All Chapters of LOVE ME OR HATE ME: Chapter 141 - Chapter 149

149 Chapters

The Promotion She Earned

Aria's POVThe meeting was on a Wednesday.I had not known what it was about when the calendar invite arrived from the board secretary. Just a time and a room and the specific professional language of a meeting that had an agenda that had not been shared in advance. I had noted it and prepared for the general category of board interaction that required Director level presence and had gone in without specific expectations.I should have had specific expectations.The board member who spoke first was the same one who had called me very efficient in front of Daniel and had been corrected in eleven words. He had updated his understanding considerably since then. He sat across the table with the rest of the board and looked at me with the specific expression of a man who had reviewed documentation and arrived at a conclusion."Your operational restructure saved this company four million dollars in the last fiscal year Mrs. Cole," he said. "The board would like to offer you a permanent seat

The Board Member

Daniel's POVShe walked in at nine.The board had been assembling for the monthly meeting with the specific efficient pace of people who understood that their time was valuable and the meeting had a start time and the start time was not a suggestion. I was already at the head of the table. The agenda was distributed. The correspondence from the previous month had been reviewed.Everything in its correct place.And then she walked in.Not dramatically. Not with the specific self conscious quality of a person entering a room they had never been in before in this capacity and were aware of entering it for the first time. With the composed direct certainty of a woman who had decided where she was going and was going there.She sat down.The board member to her left shifted his chair slightly in the specific unconscious way that people shifted when they were making room for someone whose presence they had come to respect.She opened her folder.She looked at the agenda.She looked at me.P

A Question From Hope

Aria's POVShe asked on a Sunday evening.Not out of nowhere. Hope rarely asked things out of nowhere. She asked things after a period of consideration that was visible to anyone paying attention. The specific quality of a child who had been thinking about something and had arrived at the point where thinking about it was no longer sufficient and direct inquiry was the required next step.I had been watching her think about something for most of the afternoon.She had been quieter than usual during dinner. Not unhappy quiet. The specific internal quiet of a person who was working through a problem. She had eaten everything and had not asked for more which was unusual but not alarming and had gone to her room after to look at her drawings which was the specific activity she engaged in when something needed further consideration.At seven she appeared in the doorway of the living room.She looked at me.I was on the floor with her books. We had developed a Sunday evening habit of going

Daniel Hears The Report

Daniel's POVShe appeared in my office doorway at seven fifteen.I had been working through the Singapore quarterly review with the specific focused attention of a man who had an hour before the evening fully belonged to the household and was using the hour efficiently. The laptop was open. The numbers were in order. The review was proceeding.Then Hope appeared in the doorway.I closed the laptop.She came in the way she always came into my office at home. With purpose. The specific deliberate movement of a person who had somewhere to be and was being there. She climbed into the chair across from my desk with the practiced ease of someone who had been doing it long enough that it required no assistance and settled herself with her legs crossed and her serious expression fully assembled.She looked at me."Daddy," she said."Mm," I said."Mama told me how you fell in love."I looked at my daughter.At four and a half she had the specific quality of someone who had received information

The Letter She Never Expected

Aria's POVIt arrived on a Tuesday.Not a postcard this time.A letter.A real one. The specific weight of it was different from the postcards. More paper inside the envelope. More words. The kind of letter that had required more than the few sentences that fit on the back of a postcard and that someone had decided to write anyway because the few sentences were no longer sufficient for what needed to be said.Vivienne's handwriting on the envelope.A different city's postmark than the last one.She had moved again.I stood at the kitchen counter and I held it for a moment before I opened it. Not hesitating. Just acknowledging. The specific acknowledgment of a woman who had been receiving small pieces of her sister for two years in the form of postcards and knew that this was something different and was giving the difference a moment before she moved into it.I opened it.I read it.It took a while.---The letter was long.Not the careful brevity of the postcards. Not the economy of s

The Office Eight Years On

Daniel's POVThe 34th floor looked the same.That was the first thing I thought on a Tuesday morning in the eighth year. Standing at the east window with my coffee the way I stood there most mornings. The specific angle of the light at this hour. The cool greys and the sharp glass. The view below where the city was doing its Tuesday morning things with the particular efficiency of a place that had somewhere to be.The floor looked the same.Everything was different.Eight years.She had walked off the elevator for the first time eight years ago with her portfolio and her ambition and the specific quality of a person arriving somewhere they intended to stay. She had not known then how completely she intended to stay. Neither had I.I had watched her from behind a wall.For eight months.I had watched her organize the Singapore correspondence and manage the Henderson account and run the executive floor with the specific quiet efficiency of someone who understood what the work required a

What She Knows Now

Aria's POVI sat in my office on a Tuesday afternoon after the Singapore call and I thought about what I knew now that I had not known then.Not professionally. I had known a great deal professionally then and knew considerably more now and the trajectory of that knowledge was clear and documented and visible on the wall in the form of a degree and on the door in the form of a name and in the boardroom in the form of a seat at the table.The other kind.The kind that did not have a certificate.I was twenty six when I walked off the elevator.I had a portfolio and a plan and a heart I was absolutely certain was under control. The certainty had been complete. Not performed. Genuine. I had genuinely believed it. I had a plan that made sense and feelings that I had classified correctly and a professional relationship that I was going to maintain professionally and that was the whole of it.I had been wrong.In the best possible way.He was thirty four when I walked through his doors.He

The Thing He Still Does

Daniel's POVThe coffee station was in the same corner it had always been.Eight years and it had not moved. The specific practical logic of a space that had identified where the coffee station worked and had kept it there because moving it would have required a reason and the reason had never materialized. Some things stayed where they were because they had been correctly placed from the beginning.I stopped at the coffee station at eight forty seven.Same as always.Not because I had looked at the clock. Because the specific rhythm of the morning had its own logic and the coffee was part of that logic and the part had always arrived at approximately this time since before I had acknowledged to myself that the approximately this time was not approximate at all.The new junior employee was at the station.She had been on the floor for three weeks. Efficient. Quiet. The specific unremarkable quality of someone who was still learning the rhythms of a place and had not yet decided which

Love Me Or Hate Me

Aria's POVThe city looked the same from the 34th floor.Eight years and it had not changed in the specific ways that mattered. The particular quality of the morning light coming through the east window at this hour. The view below where the Tuesday city was doing its Tuesday things with the efficient unhurried pace of a place that had been doing this long before either of us arrived and would continue long after.The same.Everything different.I stood at my office window and I thought about the first morning.About walking off the elevator with my portfolio and my plan and the specific certain knowledge that I had my heart completely under control. About the cool greys and the sharp glass and the beautiful space that had not invited you in. About the man who ran it and the rumors that had all turned out to be accurate in the ways that mattered least and entirely inaccurate in the ways that mattered most.I had not planned to fall in love with my boss.That had not been in the portfo

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