Chapter 4

"Madine? This company has been requesting for an auditing for a year now but our schedule has been very tight. I see you have a week free in your schedule, can you check it out? Moreover, it's a request from the Head office."

Madine's direct boss instruct her at work three years after the entire incident. She has pushed it all back into her past and let it stay there. Though there remains a consequence of one of her that stuck.

She smiles and nods. "I can take it. Where and when is this job?"

"East Line Group in New York."

Madine's eyes drop ever so slightly. She never even nursed the thought that she would be going back to New York any time soon but she just agreed to the arrangements.

"It's just a three day trip max and I trust your efficiency. You can get it done in a day or two. It's also at Brooklyn, the heart of New York. You'll even have fun looking around, maybe even revisit those places you used to enjoy going."

Madine chuckles.

It's at Brooklyn. What could possibly go wrong?

"When do I leave?"

"Tomorrow morning..." He dips his hand into his drawer and hands over her flight documents. He chuckles. "We would have made you go no matter what because we simply want the best for our best customers. East Line is probably the best company in all of that city but we can never really tell unless we do their auditing. Anyway, tomorrow. It's two by the way." He winks at her and she laughs.

"Can I have half the day off then so I can get prepared for the journey? It's a journey for two after all, so I won't be packing mine alone."

"Sure. I'll see you when you're back."

Madine exits work that day with a minor burden in her heart. There's nothing to be scared of but all the same, even though Brooklyn is far from where she used to live, anything could happen...

She shakes her head vigorously to get rid of all the negative thoughts as she hums to herself while driving to her daughter's kindergarten.

Yes, her daughter.

"Good afternoon ma'am. I would love to pick Pearl a little early today. I hope you don't mind?"

Pearl.

Memories are pearls, beautiful gems, white and pure... Such as the only memory she seems to have left of the beautiful girl's father. She looks like Madine in the facial features but her hair colour is her father's dusty brown shade while Madine's is jet black.

She catches the little bundle of joy and throws her around in the ear, letting the girl's laughter resolve all her worries. "How was classes?"

"Boring." She simply says as she holds her mum's hand and they walk to the car.

She's just three years old so she's not exactly very worded yet but Madine understands everything she's saying or tries to say.

"School leave early today." She says and Madine laughs.

"Yes, we are traveling tomorrow."

"Yay!" She smiles and claps excitedly as Madine tucks her in the child's seat at the back of the car.

Madine gets behind the wheels and together, they go home.

As at nine am the next morning, both mother and daughter are sitted in their plane, side by side. If course, small child benefits give Pearl the window seat.

The flight is a very long one... All the way from Scotland to Brooklyn is a bit over ten hours so by the time they arrive, it's night time already.

Pearl has been asleep for a while so she just hails a taxi and off to the hotel that had been booked for them. For the rest of the night, she sleeps a bit and then sets to work so she can have an idea of the auditing she'll be doing as she honestly, can't wait to get back to Glasgow.

By the next morning, she has breakfast with Pearl and they both set out for East Line since the company has a child center where most of the staff bring their children for play and hanging out with other kids their age.

As soon as they arrive there, she's given a very warm welcome by the staff and guided to the appropriate quarters while Pearl is taken to the play center.

For the next four hours straight, her eyes are in book, ledgers, account books, journals, PDFs and documents all that had to do with the accounting of the company. She finally stretches and extends the final results of the auditing, clearing them that they are in the blue and monetarily safe, also so fraud or embezzlements detected.

It was finally time to leave but a staff comes to her and informs her that the CEO is willing to meet her in his office as soon as she was done. She takes the elevator to the CEO's office.

"Good afternoon ma'am. I have an appointment with the CEO."

"Good afternoon ma'am. What's your name?"

"I'm Madine Miles."

"Oh, I'm aware of your presence. He stepped out just about an hour ago but I can't guarantee when he'll be back. I'm really sorry, he wanted to meet you."

"It's fine." She lies. Then all the stress back up there was only a waste."I'll be going back to Glasgow tomorrow so please extend my greetings to him. Here's my email and phone number incase he needs to reach me." She gives her best professional smile and heads back downstairs.

Slightly pissed, she heads back down, to the play center to pick Pearl up and head back to the hotel. She'll book their return flight when she returns to the hotel.

She clutches the little girl to her chest and holds her bag with her hand, hanging down. "Sorry I couldn't spend time with you today love. I had a lot of work to do." She whispers, rubbing heads with the small girl who chuckles.

"Fine. I had fun." She responds, pecking Madine on the cheeks.

She's so sweet... A stray thought crosses her mind. She's suddenly wondering if her father was so sweet... Maybe could have been a sweet man but now, she'll never find out.

As she nears the rolling doors she sees a long line of black cars suddenly park in front of the building and some men in suits with some radio things hanging from their necks open the car door for a man.

He does look exquisite even though silver blurry doors. She shivers unconsciously with the aura the air suddenly took on. She continues walking to the door though. As she walks through, the man approaches the door with his security men walking right in front of him and behind him at the same time.

She side steps so as not to run into any of them. She casually glances at the obviously rich man and her breath catches in her throat. He looks up at her at the exact same time and the very obvious look of familiarity runs across his features.

He knows me. The thought hit Madine.

And at the next second, he's not only looking at her but at Pearl as well.

She looks at Pearl and the naive girl is smiling at him. "Daddy." She suddenly whispers, thankfully, low enough that she's the only one who hears that.

Madine almost goes into a full shock.

Eric breaks out of the formation and walks over to Madine who begins to take long steps backwards. "It's you."

Madine immediately shakes her head. "Not at all. It's not me... Or whoever your are mistaking me for." She suddenly takes on a Scottish accent so he would be confused but there's absolutely no confusion in his features.

"I recognize you like I recognize what I see in the mirror everyday."

"Daddy!" Pearl suddenly screams and tries to remove herself from Madine's hands into his arms.

Madine swallows and tries to stop her from causing a ruckus.

Eric smirks. "Hi love." He turns back to Madine. "Are you still denying this?"

Suddenly, Madine makes a run for it, her motherly instincts getting the better of her.

"Stop that woman!"

She hears his voice below behind her and soon enough, the sounds of boots meeting the ground soon follows behind her.

Finally, they meet again but this time, they are three instead of two.

Pearl on the other hand, wants to be unhanded and given to him but Madine just wants to escape back to Glasgow without any incidents.

But now, even the incident she had been avoiding has caught up with her in the most unusual way.