CHAPTER 8: The White Stick
932 Words
No one else had arrived yet. Lucas Langston sat calmly at the head of the heavy black oak table, dressed in a crisp black suit that exactly matched his silky black hair.
Andra quietly opened the door into the conference room and stepped in, her heels and perfume announcing her presence.
“Good morning,” she said briefly. Lucas looked up and nodded to her.
She walked over and stood beside him. He was reviewing the document she had forwarded to his email.
“Reception says they've arrived and are on their way up.”
He nodded wordlessly as the door opened and Richard Blake walked in.
A dignified middle-aged man, he was the revered Chief Financial Officer of The Langston Line, and to the best of Andra's knowledge, the only man Lucas respected enough to listen to.
Lucas scrambled to his feet on sighting the man.
“Mr. Blake,” he said shortly, extending his hand with a slightly bowed head.
“Lucas,” Richard Blake responded, receiving the handshake vigorously. Both men sat as Andra mouthed a quiet “Good morning” to the man.
She looked around the sleek room, taking in the details. She was satisfied with the organisation.
The investors filed in shortly after. Handshakes, stiff nods, the scrape of chairs. Lucas forced himself through the pleasantries, but his mind kept slipping.
The meeting began. Figures were thrown across the table. Someone argued a revenue projection. Andra stood to explain a clause, laser pointer steady in her hand, voice clear and professional as she highlighted data on the screen.
Lucas’s eyes tracked the line of her neck, the way a small wisp of hair had escaped her bun and curled against her skin.
Richard nudged his arm sharply.
“Mr. Langston?” one of the investors prompted, eyebrows raised. “Your thoughts on the Q3 risk assessment?”
Lucas blinked. He had no idea what had been said in the last ten minutes. Heat crawled up the back of his neck.
Andra stepped in smoothly. “If I may, the projected risk exposure is outlined on page seven. With the current mitigation strategy, we’re looking at a conservative twelve percent downside, but Mr. Langston has asked the team to explore an alternative supplier network that could reduce that further.”
She met his eyes for half a second. Professional, composed, devastating. Lucas managed a nod.
“Exactly,” he said, voice rough. “Thank you, Andra.”
The meeting dragged, and he floated through until he saw everyone at the table rising and closing their laptops.
He rose to his feet alongside the others. As soon as the last investor was out of the door, Richard turned to him askance.
“Lucas?”
“Yes?”
“Something wrong, son?”
“Excuse me, please, gentlemen,” Andra announced, picking up her notebook, pen and laptop. She walked out of the room, neck straight, trying to keep from turning to see his face again.
She exhaled audibly once she was safely in her office, far from Lucas's confusing gaze that had carried on throughout the meeting.
What was it about her that morning that made him so lost and absentminded in such an important meeting?
She poured herself a glass of water from the dispenser near her desk, feeling that wooziness coming again. She made a mental note to stop by a pharmacy on her way home, before settling at her desk to prepare the minutes of the just-concluded meeting.
It was a tough battle for her to work up enough concentration with thoughts of her puzzling boss popping in and out of her mind at intervals, but soon the document was ready and she forwarded it to the emails of all those who had been in attendance.
Lucas opened the glass door and walked in.
“Andra, that was impressive. And I got the minutes already. That's good,” he said, stopping briefly before her.
She allowed a small smile. “Thank you, sir.”
Andra was unsure what unsettled her more, the praise itself, or how badly she wanted to hear it again.
Later that evening, she nearly walked past the entrance to the pharmacy before she forced herself inside and requested a pregnancy test kit.
“What brand, ma’am?” The attendant asked.
She opened her mouth and closed it, realising she had no answer. Roses bloomed on her cheeks.
“Uhh…any reliable one is fine.”
She chewed the inside of her mouth as she paid, cash, and received the packaged item.
Andra thought of it as she stood before the mirror in her bathroom early the next morning, Lucas commending her work. It wasn't something he did often.
She pulled out the small white stick from its cardboard packet and looked at it. Already, there was a small sample of her early morning urine in a paper cup on the sink.
The transparent sealing packet crinkled as she tore it open.
She looked at the stick again, as if in disbelief that she was actually doing this.
Then she put it in the cup and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her heart was thudding violently in her chest, slamming against her rib cage. The two minutes she had to wait were the longest of her life.
When she finally took the strip out, her hands were shaking. She shut her eyes tight and opened them, then looked down at the strip, already knowing what she was going to see on it.
There were two thin, tiny, almost inconspicuous red lines.
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