A Business Love

chapter 4.1

YOU ARE READING
A   B U S I N E S S   L O V E

The next day, Jessie was extremely proud to hit the send button to the email containing Lucy's analysis. She had stayed up until midnight to complete it.

She focused all morning on performing her analyst's tasks, and she spent the afternoon concentrating on the digital marketing strategy. The meeting she had attended with the real estate team had sparked a lot of inspiration and she had many new ideas to incorporate to her presentation, thus she was working relentlessly on the task.

Suddenly, she saw that her colleagues were starting to gather their things and closing their work stations. She looked at the hour.

"Freaking hell! It's 5 p. m. already!?" she said out loud in shock.

She knew she had to go to Michael's place as promised the day before. She just wanted to finalize one slide from her presentation...

And yet again, she didn't notice the time flying by.

Massimo closed the lights of his office and locked his door.

"Jess, don't work too late, eh?" he said routinely.

She looked up to him in complete shock. "What time is it?" she asked in panic while hastily looking at her cellphone.

She saw that it was 7 p.m. and she could not believe it. It felt like only thirty minutes had passed from 5 p.m. "Shiznit!" she yelled.

She quickly got up her desk and gathered her things.

"You have an appointment?" asked Massimo.

"No! Well, yes! Well, not really! I have to go! See you tomorrow!" she yelled while literally running out of the office.

She drove straight to Michael's place and parked in front of his parents' duplex. She quickly climbed the stairs and rang the doorbell. Michael's mother, Monica, answered the door, blissful to see Jessie. "Ciao bella! How are you?" she said while embracing Jessie.

"Hi! I'm good and you?"

"Good sweetie! Michael is downstairs, but first you need to taste this pie!"

Michael's mother was always feeding her. She loved Jessie dearly and even considered her a daughter. She couldn't wait for these two to get married.

After Jessie was done hanging out with Monica for a bit, she went downstairs to see Michael. She felt it was a bit rude of him to have remained in the basement, although he had clearly heard she was there. But she didn't make a big deal out of it. She didn't want to fight.

Michael was sitting on the old brown leather couch, eyes glued to the tv screen. He didn't turn to her although he heard her come down the stairs.

Feeling that there was already some tension in the air, she tried being cheerful. "Hi babe!" she said while leaning in to kiss him as he was playing a videogame.

Michael barely turned his face towards her and gave her a little peck, without really looking at her. He then proceeded to focus back on his game.

"What did you do today?" she said, ignoring his cold greeting and sitting close next to him.

"What I do every Thursday, went to work, came back here," he harshly answered.

"Okay..."

He was clearly not in the mood to talk. She watched him play his video game and asked a few questions about it to which he only had dry answers.

She caressed his messy black hair, but he pulled away annoyed.

"Who do you need to beat?" she asked again while intently looking at the screen trying to understand.