A Business Love

chapter 1

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A B U S I N E S S L O V E

Jessie was rapidly driving her white Volvo toward the Moretti Group's headquarters while repeating her presentation in her head and mumbling some words from time to time.

"Oh! That's my song!" she suddenly screamed while bumping her head to the Sia's Déjà Vu song that was now playing on her Bluetooth system.

She cranked up the volume and sang her heart out as if she was in front of an audience, "Oh my heart ached, but I knew fate would send you my way. And when you came, my heart was saved. I've known you for lifetimes, baby."

She kept bouncing her head and tapping her fingers on the wheel, but with much less enthusiasm; she was suddenly lost in her thoughts thinking about the meaning of the words she just sang. It was talking about a love that felt so deep, so passionate, and she was not sure she had ever experience that in real life.

She shook her head and lowered the volume, focusing back on the presentation she was about to give to the Moretti Group's marketing team. Today was not about giving a paper to a teacher, getting it graded and then forgetting about it. She wasn't going to present to mere fellow students who were only stressing about their own presentation and couldn't care less about hers.

Instead, she had the opportunity to present her work to a group of people who were out there, in the real world and could potentially find value in what she had relentlessly and obsessively worked on for the past three months. It was her chance to start making a name for herself in the business world.

"Cazzo!" she swore in Italian, as she pumped the brakes. She only swore in Italian; it felt less vulgar, although it still meant the 'F' word, just in another language.

A car had abruptly cut into her lane without putting their signals on. She hated when people did that.

"Please sir, I need to go! I'm gonna be late!" she yelled to the driver in front of her, although he could clearly not hear her.

She didn't want to make a bad impression by being late, which for her meant being on time. In reality, she was going to arrive at the headquarters well in advance.

You know the girl in high school who cried to her teacher because she got an A instead of an A+? That was Jessie. As far as she could remember, succeeding in school had always been the most important thing for her.

She couldn't figure out why she was that way. Her mother was a hairdresser and esthetician in a salon she didn't own, and her dad was an assembly line factory worker. None of them had completed college and her friend group, well what was left of it, was not as driven as her.

She jokingly called herself the nerdy freak, although she hated that nickname. A guy she considered her friend in high school had called her that once, and she laughed it off as a joke, but in reality, she had been hurt. Instead of showing her pain, she started self-proclaiming herself a nerdy freak to make people laugh.

All she wanted was to fit in with people her age and stop feeling so incredibly alone and outcast in this world.

Despite it all, she still craved for academical successes. She was proudly completing her master's degree in marketing at McGill, the best ranked university in Canada. She had chosen marketing as it suited both her creative and driven personality, but in reality, this smart girl could have become anything she wanted: doctor, lawyer, you name it.

Well, maybe not a lawyer; she was too gentle to plead fiercely in front of a judge, plus she couldn't help but cry whenever she got too upset. She hated how easy it was for her to get worked up and start crying.