“I am not in the mood for your jokes this morning, Zara,” I keep my eyes on the work I am doing on the laptop and she scoffs in response.I know my best friend, Eric has…problems but I don’t think he would go that far. “Does it look like I’m joking?” She asks me, and I look up at her. I try my best to avoid glancing at her breasts.“Um, yeah it does,” I reply to her and she rolls her eyes.She and I have worked together from the day that this company was a start-up, so we have a very casual and calm dynamic. She is more like a friend to me than an employee, a friend that I pay every month of course.“I knew you wouldn’t believe me, you trust Eric too much even though has failed you over and over,” She argues.“Don’t talk that way about him, Zara. And if you don’t have any proof of what you are claiming happened, then I would like to be left alone,” I say to her.She sighs and then she leaves my office. In two minutes, she returns with a digital tablet and a folder in her hands. She w

“Oh, no. I don’t believe I can help you,” I reply to the lady as the waiter returns. He has the food that I ordered to take home. It is decently wrapped and in a fancy plastic bag. I take it from him and I put it on the table.“Thank you,” I say to the waiter, and he smiles in response as I reach for the glass of water on the table and place it in my mouth to drink.“So this is the lovely lady you have been waiting for,” He says, and I almost choke on the water.“Oh, no,” Victoria replies to him.“Gosh, no,” I add after a few uncomfortable coughs.The waiter looks slightly embarrassed by his assumption, he apologizes and then excuses himself as quickly as he can.“I would be on my way now, it was nice to meet you,” I smile as I excuse myself while taking the food with me.“I said that I needed your help, but I didn’t say that it was a request,” She says in a cold tone as she smirks. “You want your debts to be forgiven and to be free from our hold on you and your precious companies,

***Linda Wells’ POV***IT is morning and I am getting ready for a jog. Yesterday was a very emotional day for me; Mitch visited, Chris caught meanwhile I was having a mental breakdown, I missed my date with him at the restaurant he picked out, and he and I ended up shouting in the living room like crazy people.It was like a rollercoaster, I was feeling really depressed and then Chris made me feel alive again; he reminded me that I mattered and that I deserved to be happy.After our fooling around in the living room, we binge-watched a show until 2 am. I can’t remember when last I did that, even when I was with Mitch. I can still remember how I laid my head on Chris’ shoulder and he told me that my hair smelled like roses. He can be so carefree and yet so responsible at the same time, I’m afraid that I may be falling for his charm.When I am all ready for my jog, I head out of the room after I have cleaned it and down the stairs. I then bump into Chris whose mouth happens to be full

“He seems…very masculine,” Ben comments once Chris has left, and I chuckle.“That’s a distinct way of describing a person,” I reply to him as I sit next to him on the couch.“I guess he does,” I say after I take a few seconds to think about it. That adjective fits Chris perfectly for some reason.“I didn’t know you were gay,” I look at Ben as I say this in a soft understanding tone.“Neither did I,” He replies to me in a similar soft tone.“You and I know that I dated only girls in high school, and at some point, I was even very homophobic,” He reminds me, and I nod slowly.I remember that Ben used to bully this one kid in his class who was homosexual. I told him to stop over and over but he never did. The kid had to transfer schools because it got too much, his name was Kelvin.“Yup,” I say in response to him.“I bet Kelvin would laugh his a** off when he finds out that I actually like men too,” He mumbles.“Maybe,” I put a rogue strand of hair back behind my ear as I say this.“You

I stare at the text for a full minute before the sound of the elevator brings me back to reality. It was like time stopped, and all there was me and the possibility of getting my wife back. But the sad and messed up thing is that this is a scam.I received messages like this in the past when my wife and child had just died. I pursued them before but in the end, I realized that all those f*ckers wanted was to get a piece of the billionaire’s money.I take a deep breath and I place the phone back into my pocket as I continue my walk toward the conference room. Once I reach the room, I push open the glass door, and the eyes of everyone in the room land on me.“So let’s get this meeting started, shall we?” I say in an authoritative and confident voice that immediately places me in control of the entire room.***Linda Wells’ POV***I can not believe that my parents are making me marry a man that broke my heart and shamed me. A man that did not even have the guts to tell me to my face tha