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Lahat ng Kabanata ng Mr. CEO, You Lost Me Too Late: Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

70 Kabanata

Two O' Clock

CHAPTER SIXTY ONETwo O'ClockAria's POVThe morning of the show was the calmest I had felt in weeks.Not because the nerves were gone. They were there. But underneath them was something steadier. Afeeling that had been there since Thursday morning when I stood alone in the empty venue and let the collection go.The team arrived at nine.From that point it was all just work. Dressing rooms. Looks on their rails in order. Models rotating through hair and makeup. Bisi doing final fit checks with the focus of someone who had been building to this moment for eight weeks and was not going to let a single thing through that was not correct.The seventh look had a seam pulling slightly at the hip.It should not have been possible. Nothing had changed since the last fitting. But bodies are not dress forms. They move and shift and do what they want.Bisi looked at it for thirty seconds.Fixed it in four minutes.The model looked in the mirror afterward."Done," she said."Done," Bisi agreed, a

After

CHAPTER SIXTY TWOAfterAria's POVBackstage after a show is its own world.Models changing. The team moving through the space with the energy of people who have been wound tight for a long time and have just been let go. The noise of the venue outside filtering through as the room emptied. Voices. Footsteps. The particular acoustic of a large space returning to being just a room.Jerome found me first.He came through the door and stood in front of me and looked at me for a moment."The shoulder on the third look," he said. "Three people asked me about it before the finale model had finished her turn.""Three people?" I said."Three important people." A pause. "The collection did what it was supposed to do. More than what it was supposed to do, infact." He looked at me directly. "You did what I brought you here to do."From Jerome that was everything."Thank you for bringing me here," I said."Thank you for coming," he said.He looked past me at the team. All of them. Bisi and Adaeze

A Week After

CHAPTER SIXTY THREEThe Week AfterAria's POVI did what Dr. Mensah told me to do.I rested.Monday and Tuesday I stayed home. Slept past seven for the first time in months. Sat in the south facing study in the morning light and drew things that had nothing to do with the collection. Let the house hold me the way it was learning to.The reviews came in on Monday morning.Alex brought his phone to me in the study without saying anything. Set it on the desk beside me and went back downstairs. Let me read them alone.They were good.Not every single one. Nothing worth doing gets unanimous response. Two had reservations I could respect even if I disagreed. But the ones that mattered were the kind that shift things. The kind that change the temperature of a career.One of them used the phrase earned clarity.The same words Adeyemi had used in his article before the show.I read that twice. Put the phone down. Looked out the study window at the tree.Earned clarity.I thought about everythi

Monday

CHAPTER SIXTY FOURMondayAria's POVI woke up before the alarm.Five forty seven. The room still dark. Alex already awake beside me. I could tell by his breathing. The way it changed when he had been lying there thinking for a while."You're awake," I said."Yes," he said.We lay there for a moment. Not saying anything else. The house quiet around us. The trial starting in three hours.I pressed my hand against my stomach. My daughter moved slowly. She was always slower in the mornings. Easing into the day."How are you feeling?" I asked.He was quiet for a moment."Ready," he said. "I think.""You've been ready for months," I said. "The evidence is complete. David said so.""I know," he said. "It's not about the evidence."I understood that.The evidence was one thing. Sitting in a room and watching your mother stand trial for what she did to your marriage and your wife and your company was another thing entirely. Those were not the same thing and he knew it and I knew it and we did

The Witness

CHAPTER SIXTY FIVEThe WitnessAlex's POVThe clinic witness took the stand on Tuesday morning.Her name was Dr. Adaora Mensah Cole. Not the same Dr. Mensah who saw Aria. A different one entirely. She had worked at the fertility clinic for eleven years before resigning. She had been the one who processed the falsified results.She had not known they were falsified at the time.That was what she said first, quietly and clearly, before the prosecution had asked her anything. The judge let it stand.Alex sat in the gallery beside Clara and watched her take the oath and settle in the witness chair and fold her hands in her lap with the particular composure of someone who had been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally put it down.The prosecution took her through it methodically.The results that had come through the internal system already amended. The payment trail that had appeared weeks later when she was reviewing billing discrepancies. The name attached to the acco

Clara

CHAPTER SIXTY SIXClaraAlex's POVClara testified on Thursday.She had asked to. The prosecution had not needed to compel her. She had called David three months ago and said she wanted to testify and David had said he would make sure that happened and it had.Alex sat in the gallery and watched his sister walk to the witness stand.She wore something dark and simple. She had thought about it. He knew because she had texted him the night before asking whether the grey or the navy and he had said the navy and she had said she was already wearing the grey and he had said then why did you ask and she had said she wanted a second opinion on the grey.She looked composed.She looked like their father.The prosecution took her through the evidence carefully. The payment records she had found. The clinic documentation. The afternoon she had sat in the car outside the clinic for forty minutes before going in to ask for the records herself. The phone call she had made to Alex after.She answer

The Stand

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVENThe StandAlex's POVMargaret took the stand on Friday.The defense had not been required to call her. She had insisted. David had told Alex this the night before, quietly, over the phone, in the tone he used when information was significant and he wanted to make sure it landed properly."She wants to speak," David had said. "Her counsel advised against it. She overruled them."Alex had not been surprised.His mother had never in her life allowed a room to reach a conclusion about her without her participation.She walked to the stand the way she walked into every room. Upright. Deliberate. The particular pace of a woman who had decided long ago that how you entered a space was half of what the space thought of you.She took the oath.She sat.And for the first time since the trial began she looked directly at Alex.He held her gaze.He did not look away and he did not give her anything to read in his expression. Just held it. The way his father had taught him to h

The Weekend

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHTThe WeekendAria's POVSaturday arrived like an exhale.No courthouse. No trial. No watching Alex come home carrying the weight of a day that had no good version of itself. Just the house and the morning and the particular quality of a weekend that had earned itself.I slept until eight.Alex was already up when I came downstairs. Standing at the kitchen window with his coffee. Looking at the garden the way he looked at things when he was thinking but not urgently. Just turning something over quietly."Morning," I said."Morning," he said. "How did you sleep?""Well," I said. And I meant it. "You?""Better than the rest of the week," he said.I poured coffee and stood beside him at the window. The garden in the Saturday morning. The tree. A bird on the fence that had opinions about something and was expressing them at length."Two more days," I said."Monday closing arguments," he said. "Tuesday the jury goes out.""And then?""And then we wait," he said. "David th

Closing

CHAPTER SIXTY NINEClosingAlex's POVMonday was closing arguments.The defense went first.They had built their case carefully over ten days and they delivered the closing the same way. Methodical. Measured. They spoke about a mother's love and the complexity of family and the distance between intention and consequence. They asked the jury to consider what Margaret had believed she was doing rather than what she had done.Alex sat through it.It was competent. He could see that. The defense had done what a defense was supposed to do with the material it had.The material was not strong.Ms. Afolabi stood for the prosecution closing at eleven fifteen.She did not raise her voice once.She went through the evidence the way you go through something that does not need emphasis to be devastating. The falsified clinic results. The payment trail. The financial crimes. The editorial interference. The private arrangement placed in a marriage contract without the knowledge of either party bein

Guilty

CHAPTER SEVENTYGuiltyAria's POVTuesday I went to the studio.Not because I could work. I knew I couldn't work. But the alternative was sitting in the house watching the clock and that was worse.Jerome said nothing when I arrived. Just nodded. Pointed at my desk. That was enough.I sat at my desk and opened the notebook and drew nothing in particular and watched my phone and tried not to watch my phone and watched it anyway.Alex was at the courthouse with Clara and David. Waiting for the jury to come back. He had texted at eight thirty.In court. Will call the moment we know.I know, I had written back. I'll be at the studio. Jerome is pretending to give me work to do.Jerome is a good man, he wrote.Don't tell him that, I wrote. He'll become impossible.That had been three hours ago.By eleven the studio had quietly reorganised itself around the waiting without anyone saying so. Adaeze was at the desk closest to me. Bisi had moved her cutting table slightly so she could see me fr

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