When Jacob called Jason, he was still in bed, with his lover lying in his arms. His first thought at seeing Jacob’s call was that there was an emergency at work, but then he remembered their meeting the previous night.If that was why Jacob was calling him in the morning, his plan to patch things up with his wife must have failed. Unless he was so happy with the outcome and couldn’t wait to share the good news.Shifting away from the woman lying next to him, he received the call. “Morning,” he greeted, his voice sleepy and raspy. “What’s the news?”Jacob didn’t bother with greetings, he just went straight to the point. “She doesn’t want my money.”Jason scratched his morning stubble. “Well, that’s a tough one. If gifts or money don’t work, then you should aim for the heart. If you’ve hurt her feelings, trying to use money to get forgiveness might make it worse.”“You think?” Jacob said grouchily. “And you didn’t think to say that last night?”“Well, I mean money sure helps, but you ne
The flowers were so many, that by the time the couple finished cleaning them up, it was already midnight.Isabelle made a comment about how they were so much more than she had initially thought, but she didn’t ask how much they had cost again. Which was good, he thought. She would probably have an aneurysm if she knew.Once they were all packed into bags, he made a call to Kevin to bring a couple of his subordinates to come and get them. It would take a few men to carry them all out of the apartment within the shortest time possible.By the time they arrived, Isabelle had gone to the bathroom to take a shower. When she had gotten back from work, she wouldn’t have guessed that she would spend the evening cleaning up flowers. She wondered whether they had been delivered with a lorry or something.After taking a shower, she walked back to the kitchen to find food. It was very late, but she was yet to have dinner, and all the flower-gathering activity had left her feeling famished.She wa
When Jacob got home that evening, he was determined to solve the issue between him and Isabelle once and for all. She retreated to her room early in the night, and when he went to see her, he found that she was drawing some designs.“Can we talk?” he asked, standing beside her desk.“I don’t have time right now,” she replied, indicating her paper. “I’ve got work to do.”“Okay,” he said, knowing she wasn’t going to like it if he interrupted her work. “We’ll talk when you are done.”“I have a lot of work,” she let him know. “I might not finish until very late.”“I’ll still wait,” he told her. He didn’t want this matter to go on for much longer. By the end of tonight, he wanted it all to be behind them.She gave him a curious look, but didn’t object further. When he settled on her bed with his back against her headboard, she frowned. “You can wait in the living room,” she suggested.“I’m good here,” he told her.She nibbled on her lip, and while the action was innocent enough, the though
The next morning, Jacob found that the red marks made by the scratches were still visible and prominent on his face. He had thought that they would have gotten better overnight, but all it would take was one look and someone would notice them.Since they were on the side of his face, it wasn’t even possible to hide them with a cap, so he had to go to work that way. It made him even more pissed off at Jason, who was about to have it that morning.Of course, it didn’t help that he had a meeting that morning. The moment he walked into the conference room, everybody noticed the scratches. People threw him curious looks and whispered among themselves, but he pretended he wasn’t aware of the attention and sat down in his seat, ready to kick things off.Everything would have gone his way if Jason, who was sitting to his left, hadn’t leaned in with a concerned frown on his face and asked, “What happened to your face?”The entire conference room went silent as everybody wanted to hear his answ
When Isabelle got home that evening, she found Jacob in the kitchen, cooking dinner. She hadn’t known that he could cook, so she was surprised to find him busy minding the pots as if he knew exactly what he was doing.“I didn’t know you could cook,” she said, making her way to the refrigerator. Opening it, she took out a bottle of water and uncapped it.Jacob looked at her and gave her a small smile. Small or not, it was enough to cause a riot of butterflies in her stomach. But just as quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared. The memory of last night reared its ugly head, and the giddy feeling was replaced by sadness.“I used to help my mother when cooking,” he replied, opening one pot and stirring whatever was cooking. From her spot, she caught the mouthwatering smell of steak. Her stomach growled in response, and he chuckled. “It’s almost ready. Busy day?”She nodded. “Yeah,” she replied, and then hooked her thumb towards the bedrooms. “I’ll go clean up and join you.”Maybe h
Isabelle reached for the ring and held it in her fingers, amazed at how beautiful it looked. Beautiful, and expensive. The band was platinum, with a princess cut diamond sitting prettily at the top.It looked like something that Isabelle would have chosen for herself. Simple yet stunning. That was if she could stand the price tag, of course.When she had told Jacob to get her a normal ring, she had assumed he would get a simple wedding band. Definitely not one that looked like it had cost a fortune. What if she lost it?“It’s not a real diamond,” Jacob told her, as if he could read her mind. “But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”“It is,” she agreed, studying the stone closely. It looked real. But then again, you can’t sell fake diamond rings if you couldn’t make them look real, right? Jacob seemed to have a real knack for finding counterfeit items that could pass as real.Jacob looked on as Isabelle examined the ring, hoping she wouldn’t catch on to his lie. After all, she was a jewellery d
Grace handed her the plan she had submitted for her to go through again. Isabelle went back to her desk and reviewed everything, comparing it with the customer’s requirements.When she was done, she found that she had done everything as requested. When she had been preparing the plan before making her submission, this was something she had paid extra attention to.She had known that no matter how good her design was, it would not get chosen if it wasn’t what the client was looking for.She was also sure that the director had paid attention to that while deciding which design to go with. By her own evaluation, she couldn’t tell what part of the design was not in line with the client’s requirements, so she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to work on.After checking her draft for the umpteenth time, she gave up on trying to identify possible areas of improvement and went back to Grace’s office.“Has the client provided new guidelines?” she asked Grace, thinking that maybe that could be
Hearing Naomi’s absolute words, Grace felt helpless. If the client was against using Isabelle’s design, what else could she do?When she had first received the rejection notice, she had thought it was something to do with the design, even though no clear commentary had been made on what Green Leaf found unsatisfactory.But now, after meeting the person who was in charge, she realised the design wasn’t the problem. The designer was.The CEO excused himself, and Naomi left with him. There was clearly no space for further negotiations.It was either that the Larson Group presented a draft from a different designer, or the collaboration was off. The customer always came first, so Grace would have to go back and send them the second-best design from the submissions.“We should get back,” she told Isabelle. “Let’s talk about it at the company.”She couldn’t imagine how disappointed Isabelle was to have her design rejected for some trivial reason. She had worked so hard on it, and even thoug