A Business Love

chapter 22.1

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Jessie parked her car in the underground parking of Julian's building, for which he had given her the magnetic card to access. She knew what spots were reserved for him; he had six slots and four of them were occupied with luxury cars. Bentley, Land Rover, Mercedes and the one car he ended up always driving; his Porsche. Whenever she parked her modest Volvo there, Jessie felt out of place, but tonight that feeling was particularly heightened.

Instead of getting in the elevator that would bring her to the ground floor, she paced around in the parking lot. She knew she had to get in, but she didn't want to. The reason she had been avoiding Julian was because she didn't want to have this confrontational conversation with him and now it was imminently going to happen despite herself.

She breathed deeply and finally clicked on the elevator button. The doors opened, she got in and reached the ground floor. Thomas, the security guard warmly greeted her. "Hi Ms. Provolone," he said with a smile.

"Hi Thomas. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jessie?"

"Sorry Jessie," he said laughing. "I will ring Mr. Moretti right away," he said routinely. She came here so often that Thomas knew her pretty well by now. As per usual, he announced Jessie's arrival to Julian who allowed him to let her up to his suite.

When the elevator's door opened, Julian was waiting for her with his arms crossed. He intently looked at her, trying to figure out her state of mind.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she replied, trying to avoid his insistent look.

She gave him a peck on the lips and passed by him, going straight to the kitchen island. Julian followed her, disenchanted by her dry greetings after not seeing each other for nearly three days. In a whole month of dating, this had been the longest they had been apart from each other.

Jessie immediately opened up her laptop, unable to confront him, while Julian sat in front of her.

"I have so much work to do," she said still avoiding his gaze.

"I think we need to talk first. What's wrong?"

"You know what's wrong, we already talked about it. I don't know what else there is to talk about," she said looking at her screen.

"For the thousandth time, nothing happened with Alexandra."

Jessie was boiling up inside noticing that he still had it all wrong. "It's not Alexandra I'm upset about," she finally said.

Julian confused, frowned. "What are you upset about then?"

She kept typing on her laptop instead of answering, unable to get the words out of her mouth. Meanwhile, Julian was getting impatient. "What is it?" he asked again.

"It's just...I still don't understand why this whole situation even happened in the first place. That Alexandra was at your place, because your sister, Cecilia, had invited her."

"I know, and I'm not happy about it either. It's not the first time that Cecilia interfered in my private life. I made it clear that I don't want her to do that anymore."

She shook her head exasperated. "That's not my point."

"Ok, then talk to me," he said, seeing that she was getting irritated.

She both hated and loved his concern attitude. He always made her feel safe to open up, but she also didn't like being so vulnerable.

"What's truly bothering me is the fact that you refuse to tell your sister about us, Julian. This would have never happened if you did," she said looking at him.