Alec The rest of my week had been busy. I hadn’t gotten a moment to rest and collect my thoughts since I wrapped up lunch with Eliza. The end of the quarter is coming up soon for my company and a lot of the other companies I sit on boards for. So not only was I working through all the reports for my main enterprise, of which I am the CEO, but I was also reviving those compiled reports for other companies who’s board meetings I have scheduled throughout this upcoming month. I have been balls deep in paperwork and the seemingly endless meetings with my accounting department have me on a very short fuse. If I see another expense report I’m going to throw it at someone. Looking at it objectively, I am not in the right headspace to be around anyone. Least of all someone who is adding to my stress, but Cam has been screening my calls and only giving me brief one-word responses to my texts. I can’t imagine why. I try to take a few deep breaths as I pull up to Lachlan’s home to
Dariana “I told you!” I yelled, getting all up in Tom’s face as he looks back in the rule book to make sure that he was reading it correctly. “Come on, banker you read it yourself now. Put that property up for auction.” “This can’t be right.” Tom mumbles to himself while reading and re-reading the same line over and over again. “Is this why you wanted to be the banker? To protect your wife’s interests?” George says, looking back and forth between Emma and Tom with a look of mock disapproval on his face. “Tsk tsk, Tom. I’m not sure what the game says about that but in the real world we call that a conspiracy, and it’s illegal.” “I never should have let you guys talk me into playing Monopoly with you, you were basically raised to be Monopoly experts. I think you’ve broken my husband.” She says as she shuffles toward Tom so she could rub his back. “You poor baby.” That just caused George and I to lose it, and we break into a fit of laughs. “This fake money changed you, Dar.”
*That Past Wednesday. Dariana’s Office* “I will give you ten thousand dollars right now if we go over there and he’s not in her office.” Alec says, and I can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of his certainty. “I’m being serious!” He looks at me like he can’t believe I’m not taking it seriously, whilst laughing himself. “And yesterday, he had the nerve to chastise me for how much time I spend in here. I barely get to see you twice in any given week and he basically works from Rachel’s office every time he can.” He throws his hands up at the hypocrisy, and it just makes me laugh harder. I shouldn’t be encouraging him. But every attempt I’ve made to keep things strictly professional has been completely ignored. I can’t say that I mind, though. It has been nice to have someone to keep me from pushing myself too far into my work and reminding me to be human every once in a while. I know it’s not ‘healthy’ to use work as a coping mechanism to avoid working toward a sense of
After my discussion in the kitchen with Emma, I manage pull myself together enough to rejoin everyone for dinner without arousing any suspicion. The rest of the dinner went by relatively smoothly. The conversation was lively and the intermittent debates over random silly things served well as a distraction for the thoughts that were induced by the revelation in the kitchen. Even if it was only temporary.And it was temporary. As soon as George and I drove off, the thoughts started trickling in, little by little in the deafening silence of the ride home. I hadn’t driven to the Bennet residence myself, so George had to drop me off. “So, why did you disappear just before dinner?” He asks without taking his eyes off the road.“I told you, I just needed to clean up a spill.” I said, repeating the lie I told earlier.“When did you start lying to me?” He turns to me for a moment to look me in the eye. “I get lying in front of Tom, but you have never had to lie to me. Why start now?” He as
I do not bother to knock before I burst into Rachel’s office just before lunch time on Monday with a bag of Chinese takeout. To no one’s surprise, Dominic is sitting across from her at her desk with his laptop open. They both look up from what they were doing with semi-confused looks on their faces. “Dariana, it’s nice to see you again.” Dominic says, fixing on a professional demeaour. “Mr Russo.” I smile. “Do you think I could borrow the lunch hour with my friend? Or are you two already bonded at the hip?” I joke. Rachel looks like she’s about to say something when her thought is seemingly cut off by Dominic’s chuckle in response. “Not at all.” He closes his laptop and stands up to leave. “Though I do expect her back after.” He says, going along with it. I see a blush creeping up on Rachel’s face from the corner of my eye. “I’ll try my best.” “Oh and Dominic?” I stop him as he walks out. “If you see him, tell Mr Blackburn that I will be waiting on that ten thousand. He’ll
The rest of the week went by in a blur of meetings and final preparations for the presentation. Everything seemed to be pulling me in every direction all at once. I had to oversee the final touches on the models my team rendered for the building. If all goes well and they like them, we can begin construction while we work on the design of the interior. That would mean that this will be handed over to our design team, thus my above average involvement in this project will start to simmer down. Fingers crossed, from today on Rachel will be taking over the regular operations for this project. And not a moment too soon, seeing as the design aspect would mean that this will be in the hands of Eliza’s team. I hadn’t spoken to or interacted with her at all since that conversation in my office my first week back. Which is how I preferred it. However, these past few days, whenever I have a spare moment to myself and my brain forces me to ponder on what Emma said to me on Sunday I find mysel
“Cheers to the world’s most beautiful bride!” Exclaimed Emma, who is my maid of honour. The room erupted in cheers as everyone raised their champagne flutes. “Thank you, thank you.” I said, feigning shyness at their attention. I was so exited, today is my wedding day! I had been meticulously planning this day for the past eight months and dreaming about it for so much longer. I was marrying the love of my life, surrounded by the people we both love. Life was good. Me and my bridesmaids were all in one of the church’s prayer rooms that had been converted into a dressing room for us to do our makeup and get ready. The same had been done on the other side of the church for the groomsmen to get ready in.This cathedral was massive and it sat at the heart of our city. Getting ready here was a better option than doing so off-site and driving here as there was bound to be traffic with all the guests coming in coupled with regular afternoon city centre traffic.“I still can’t believe this
“Rory, what’s going on” it was a stupid question really, anyone with eyes eyes and more than two functioning brain cells could probably correctly guess what had happened. But I didn’t want to assume, there was no way this stupid cliché could actually be my life. I was internally crossing my fingers in hope that there was a reasonable alternative to the explanation that my head is already conjuring up. “Baby, listen to me; I can explain—“ Camden began, before Rory cut him off.“When I got to Liz’s car I could immediately tell something was up. The car was moving a bit so I knew that there was someone in there. The closer I got, I could see clearer through the window and I could tell Liz was… bouncing up and down.”A huge lump began to form in my throat, and I closed my eyes trying to ward off the images that that phrase branded onto my brain. “I went to knock on the window, as a joke” Rory continued, “and to tell her and the– at the time– mystery man to hurry up. I knocked on the win