Falling For My Playboy Boss
Chapter 50

Cora's POV

I stepped out of my room and headed down the hallway to the living room to go wait for Collin. I stop short as this is the first time that I saw him in his Tuxedo. He is standing in the living room with his phone in his hand sending a text. He is hands down absolutely the most handsome man that I have ever seen in my life. My mouth goes a little dry and I realize that my mouth may be open right now. I close my mouth and try to appear unaffected, but he is truly gorgeous. I move into the room, and he turns fully towards me, and he also seems affected by my appearance.

"You look beautiful, Cora", Collin tells me.

"You look very handsome yourself, Collin," I told him.

"Are you ready to go?" Collin asks me and motions to the door.

We go down to the waiting SUV, and Collin helps me tuck my dress into the SUV and shuts the door for me. I can occasionally feel his eyes on me in the SUV as we head to the banquet. Collin comes around and helps me out of the SUV and up the walkway to enter the building. We got in line, and we had several pictures taken of me and Collin as we moved up the line to enter the event. I tried to smile and stand straight next to Collin, and I did not speak as several questions were called out to us. Most were about "Who the lady with you is?" "How long have you been together?" and other questions, with Collin fielding them vaguely, right until someone asked, "Who are you wearing?".

"An American designer, Mateo," I told them, speaking clearly for everyone present to hear. Thankfully, we came to the head of the line and joined the party. I am glad that I was able to tell them who I was wearing, and being with Collin, the pictures will probably go into a tabloid or two as well. I just hope that they get Mateo's name in there as well.

We entered the event and looked around for our table. I notice that Chloe has also put herself at our table as well, right next to Collin, but I see Marc and Gabriel will also be seated with us at our table. Marc was there with a lovely woman with long brown hair and beautiful slate grey eyes. Gabriel was seated to my left and Collin was seated to my right. Marc and his girlfriend, Elise Morin, were seated to Gabriel's left. There was another couple there, but they hadn't been introduced to us yet. Collin holds my chair out for me and then pushes it in for me after I have been seated.

I looked up at Collin and said, "Thank you".

Chloe walks up and I see that she is wearing a very revealing red dress. It has a very deep V in it and a slit up to her thigh on the left side. She should have gone with another color because the red in her hair and the red in the dress are clashing and although her makeup is very well done, she looks like a child who was playing with her mother's makeup with how she looks. Both her eyes and lips were very heavy-handed and even though she really does have a nice figure, she was not looking as good as she could have. I smile and nod at her, and she does a double-take like she didn't recognize me, and then narrows her eyes at me like I am the one who made her look bad.

"Cora, you look absolutely stunning tonight. That dress is just beautiful on you", Gabriel said to me as he let his eyes run from my face down to my waist until the table blocked any further view.

"Yes, I must agree, you are absolutely beautiful", Elise said to me, and the woman next to her nodded in agreement.

"Thank you so much. I have a friend that is an up-and-coming dress designer and he made this for me as he knew I would need an evening gown for this event. I will say that he saved me a lot of money by doing this for me. I love it, the color is my favorite part of it", I told them.

"Nice, a homemade dress, isn't that wonderful for you? You must not be able to afford to buy a nice dress for yourself" Chloe said to me and laughed in a disparaging way about my dress.

"My friend has a gift and is a wonderful designer. He wants women of every size to be able to wear high fashion and feel and look beautiful in it. I love his work and have a few pieces of it. He is going to be blasting into the stratosphere soon as Anna Wintour was at his last show and was impressed with the Fall line that he premiered last Saturday. So, you need to be on the lookout, because he will be a household name soon", I told her.

"Not every woman needs to be wearing his fashion. You look fat in that dress, and I feel sorry for you for thinking that you look nice. People need to just lose weight if they want to wear fashion, not for fashion to be ruined by being made for bigger girls. It sounds like he has no clue how fashion works at all", Chloe said, and then started laughing again.

"Cora does not look fat, she looks stunning. The dress is perfect for her and her figure. She looks like a modern-day Sophia Loren or Raquel Welch with her figure, and I must say, if anyone's figure at this banquet needed to be highlighted, it would be Cora's, because she is absolute perfection", Gabriel said and looked over at Chloe. He arched his eyebrows at her like he expected her to come back with a response, but she shut her mouth and then just started talking to Collin and ignored everyone else at the table. A short time later, dinner started, and drinks were served at the bar to anyone who wanted one. Gabriel had gone to the bar and got himself a scotch but came back with a glass of wine for me as well, to go with my dinner, he said. I asked for water from the waitress because I am a lightweight at drinking and didn't want to become intoxicated.

"It will go well with your fish," Gabriel told me.

"Thank you," I told him and took a sip. It did go well with my fish, so I ended up drinking the rest of it through that course. There had been four courses for dinner and now we were on the awards portion of the night. Collin got up and made a really great speech and accepted the award. He got stopped several times as he attempted to get back to our table as he was the last award of the evening and a dance floor had opened up for people to dance.

Chloe approached him and whispered in his ear. He glances over at our table and comes over to leave the award at his seat and goes to the dance floor with Chloe. She is really rubbing up against him on the dance floor and the offer intended is clear to everyone there. It isn't my business and I started talking to Gabriel about how I came up with putting the Adams' with the designer. Gabriel stands and holds his arm out to me and asks me to dance. "We can continue our discussion on the dance floor," Gabriel tells me.

Gabriel is a very good dancer, and we have a great conversation as he asks me several questions and seems impressed with my answers. After the 3rd song in a row, which we danced to. Gabriel motions towards the table and places his warm hand on my back again. He had placed it there before when we danced, but when we were headed to the table it seemed a little more possessive of me like he was trying to stake a claim on me, and I didn't know why he would be doing that at an award banquet. He guided me into my chair and then slid it under the table.

Gabriel sits down in his chair and continues speaking to me and he slid his chair closer to mine to try to just speak with me. "I am completely amazed by how your thought process works, Cora. You are very efficient in how you work and think. I really like how you thought outside of the box for the Adams', and I wish we had more innovative thinkers like you working here. I would be proud to have you working here with me and coming up with creative solutions like you did for them at Lauder Financial", Gabriel tells me. "Excuse me, what were you saying? It wasn't Cora who came up with it, it was one of our Account Managers. They were even given a special bonus for it, but it wasn't Cora who came up with it", Collin tells Gabriel.

"I am sorry Collin, but it was. I have already spoken to your V.P. of Finance, Gerald Siler, and he was the one who told me when we were putting the awards together, it was when I was told who was responsible for the sharp increase. I was also advised that Cora here had done that and assisted them with it, while she was still being trained to be your P.A., she wanted to continue using her skills from her MBA and had offered to help with some of the harder cases that had not found the right investment for them yet. Cora is a jewel. I thought that you were already aware of that information. If I could hire her out from under you, I would right now", Gabriel told him.

I was completely humiliated at Collin telling Gabriel that it wasn't me. Chloe was smirking at me, and Marc started looking at me mistrustfully like I had lied to him yesterday when I said it had been my idea. I am so glad that I am wearing foundation because this was humiliating. I was right, Collin couldn't even give me the benefit of the doubt. I see Collin texting and I know he is texting Jerry to ask him. I heard his phone ping with a response, but I already knew what the response would be. I don't lie, but to Collin, he will always believe someone else over me. I really assumed that, since his dad knew that he did too. I am so embarrassed right now.

"I am sorry, Cora, I didn't realize that it had been you. No one had told me, so I just assumed" Collin said to me and kind of tapered off.

"Your father knew, so I assumed that you knew too. You are always so quick to think the worst of me, every single time", I told him and then excused myself to go to the restroom.

After I use the restroom, I find a little sitting area near it and go sit against the wall where you will have to fully enter the area to even see me. I checked my phone and saw a text from Mateo.

"When are you coming home?" Mateo asked me.

"Tomorrow morning around 830 am," I told him.

"I need you to take pictures tomorrow around 3 pm at Marlowe and Alderidge Lauder's home. Ava asked them if we could use their home as they have that beautiful stairway in front of that large picture window by the garden, she said. Anna Wintour liked my designs so much that she wanted to do an article on me and my designs, and I was going to have you, Ava, and Emily all model the pieces she requested" Mateo texted back.

OK, I have a hair appointment tomorrow at noon, it shouldn't take that long, and I can be there. I could ride in with Franco and Eric. You just bring what I need to wear, and we will get it done. I am so happy for you. I told the photographers outside when we arrived who had designed my dress too", I told him.

"Thank you, Cora, I appreciate everything you do to help me," Mateo told me.

I say good-night and hang up, sit back in my seat, and close my eyes as I get a little excited about being photographed and going to be in Vogue.