Lahat ng Kabanata ng Mr. CEO, You Lost Me Too Late: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

CHAPTER FORTY TWOSunday MorningAria's POVHe came on Sunday.Not because anything had happened. Not because anyone had texted him or there was a legal development or a studio crisis or any of the things that had given us reasons to be in the same place over the past two months. He came because it was Sunday and Nina was out with Daniel and I had sent him a message at nine in the morning that said simply are you busy and he had replied no and I had said come over then and he had.He stood in the doorway when I opened it and looked at the space the way he always did when he arrived somewhere, quick and thorough, taking it in before his expression settled. He had been here before but only briefly, only with food and a specific purpose. This was different. This was just Sunday.He came in and I closed the door and he stood in the middle of Nina's living room looking at the evidence of the last two months. The fabric swatches still on the coffee table from yesterday. The notebook on the

CHAPTER FORTY FOURVivienne LeavesAria's POVVivienne called on a Thursday evening, three days before the wedding.I was at Nina's, the notebook open on the kitchen table, working on nothing in particular, just drawing because my hands needed something to do while my mind processed the week. When her name appeared on the screen I looked at it for a moment before answering, not because I didn't want to talk to her but because I hadn't heard from her since the coffee shop weeks ago and I needed a second to locate where I was with that.I answered."I'm leaving the city," she said. No greeting. Straight to it, the way she always spoke, like a woman who had learned that preamble cost more than it was worth. "Next week. I've taken a position in Paris. Design consultancy. I wanted to tell you before I went.""Paris," I said."I've been offered it three times over the last two years," she said. "I kept saying no because." She paused. "Because I kept thinking things here were going to resolv

CHAPTER FORTY SIXThe Drive HomeAria's POVHe drove me back.I hadn't asked him to. He had simply picked up his keys when I reached for my coat and said "I'll drive you" in the tone that was not quite a statement and not quite a question and which I had learned meant he had already decided but was leaving room for me to say no.I didn't say no.The city was quiet at that hour, the late-evening kind of quiet that belongs to a Friday when the earlier rush has settled and the night is still finding its pace. We drove without talking for a while and the silence was the good kind, warm from dinner, warm from the kitchen and the study and everything that had happened in the house tonight that neither of us was going to reduce to a summary.At a red light he looked across at me."How do you feel?" he asked."Good," I said. "Lighter than I expected.""What did you expect?""I don't know. Something harder. Going back there for the first time I thought I'd feel more of what I used to feel in i

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHTThe Wedding MorningAria's POVClara called at seven thirty."I need you here," she said. "Not because anything is wrong. I just need someone who isn't paid to be calm at me.""I'll be there in forty minutes," I said.Nina, from the doorway of my room, already dressed, coffee in hand, said, "I heard clearly. Go. I'll call a cab."I dressed quickly, which at twenty weeks required more negotiation than it used to, and stood in front of the mirror for a moment. I had bought something new for the wedding, a dress in a deep green that Nina had found and brought home two weeks ago without being asked, in exactly the right size, and hung on the back of my door without comment. I had put it on and said nothing and she had said nothing and that had been the entire transaction.I looked at myself in it now.The bump was visible. Not just visible, present, unmissable in the way that twenty weeks is unmissable when you stop trying to dress around it and just dress. The green s

CHAPTER FIFTYThe ReceptionAria's POVThe reception was everything Clara had planned and also completely different from everything Clara had planned, which seemed right.The room was warm and full and the flowers Nina had spent two weeks consulting on were exactly right, lush without being excessive, the kind of arrangement that looks effortless because someone cared enormously about it not looking like they cared. The food was good. Tobias's family were the kind of people who laughed easily and made room for others in their laughter, and by the time the starters were cleared I had spoken to Tobias's mother twice and his youngest brother once and felt like I understood where Tobias had come from.Alex and I were seated together, which was either by Clara's arrangement or by the logic of the day, and we ate and talked and occasionally didn't talk and both were fine.Tobias's best man gave a speech that was twenty percent heartfelt and eighty percent a structured attack on Tobias's var