My new secretary, Jessica, was the prime example of clumsiness. We had hired her to work for me exactly three days ago, and she already made the mess, not only in my office but in the entire Hall corporation.
The first day she was here to do her job, she was nervous. Understood, this was her first job after graduating from college, so I got to work on her nerves, but I failed to comprehend how this woman’s brain worked.
Day-1.
She didn’t need to do much, as I would be out of the office for most of the meetings with Japanese clients. She was supposed to be with me, but seeing her jumpy situation, I decided it would be great if she stayed in the office and organized a few files according to date on the computer.
My previous secretary, Anna, arranged everything perfectly, that made it easy for me to work. But Jessica deleted everything that was in my system.
My IT department somehow recovered everything, and Jessica
I picked up Lyra from the café just a block away from my office; she looked better. In her jeans and a red loose shirt with open hair and a little makeup, she looked as fresh as the morning dew.Her spirit was high too, which was a plus point for me. Yesterday had been hard for her, and the last thing I wanted today was tears in her eyes. She defended less and fragile both emotionally and mentally, which I understood, something must have triggered her. And I wasn’t sure if Hall was the reason for that or was just defense.I saw her the entire time, from the restaurant to the time she fell asleep on the bed at home.And trust me, there was a change in her manners even before we set our feet on the McCoy mansion. When she came out of the bathroom, she looked as if she came out of a haze. The puffiness of her red eyes was a clear sign she was crying. The way she saw me after I hugged her was as if she was lost in the deep blue oc
Veronica Gomez was here, in my workplace, sitting on the corner of the first-floor hall with a crossed leg and hands folded over her chest. Today she was dressed differently. All the other times I met her in the Hall residence, she was always in comfortable clothes. Jeans, shirts, shorts, tops, dresses, things that gave her a cute look. The girl next door was in her fashion, but it was a little different.Her glossy open blond hair, Chanel dress with a fur coat over it, diamond pendent in the neck, Jimmy Choo high heel, and Dior bag screamed wealth from every corner of her body. The makeup on her face was well-done. Sure, some professionals did their magic on her altogether.She felt like two different people. Somehow, at present, she looked like those rich spoiled kids who knew nothing but spending their parent’s hard work lying on the bed. The stubborn one who disrespects everyone in the room and places themselves above anyone.I l
We entered our apartment kissing passionately, Nathan worked on the lock with the keys at the same time his tongue was inside my mouth. There was a tug of fight going on in between our kisses as we both were eager to have the authorities of these kisses of this night.It took him a few seconds extra than to unlock the door, but I didn’t mind, my senses were concentrating on only one thing at that time, the kisses. It consumed all my sanity at that moment, and his lips and touch were the only thing in this world I wanted so badly.He needed to stop the kiss to open the door, and those two seconds felt like pure torment to my soul. I was getting on the edginess without his hands on me, these seconds felt like years to me. Even the sounds of keys annoyed me with their jiggle, the sound rang in my ear as a mock or laugh.I took the keys from his hand and inserted them in the lock, and with one swift turn, the door was wide open, and smil
I walked into the warehouse after lunch; it was 1 o’clock. The entire day I was restless, sitting in my office without any work, playing with my phone, scrolling email, checking files that I did yesterday bored me to hell yesterday. I needed to get out of the office as soon as I got in the building, but I needed to show my face there. So, I spent a little time there.When I entered the abandoned place, Luka was here all night with our superior guest, whom I visited last night for a decent amount of time. I might have slapped or punched him during my stopover, but that was necessary.Luka got his hand on this man yesterday morning when he was at home alone. Luka hit the head with a glass vase from behind. After he fell on the ground, Luka carried him to the van that is used for our club errand running. Matero was in the car waiting for both of them, and then they transferred him to this lavish penthouse of mine.Yeah, he was a guest,
I expected a hurricane the moment I set my foot in my apartment. The entire drive from the warehouse to my home took me exactly twenty-seven minutes. I thought about all the things I could say to Lyra. I wasn’t sure whether revealing the truth to her was a good option or not. My mind was going through that matter a lot since last night.I held Harvey in my hand; I needed to break his reliance to bring out the truth. How long could he stay in that dark and foul-smelling place? Not long. I needed to bring him down, and I believe we would do soon it, but telling Lyra could be an inconvenience.I still wasn’t sure about Brian’s innocence. Till now I have found nothing that would save him from my suspicion. If he wasn’t involved with all this, then that was a piece of glorious news. No would-be happier than me as he was Lyra’s older brother, even if she broke ties with them, I know deep inside her heart she still loved and respected them. I wou
The screen of my phone went dark after ringing, this was the sixteen number call that I got from Nathan in the past three hours. I popped the popcorn in my mouth, averted my gaze from the phone that was resting beside me on the couch, and gave my every bit of devotion to the movie that was engaged on the 60-inches TV in front of me.Today I was in a romantic movies marathon, right now “A Walk to Remember” was playing on the screen. This was movie number three, and I decided to see at least two more before the night ended. It was my healing process, the best one that worked for me like magic.Every time I was vacillating or distraught with some situation or someone to compose myself, I would watch romantic movies for a stretch until it soothed my meddlesome heart.However, today was strange. I was in movie number three, but nothing was happening, the comfort that I always felt by watching them was nowhere to find today. If anyth
I opened my eyes to the darkness; it was still night. The time I passed out on Penny’s couch was around 6. Seeing the city light intake from the window gave me my heart to feel peace for the first time in a long time.The day I ended my ties with my family, which was a few days ago, had been hell for me. Owen was constantly calling me every day, he wanted to talk about the incident, but I was ashamed of the imprudent manner that I showed that day. I shouted at all of them, said things that I wouldn’t consider verbalized even in my dream. My manner was boarder line aggressive, which I never thought I was able to do.Uncle John texted me saying he wanted to meet, but I didn’t have the courage to look at his eyes, so I was ignoring his messages as much as I could.I hated everything Viola and Brian told about Nathan or about his family. How could a person be so rude, so heartless, was out of my insight?I didn’t
I lied. I told the lie right on her face with little thinking. The only thing that was on my mind was that she couldn’t know the truth. Not until I knew the truth.That bastard Harvey was still adamant and kept repeating that it was an accident, and he had nothing to do with Olivia or the incident that happened that night. However, I found it extremely arduous to believe his words when all the evidence testified against him again and again. I had enough of his drama as I was on the edge of losing patience; I wanted to shatter him into pieces tonight, but that didn’t happen.He was lucky, but his luck was about to run a mile away from him.As soon as Matero and Caleb sent me the message, I took off for Penelope Gibson’s house. My suspicion was on point when I saw Lyra sleeping on the couch. I exhaled a sigh of relief. In my head, I knew she would be here, but my heart was restless until I saw her with my eyes. The entire d
Seven Years Later Today we celebrated five years of our marriage with our two children. Our daughter Josephine was seven years old while our son Joshua Hall was five years old. It was still hard to believe for me that we came this way. Whenever I thought about the past or the way we met and the way today things turned out to be, it surprised me. I walked the path with him; however, I couldn’t comprehend that this was us now. Nathan told a lie to save me from the crowd. “She is my fiancée” that night in the club seven years ago, which ended us tied in a relationship that was a lie. Our engagement was a pure lie from my side, at least at that time. I was eager to be with him for my own selfishness. He wasn’t the person that I heard from my family’s mouth. He was my saving grace. Every time I fell, he was there holding me, and that was what made me thankful to him. With time I got to feel for him, and, oh
Two years laterToday we said our vows. Everything went smoothly, just as we planned. It was in Spain where the pastor announced us as a man and woman, our friends and family with us as we celebrated our love, they cheered as I kissed my bride. Our two-year-old clapped with full force and smiled at us. Everyone was amused at our much-awaited wedding with the bride.Lyra was fuming. If today we were scheduled to exchange the vows, I swear, next year these people would have celebrated my death anniversary with tears in their eyes.This morning Lyra got the news. The big news, which was a piece of good news without any doubt. I knew she was over the moon with joy. However, the way she was expressing it with rolling eyes, I was positive the moment we locked in our suite room tonight, she would be jumping on me with a knife.“You don’t look happy?” I whispered to her ears as we moved along the
LyraOne year later,“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shrieked from the bathroom after seeing two pink lines on the fucking pregnancy stick that I was holding in my hand firmly.This had to be a dream. This can’t be true. I closed my eyes and opened again with hope and trust that the two lines would be turned in one somehow magically. But it didn’t.So I took out another stick, praying this time it would be negative. I peed on it, kept my prayer loud while waiting for the result to appear on the stick, and then, BINGO. There were two lines on this one too, positive. I was pregnant.Nathan did that to me. How could he do that to me? I told him to wear a condom so many times, but he didn’t listen to any of my warnings. How many minutes did it take to wear one? But that adamant man didn’t listen, and now here I was holding the one thing that I
“What is this?” Devin frowned as I placed the wedding card of mine and Nathan in front of him on the table.Devin was one of my two friends. I didn’t have many people in my life to relay from childhood; I spent my elementary and most of my high school without friends until Penny came along in the form of an enemy. She was the one who made my life easy and entertaining during those two years of my life.It was nice having someone to rely on, sharing thoughts and happiness with another female who could understand you.Devin and I shared a unique relationship than what I had with Penny. He was my guy friend who treated me with respect, was with me whenever I needed help or a friend in these past years.He was a great guy. I liked him both as a friend and as a human being. He was kind, humble, funny, handsome, a foodie, everything that a woman wanted in her man. He was that guy.But we couldn’t stretch the
Whenever I had a feeling about something strongly, it seemed as if I would always be right about that. It first happened when I was in high school. As I went to private school, a place which was filled with some little rotten rich human being’s little miniature, it wasn’t exactly an upright place where I wanted to be. Moral was nowhere to be found in that school, if anything mattered to those people, it was money, power, and status.Lucky for us, Luke and I stood at the top of that game. As a part of the Hall family, the oldest and powerful one in Chicago, those little pieces of shit didn’t dare to look at our eyes, let alone talk to us.Luke had friends. He was always popular among boys and girls where I was a loner, but I enjoyed that. I didn’t need those bullies anywhere near me, all of them, every single one of them, was a criminal in my eyes.As I spent time with my grandfather and mom in the office, I was awar
We officially started dating a week ago after the night in that café. It was nice. Nathan came to my house in the morning, we had our breakfast together before going to work. He dropped me at my restaurant, pressed a kiss on my lips before driving himself to his office. He returned to his office, once again, he was the CEO of the Hall Corporation just like before.We texted one another every free time we got, talked over the phone during our lunch, hence it was harmless to say we ate together. He picked me up from work around 6. It wasn’t my time to go home, but these days I was relying on my manager a little as he confirmed to me everything would be fine even if I wasn’t here.We would go to his condo and spend a cozy night. Watching movies together on his DVD, talking about the time we were separated from one another, cuddling on the sofa, falling asleep in his arms, and having crazy exotic food for dinner. Nathan’s che
I didn’t say a word after Nathan told me what happened in the hospital a year ago. When I woke up in the morning that time, it was Brian, Owen, Inessa, and Michale around me. Nathan was nowhere to be found.They discharged me from the hospital the next morning after the doctor confirmed I was out of danger and ready to go home. Brian and Inessa took me to their house. I was with them for a week before moving back to uncle Josh’s condo.Michale visited me every single day, sometimes before going to the office or sometimes after work. He would bring me flowers or my favorite food from my favorite restaurants. I didn’t think much of his actions that time as I wasn’t in my head that time.I was numb for a long time after coming home; I was listening to every word that was being said to me, but I couldn’t empathize with the meaning behind any of those words. It was the reason Inessa used to do all my works; she hel
“What do you want to talk about?” Lyra asked, breaking the long silence that was sandwiched between us from the moment we sat in this café with our coffee.I was a little earlier than Lyra, as I needed to prepare to talk to her. I was the one who asked for this meeting; thus, I wanted to be warmed up to talk to her about us. It took a lot from my side to have this conversation with her.When we met one another after such a long time, seeing her well-adjusted in her new life delighted me. She was doing what she loved; she established her own restaurants, which were enjoying outstanding success. She was a boss woman now, and I loved that.I loved seeing the new Lyra, the fearless one, shy but confident, naïve as well as guarded. I took pleasure in her success, yet I was melancholic with her. Mostly because of how fast she was moving forward in her personal life without me.I wanted to talk about us. If there wa
I canceled my plan to return to Italy for now; I called Jessica and told her to call off the meeting that I was supposed to attend on my return to Italy with an investor. I would do other works that needed my attention through email, my casino manager Rocky was a trusted, worthy man. He was accomplished of handling the situation better than anyone; therefore, I knew things would be alright in Italy with little hinder.But the way everything was resolved in Chicago was scaring me to death. After the night where I almost choked Devin, or whatever that bastard's name was to death, I was feeling more out of control. The fear of losing Lyra was taking all my thinking systems at once.We spent a year apart from one another, didn’t see her, talk to her, or listen to her voice, we were living our life as two strangers. During that time, I didn’t go through this fucking fear that I was having right now.I knew she was in this world some