year now you want to go out sometime?"
"Sorry, Eddie—I'm not interested in dating jerks."
"You dated McBain, didn't you?" he scoffed at her and kept walking.
Brushing off Eddie's comment she continued her walk down the hallway to John's office. As she turned the corner she saw him walking towards his office from the other side. "Hi."
"Hey," he said, the word coming out very short.
"Are you busy? Can we talk?" she asked as he nodded and walked into his office ahead of her. "Listen—the other day at the cabin—."
"It's my fault—I shouldn't have come up there," he said, never looking up at her, but rather searching for a file on his desk.
"But you did—and I still don't know why, but I know you wouldn't have if you didn't think it was important."
"It doesn't matter now—how are you feeling?"
"I'm fine—now stop avoiding the question, McBain," she said with a smile that relaxed both of them.
John looked at her, he couldn't tell her how he'd been feeling that day, because those feelings had subsided the second he saw her in a lip lock with another man, "I guess I came up there hoping to talk to you about what we're going to do once the baby comes—it could have waited until you came back though, I knew you were at a work meeting."
"Oh," she said, her heart falling that it really didn't mean more than something as simple as that. "I wanted to tell you something John—there is nothing between us and Jared, ok? For the next seven months there is only one person I'm focused on—and that's this baby. I'm not going to do something stupid, John. I would never put a family member in danger—especially my own child—you know me better than to think that."
"I know—I'm sorry if I made it sound like that up at the cabin."
"It's ok."
John gave a chuckle and made his first honest comment to her all day, "I just really don't like Banks—but at least you don't have to worry about having feelings for your uncle now."
"Yeah, thank goodness for small favors," she said with a slight nod and looked back at the door for a moment. "I better get back to BE—I've got a conference call in a bit with Kevin and a new investor to prepare for."
"Yeah, me too—I mean work, it's been crazy here and we still don't have a front desk assistant that was as organized as you were. Ramsey chased off the last one in tears last week," said John with a half laugh.
Natalie shook her head at John's comment, "No wonder they were all so excited to see me in the squad room. I'll see you around, John."
"Yeah, see ya," he said as she left and he began looking through the file he'd been working on earlier. Not even a minute had passed when there was a soft knock on the door and he looked up to see Antonio walk in and close the door behind him. "What's up?"
"I just saw Natalie leaving—everything ok?"
"Didn't know you'd started to care about my personal life—or lack of it."
"She was my sister-in-law, John. Twice. And I heard about the baby—congrats man," he said as he sat down with his coffee and laughed at the look of curiosity on John's face. "Jessica was at Capricorn last night, she told Cris and he told me."
John pursed his lips and gave a nod, "Well, let's keep it on the down low here—especially with Ramsey. Speaking of him—my buddy at the bureau sent me a copy of his personal file—I was thinking I'll bring it to your place along with some Chinese and we can go over it tonight," he said as Antonio gave a nod.