Lahat ng Kabanata ng Mr. CEO, You Lost Me Too Late: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

CHAPTER ELEVENOne CoffeeAria's POVI didn't tell Nina.I know. I know that was wrong. Nina would have had seventeen very reasonable things to say about it and every single one of them would have been correct and I still would have gone anyway, so I decided to save us both the argument.I told her I was stepping out to get some air after work. Which was technically true. The coffee shop Vivienne had suggested was only three streets from the studio. I got air on the way there.It was a small place. The kind that takes its coffee seriously and doesn't apologize for the prices. I arrived five minutes early and sat at a table near the window because I wanted to see her walk in. I wanted a moment to look at her before she could look at me.She arrived exactly on time.In person she was exactly what I remembered from that hotel, and also completely different. The elegance was still there. But she looked tired in a way that careful makeup couldn't entirely hide. There were things behind her

CHAPTER THIRTEENThe Space Between UsAria's POVI almost cancelled three times.The first time was Wednesday night, lying in the dark staring at the ceiling, when I picked up my phone and typed out a message to David Osei saying I had changed my mind. I stared at it for four minutes. Then I deleted it.The second time was Thursday morning when Nina found out.I had told her over breakfast, casually, the way you tell someone something when you want them to think it isn't a big deal because you are still convincing yourself of the same thing. She had set her mug down very carefully and looked at me."You're going," she said."I'm considering it.""Aria.""I have the evidence. Sandra said to document everything and control what information gets out and when. Meeting him while I have something he doesn't know I have is actually strategically smart."Nina stared at me for a long moment. "Is that why you're going? Strategy?"I looked down at my toast.She didn't push it. She just picked he

CHAPTER FIFTEENHeartbeatAria's POVI hadn't replied to David Osei's message.Not that night and not the next morning. I had read it four more times, put my phone down, picked it up again, read it a fifth time, and then placed it face down on the nightstand and told myself I would decide in the morning.Morning came. I still hadn't decided.I confronted Nina over breakfast."You told him," I said.She was spreading butter on her bread with complete concentration, the way she does when she is preparing to be unapologetic about something. "I don't know what you're talking about.""Nina.""The butter is very cold this morning. It's not spreading properly.""Nina Ade."She put the knife down and looked at me. "He called me. Yesterday afternoon. He asked if you were okay and I said yes and he asked if there was anything coming up that he should know about and I may have mentioned Friday.""You may have mentioned Friday.""In passing.""It was a prenatal appointment, Nina. Not a coffee sho

CHAPTER SEVENTEENMaison ElaraAria's POVI almost talked myself out of it on the way there.Not because I wasn't interested. I was so interested it was embarrassing. Maison Elara was the kind of name I used to write in the margins of my sketchbooks at twenty two when I still believed that wanting something hard enough counted for something. I had circled it and underlined it and drawn little stars around it like a teenager with a crush.But that was before. Before I became someone's wife and forgot, slowly and completely, that I had ever wanted anything that big.I told Marcus first thing that morning.He was at his desk with his pen already moving when I knocked. He looked up and I told him straight. Jerome Saka. Maison Elara. A meeting this afternoon. He put his pen down and looked at me for a moment in that way he had, like he was reading something slightly behind your face."Go," he said."Marcus, I want to be upfront with you. You gave me a chance when I had nothing to show for

CHAPTER NINETEENSeven O'ClockAlex's POVClara arrived exactly at seven.He heard the car pull up from the study and he stayed where he was until he heard Emeka, the housekeeper, open the front door and the familiar sound of his sister's heels crossing the entrance hall. Then her footsteps slowed in a way they never usually did in this house and he understood she was taking her time because she needed it.He went to meet her.She was standing in the hallway still in her coat, looking at the house the way you look at a place you grew up in when something has shifted and you are seeing it properly for the first time. She looked tired. More than tired. She looked like someone who had been carrying something heavy for long enough that her posture had changed around it."Come in," he said.They sat in the sitting room. He had asked Emeka to bring tea and leave it and go, which Emeka had done without commentary, which was one of the things Alex had always valued about him.Clara wrapped bo