A Curve Ball Called Love

Chapter 8

Love wasn’t something Tiffany believed in. For a long time, she’d struggled coming to terms with the person she was. A black plus sized woman. Her strategic thinking was all she had going for her for a long time, especially since she grew up in a period where beautiful was qualified as skinny, blonde cheerleaders. It took a long time before she found confidence in herself and when she finally did, she was unstoppable. That confidence had carried her through to her career but she still had reservations about men. There were times that she thought she was in love, but she always got disappointed when she realized that the men she was involved with were nothing she thought they were. As she’d come to realize, men only ever wanted to have some fun but no one was ever ready to make a commitment. The only one that ever came close to making that commitment left her after a business trip to Milan where he met a runway model. It was hard for Tiffany to wrap her head around her breakup, especially since at that time, she was just getting started in her career where she faced more doubt—as if she didn’t already have enough doubt. Every man she met was always looking for something and it was hardly ever her heart. She wasn’t too wrong in guarding it even though at the back of her mind she kept on wondering how different it would be if she was with someone who made her feel alive again. The way Douglas Ingram did.

When she thought of Douglas, she found herself wondering what he’d seen in her that he hadn’t seen in the many women he’d been with in the past. She found herself confused at his motive and while she’d surrendered herself to her feelings and passions once, she wasn’t exactly keen on making that mistake again. She realized that keeping her head straight around him was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. She didn’t regret being with him but she was going to try everything in her power to make sure that she stayed away from him. Something seemed to come loose every time she was around him. It was like she couldn’t think straight. Her feelings seemed to cloud her every decision when she was around him and that scared her. She hadn’t been in a position that made her doubt herself in a long time but somehow just a few weeks with Douglas had her being romanced on his bar and had her inviting him to her bed. What scared her even more was the fact that since that magical night, there wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t remember their romantic encounter.

It had been almost two months since Tiffany and Douglas started working together and so far everything was great. Everything felt right. The tension between them was so loud that sometimes Tiffany had to leave the room just to give herself a hard reset. She didn’t know if anyone else had noticed the chemistry between them but her work nemesis Ellie Cavanagh wasn’t making things so easy for her.

Ellie had always been a little condescending towards Tiffany and sometimes Tiffany thought that one of the main reasons it had taken so long for Entity to confirm her position was because of her. As far as Tiffany was concerned, Ellie was only at Entity because of her father, who was one of the magazine’s shareholders. She’d spent the better part of her college years living it up as a socialite and she’d partied so much that she didn’t even graduate, but somehow she still made it into the media scene thanks to her father Alexander Cavanagh who rolled with the who’s who of society. Ellie’s career in media began when her father organized for her to be an anchor on one of the local stations. She did well at first but her lifestyle wasn’t a good reflection on the network. She only stayed at the local station for eight months before they let her go. Nothing could make them take her back. Not even a hefty buyout by Alexander Cavanagh in the form of paid advertising. Soon, everyone knew exactly who Ellie Cavanagh was and no one wanted to work with her. She was like Kim Kardashian just after the s*x tape. She tried reinventing herself in another city but New York was not kind to her. After New York, she tried Washington and then London but she still couldn’t get anyone to believe in her. Not the way the network had when they first took a chance on her. After a long time of partying up, Ellie finally decided that it was time to settle down and Alexander Cavanagh pulled the strings to get her into Entity.

She was convinced that being there would somehow get her a chance to be in Hollywood. But as she found out, Alexander Cavanagh had only so much pull when it came to Entity.

“Alex, Ellie doesn’t have any public relations experience,” Virginia had told him when he tried to plead his daughter’s case. “Unlike Tiffany who’s been in the business ever since she graduated.”

“But she worked at HNYX as a news anchor,” Alexander pointed out.

Virginia nodded.

“True, but she also got caught on camera multiple times being drunk and disorderly. And should I even bring up the fact that she was giving too much business to the Colombian cocaine lords of Los Angeles?”

Alexander loved his daughter but there was only so much he could do.

“Well, she’s clean now and if I don’t get her a job soon, she might relapse,” he said, the desperation in his voice loud.

“There are no positions right now… maybe she could get into production,” Virginia said as she looked at her computer screen. “There’s a production assistant’s position open.”

Alexander sighed loudly and shrugged.

“I guess that will have to do then.”

“I don’t think this is necessary but she also gets a production assistant’s salary,” Virginia said.

“I own the lease on her condo and she still has access to her trust find. Money isn’t an issue for her.”

Well, money was never an issue for Ellie Cavanagh but everything else was, at least as far as Tiffany was concerned. It was like she resented the fact that Tiffany held the position she always wanted and while she didn’t say it directly, she was always making little snarky comments that rubbed Tiffany the wrong way. Tiffany had mastered the art of ignoring her but it wasn’t easy, especially knowing that she always had to walk on egg shells around her at the risk of being let go. Things only got worse when Douglas joined Entity.