PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE: LEONARDO WHITE.

The news that Leonardo White would be coming to pay a visit to the company had been one that had not been unheard of for at least two full weeks.

There wasn't a secretary who didn't talk about it, or who wasn't intensely happy about it. Emma still did not fully understand it she did not understand it at all. She had too many doubts about Leonardo's visit, first of all, she did not even know who Leonardo White was, she was so disoriented.

"I guess I'll meet him soon," she said to herself, as she walked.

She raised her hand so that it would be possible for her to see the time. Ten past seven in the morning. She quickened her pace, almost running, if she could find herself in shoes a little more comfortable, she would allow herself to run, too bad those high heels they required secretaries to wear, didn't even allow her to walk properly. It had always seemed to her, unfair in the fact that such an annoying emphasis was placed on women being groomed, without even a tousled strand, while men could be dressed almost as they wished.

She had always considered that wrong, but she had never mustered enough courage to say anything, because, after all, she was just a simple secretary who needed the money and had been lucky enough to work there.

She greeted the guard cordially and hurried her way, the reprimand for being late was horrendous, and if she did not arrive before seven twenty-five, she would receive it. She already had two warnings, the third one was the last: she would be fired. She cursed silently as she imagined herself being fired. That motivated her to keep walking faster.

A pessimistic sigh escaped her trembling lips as she looked at the time again: nineteen past seven. She swallowed saliva, climbing the stairs that led her to the post she exercised, they were such extensive and uncomfortable stairs to climb that, she saw the possibility of taking off her heels as a way, but she did not exercise it, as there were a lot of other people climbing after her.

Her footsteps hurried as she realized it was twenty-one past seven. She tightened her grip on her bag when she heard her name being called.

"I don't have time for this now," she thought, trudging up the last few steps.

Her phone kept ringing. "Damn it! " she shrieked in her head, being forced to answer it. She started rummaging through her purse with one hand, while with the other she held the coffee that had kept her awake, the work at the office was getting too heavy by the minute, and she could barely manage to stand it.

"Who is this?" she asked, answering her cell phone, "Mom?"

"Emma, honey, could you come in and buy something for me?"

"Mom... I'm at the company, late... if I'm not here in six minutes, I'll be reprimanded".

"But your father went out and..."

"Mom, I can't, I'm at the company" She took a frantic sip of her coffee, speeding up her pace, running, it was twenty-three past seven, and she had just two minutes to get there. "I have to hang up" She didn't wait for her mother's answer, she started to put the phone in her purse, and it was at that moment, when she looked away from her path for a fraction of a second, that her body collided violently with another person's body.

Emma, a girl with a gaunt and haggard complexion, staggered so badly that she attempted to fall, but it was the hand of the same person with whom she had collided that prevented her from touching the ground.

For an instant, everything in her spun around, she felt a kind of burning all over her face, it took her a few seconds to realize that it was the coffee, which she had thrown on her. Impulsively, she raised her hand, seven twenty-six. Late, she was already late, she cursed internally, clenching her fists and trying to regulate her breathing as if being late wasn't bad enough, the excessive sugar she had added to her coffee, seeking energy, was starting to show on her face.

"Are you all right?" asked the man with whom she had collided. She was so immersed in her guilty musings that she was unable to react in the instant that there was another person in front of her, the man with whom she had collided. "Was it hot?" When she raised her eyes, she saw him.

Shrewd eyes, cocked smile, firm posture, broad shoulders, blond hair.

"Y-yes... I feel fine, and no, it wasn't too hot" Emma's gaze fell on the man's suit, which was stained with tiny drops of coffee. "I'm s-sorry, sir... I didn't mean to... dirty it, it's just that... I was distracted and..."

"Don't worry," he reassured her, the man's voice was indescribable, there was no adjective that could describe him, "I know it was an accident... unless you wanted to throw coffee on yourself".

A faint laugh escaped Emma's lips, who, once again watched the time with a deep bitter feeling of resignation.

"I have to go... to me... to my office... excuse me... excuse me again... for the coffee..."

She turned around, stepping firmly, in reality, she would not go to her office, she would go to the bathroom to try to remove the mess that stained her clothes. She knew that misfortune was on her side that day when for the first time she had put on her white shirt, that expensive one of a brand that she was unable to pronounce... that shirt that was stained by coffee.

"That stain won't come off even if I do a damn ritual to get it out," she thought, furious.

"Wait" The woman slowed her steps when she heard the man's voice once again; stopping for a fraction of a second to review him, she had never seen him in those surroundings. "What's your name?"

"Emma," she said, not hesitating to give him her name, but then ended up regretting it deeply, what if he was a supervisor and had asked for her name to make the burden of her reprimand even worse? She cursed herself at that moment.

"Beautiful name, Emma," said the man, drawing a tremulous smile from the woman, "Where are you going now?"

"Well, I'm going to the bathroom," she admitted, To rinse these coffee stains," she clarified.

"Are you a secretary here?"

Those questions only further confirmed Emma's assumptions: he was a supervisor who was going to report her.

"Yes," she replied, surrendered, perhaps if she deserved to be reprimanded, "I am a secretary".

"Aren't secretaries supposed to be at their posts at twenty-five past seven?"

"It is assumed, but..."

"You were late today," he finished for her, "If I'm not mistaken, there are reprimands for that, aren't there?"

She gulped.

"There are".

He was silent for a few seconds. His eyes carried an intensity impossible to describe as if they wanted to transmit something to her with complete dumbness that his lips were unwilling to break. He silently scanned her with his eyes, from her feet to her head. She awkwardly combed her hair to the right... not knowing too well how to react.

"Come with me," he demanded after a few minutes of quiet meditation, holding her by the arm, "Come, I will help you".

‘Help her?’

Her body became a rigid mass that was not too capable of moving, but she ended up being dragged by that stranger towards the area where the woman who would admonish Emma once she realized that she had arrived late was, seeing herself close to there, the woman, not being able to understand anything, braked abruptly, resisting him to continue guiding her.

"Where are you supposed to take me?" she asked, cautiously. There was a voice in her head that told her she must have asked that question about ten minutes ago, before she found herself there, almost no steps away from the place she least wanted to go.

"I'll save you" he murmured, pushing her to walk. "Marian," he called to the woman, who raised an eyebrow, suddenly, her face changed from apathetic to completely helpful, which planted a seed of doubt in Emma, who watched in complete silence.

"Sir, what can I do for you?" Emma wanted to laugh: Mirian was a rather rude woman, apathetic as only the word itself, coarse, brusque, cruel, bitter, her voice was hoarse like that of someone who has been sick for more than a decade... but suddenly, her voice had changed to a breath of sweetness, suddenly she had stopped being the ogre she always was.

"This girl... Emma" She took a trembling step forward, if nervousness had skin and bones, it was her, her eyes were not able to hide it, she could not receive one more reprimand. "By mistake, I threw a coffee on Emma, which caused her to stop and therefore, she was late, I know that brings a reprimand, that's why I came here... save the reprimand, for today, it was my fault," he asked, he dedicated one more indecipherable look to Emma and ended up leaving the same way he had arrived, in complete silence.

For the first time, in Mirian's face, one did not see arrogance, anger, or cruelty; one saw perplexity, the deepest.

The woman stood up with the urgency of a madman, running towards the door, then looking at Emma, as if unable to understand or provide any explanation for what had just happened, so much was the surprise on her face, that Emma was on the verge of asking her what was wrong, but the plump woman ended up going ahead of her.

"Do you know who that was?"

Emma denied.

"Should I know?"

A grimace was marked on Marian's face as if the words spoken by that insolent girl of only twenty-four were blasphemy. The greatest blasphemy.

"How can you not know who that is, Emma? You must know who that is".

"Is it... someone important...?"

"Someone important?" Mirian asked, offended. "He's the owner's son!"

Emma brought her hands to her chest, her brow creased, and her gaze touched the floor, for a second, replaying Marian's words in her head.

"Is he... the son of the owner of... the company?" To conclude that she had thrown coffee at the son of the owner of the company and that the latter, instead of getting upset, had saved her skin, was... there was no word to give her.

"Yes, it's Leonardo White! Your skin has just been saved by none other than Leonardo White himself!"

Emma hurried to the door, trying to search for the man with her eyes, but he had already disappeared.

"Leonardo White," she repeated in a voice of almost no sound.

For a moment, her gaze remained fixed on absolute nothingness.

Leonardo White, the son of the owner of that company, had saved her skin...

"This is a coincidence, I'll never see him again," she said to herself, not knowing how wrong she was.

Not knowing how significant Leonardo White would be to her life from that moment on.