We accomplished a lot of work that week. The hotel idea turned out to be brilliant. No, not just because I got to sleep with Brooke every night, though that was an added bonus, but because the commute was so short, and we were so much more rested in a real bed versus the air mattress.

Having Brooke for the entire afternoon was a big boost too. Instead of her being dragged to lunch, she helped come up with commercial ideas and web site ad ideas. Having Hilda in the KISS make up was a big part of it, as was the Lick It Up song, and by the Wednesday creative reviews, I was ready to say we were close to done. At this point, we were just cleaning things up and making it spotless for Nike, but I thought it was a winner. I couldn't imagine anyone else coming up with anything this complete in as short a time as we had.

When we did the creative reviews, it was pretty quick. The only team that had anything to show me were Elliot and Sergio, and while it was good, it wasn't as inclusive as the one that Brooke and I had put together. They were prepared to fight for their vision, which I respected, but when we showed them everything that we had for the TDFL, they backed down quickly.

"Fuck, that looks good." Sergio said after we ran through our presentation. "I really want to go check out one of those matches!"

"Agreed. But I better not let my wife see that, she'll get jealous!" Elliot said while shaking his head. "You two put in a ton of work on this!"

That made me feel good. I trusted both of them when it came to pitches as they both had a good amount of experience, and if they thought it was a good pitch, then it was another opinion that helped settle my nerves.

Brooke was blushing with the praise, and I was happy that she got it. Even if things didn't fall out the way we wanted, she would have heard some great feedback and learned a lot. You can't ask for much more than that when working on your first project. As much as I'd been upset that she'd been assigned to me over those first few days, I was thrilled now. Not just because I got a girlfriend out of the deal either. Not that I was complaining about that though!

"Do you think you can get the kissy girls out here for the presentation?" Brooke asked with a grin.

"Kissy girls, huh? I don't know if you want them to hear you call them that!" I chuckled. "But yeah, I already put Monica in touch with Carol about making flight arrangements." If things worked out, I'd be up in Oregon giving the presentation with them and knocking Nike's socks off.

"Do you think Hilda would give me a demonstration too?" Well now she was just teasing me.

"If you asked, I'm sure she would. But I get to take you home afterwards!" If she reacted like I did, I knew that she'd be pretty turned on afterwards.

"You'd really let me do that?" she wondered.

I reached across the table to hold her hand. "Brooke, I'm your girlfriend, and I trust you. If you wanted to get a demonstration like that, I'd be fine with it. It has nothing to do with letting you do something. I think that while our relationship is early, it is getting stronger every day, and something like that wouldn't even be a bump in the road. At the end of the day, I know I'd be the one going home with you and then making love with you all night."

She smiled at that, then squeezed my hand back. "I hope you mean tonight too!" That was a safe bet, as we'd made love every night that I'd stayed with her.

"Of course, I mean tonight. And as many nights as we can handle in the future."

"I really like this," she whispered. "I'm glad we ended up working together. I'm sorry it was so hard at first, but I think we're in a good place now."

She was right. We really were. Once we got past all the crap that her family had been saying about me that was all lies, and she got to see the reality of what was happening, things were so much better. Hell, even with her doing the long lunches, she'd been willing to come back and work late with me, which put her miles ahead of the rest of her family. "We do have a good thing going. Maybe in a couple of weeks we can do that weekend away?"

"I'd like that! Where could we go? We don't have to go all the way to London again, do we?"

I snorted a little at her comment but shook my head. "No, we don't have to go that far. Maybe we could drive to Lake Tahoe or take a shorter flight like San Diego to go to the beaches."

"I'd be happy with a weekend in bed," she said, wiggling her eyebrows at me. "There is still a lot I want to do with you!"

"We can do that anywhere!" I pointed out. "But I also want to take you on a date, we haven't even had a chance to do that yet. I want to do something as simple as watch a movie with you and snuggle under a blanket. We've been so busy working that we haven't had a chance to do anything that normal couples do."

She nodded swiftly. "That sounds pretty wonderful!"

By the time we left that night, we had the pitch done. It was ready for the presentation next week, and we took a long overdue night for ourselves. We didn't go out to dinner, but we did get some nice room service steaks, and spent the night curled up in bed watching movies. It was probably the closest thing we'd done to a typical couples' night, and I wanted more.

Thursday was going to be an easy day. Since we already had all the pitch done, it was just me catching up on Jax and Bryan's work. Nike wasn't the only pitch going on out there, so I had to go over creative concepts for some of the other pitches we had due dates for.

And then, somewhere during the day, Brooke disappeared.

She'd gone to the restroom while I was going over a pitch review for a shoe store with Jonah and Chelsea, and she just never came back. I didn't even realize how long she'd been gone for until the review wrapped up, and then I went to the ladies' room myself, and saw no sign of her. Where the hell had she gone?

When I got back to the conference room, I sent her a quick text, only to hear a buzzing near her laptop. Her phone was still here. Shit! Maybe thirty minutes later, I got a team email that the Adkin's family and Jax would be out for the rest of the day with a family emergency.

Did a family member die, and she didn't have a chance to come back? Why was Jax out? I knew he was a family friend, but did he know the family that well? Could Brooke have lost a grandparent maybe? She'd never mentioned any of her family beyond her father and brother, so I had no idea what was happening.

All I could do was wait.

Her laptop and phone were both here, so unless she found another way to contact me, I'd have to be patient until she got back. I just sat in the room, alone, trying to work. Until Brooke showed up, this had been the way it was, and I'd loved it. I'd just turn on the music and churn through the work. But now, her laptop and phone were just sitting there without her and they seemed to mock me, keeping my mind worried with thoughts of where she was and what she was going through. I wanted to be there for her. This feeling I had, wasn't just liking her anymore. I really was falling hard, and I couldn't do anything but hope that she was alright.

I left with everyone else again, taking Brooke's laptop and phone with me as I headed over to the hotel. I didn't think she'd be there, but my hope was that she would be there some time tonight.

But she wasn't.

I stayed there, doing a room service burger so I wasn't out of the hotel if she came back and just played music and waited. I wasn't coping well with the uncertainty, and I just kept hoping that at any moment I would hear the click of the door lock and she'd be back with me. I guess I was hoping for that for so long, I just fell asleep on top of the covers.

She wasn't there when I woke up on Friday morning. She wasn't here when I got out of the shower or when I was done getting dressed. When I stopped for coffee and a muffin, I hesitated for a moment, debating getting one for her too, but then thought better of it. I was already carrying her laptop backpack, and it seemed unlikely that she'd be in the office this early. If she came in and needed food, I'd gladly go get it for her.

The conference room was empty. I'd expected it, even though a little part of me hoped otherwise. With a sigh, I put her backpack on her chair, the phone tucked into a pocket for safekeeping, and then got to work. I quickly looked up the Nike bid request and got the contact's name and number. It was for a man names James Page, and I shot him a quick text about bringing the pitch to him on Tuesday morning, which I knew was early, but it was a unique pitch and wanted to make sure he could see the people we were bringing. I was thrilled that he said yes, and the day was off to a good start, even with the worries about Brooke.

The only thing I had that morning was a meeting with the Splashing Dolphin resort, which ended up being much faster than I thought it would be. They'd like the last campaign we'd done, but now had a baffling request about advertising baby crash helmets so that dropping your children didn't make them gay. It took an awful lot of willpower to not laugh at them, but I'd seen too many other strange requests to let this one get to me. I had to talk them down off the ledge for this ad, since it would just make them look foolish. Once I explained that whoever had told them that dropping babies would make them gay was playing a joke on them, they finally calmed down a little. It was a confusing meeting but ended up alright.

The morning was interrupted when Elliot stuck his head into the conference room. "Hey Kris, meeting in the big room. Looks like everyone is back."

"Is Brooke there?" I asked, standing up quickly. He nodded, and I hurried from the room, hoping to make sure she was okay.

When I got to the room, it was a much bigger meeting than before, with all the creative team members there. Like the last time I was here, Brooke was sitting up at the front of the room, though now she looked dejected, while Jax, Bryan and Zach all looked very happy. I had a sinking feeling about this. Brooke wouldn't even look in my direction, and all I wanted to do was go hug her.

"Well, it looks like we're all here now!" Zach said proudly. "I just wanted to take this time to announce that based on her performance on the Nike pitch, that Brooke here is being promoted to Creative Director. I know you'll all support as she takes on this new role, and we'll announce the teams working with her sometime next week."

The room broke into polite applause, as Brooke just sat there, staring at the floor. She looked completely miserable. I'd known this was coming, so I didn't feel hurt by it. Was she embarrassed to get the promotion?

"I'd also like to make another announcement. For a long time, Jax has been like a son to me. But now, he really is. Yesterday, he and Brooke were married, and now he's officially a part of the family."

My jaw just bounced of the floor at the announcement. What the fuck?

This time, the only ones that were clapping were Bryan, Jax and Zach, and Brooke broke down into sobs, and I just wanted to go hug her. I felt that way myself, as I knew what the family emergency was now. They dragged her out and made her marry Jax. I figured there was only one thing that could have made them do that, they'd somehow used me as a weapon against her.

I felt sick to my stomach and had to quickly leave the room. I barely made it to the ladies' room when my bagel and coffee came right back up.

Happy Friday.

***

A/N - Yeah, the baby crash helmets may be a call back to another book. Any bets on which one?