A Business Love

chapter 35.1

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Natalia was laying in her bed while scrolling on Instagram. As she refreshed her home page, the first story available was Jessie's and Natalia immediately clicked on it. She would never admit it to herself, but she was obsessed with Jessie's life. She regularly stalked her social media, trying to analyze every parcel of her life and wishing she was her.

Natalia had noticed that Jessie posted a lot more outings recently and that she was always at expensive or fancy spots.

Indeed, since Julian and Jessie had gotten back together, they had multiplied the outings, from going to the Canadiens' hockey games in private boxes, to fancy restaurants and ski getaways.

They couldn't get enough of each other and they felt the urge to live it up together, despite still being extremely busy at work. They had agreed to still not disclose their relationship for the time being, and wait until Jessie had accomplished a couple more things before doing so. They knew that constantly going out in the city was risky, but they couldn't care about the risk; they were way too in love to even see it at that point, living in their own little bubble.

Natalia looked at the photo that Jessie had posted; it was a green leaves wall backdrop with a neon sign on top written 'Joie de vivre'.

She went from lying on her bed to sitting within seconds. She recognized that sign; it was the five-star restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

She immediately called her friend Maritza who was a front-desk receptionist at this hotel.

"Hey Natalia!" her friend, Maritza, answered.

"Hola! Are you at work right now?" hastily asked Natalia.

"Yup, why?"

"Ok, remember Jessie? The girl at my work?"

"Oh, the girl you think is sleeping with your boss?"

Natalia had told all of her friends about 'the freak Jessie', inventing things about her that were false and telling them that she was probably sleeping with Massimo to get promoted.

"Yes, her! Guess what? She's at the Ritz right now."

"Oh really? How do you know?"

"She just posted a photo of the 'Joie de vivre' sign!"

"Oh! She's in the private dining room then."

"Precisely! Why the private room? Imagine she's with my boss! Do you think you could check?"

"Hmm...I can't go in there for no reason. I'm at the front desk of the hotel."

"Can't you pretend that you're looking for someone? Come on! This is my only chance to bust her."

In reality, Natalia was well aware that Jessie wasn't sleeping with Massimo. By eavesdropping on some of her conversations with Mariana, she had figured out that Jessie had a boyfriend, but she was very secretive and private about him. Natalia was dying to know what her boyfriend looked like.  

"Ok, fine," said Maritza who was a gossiper as much as her friend. "I'm going now."

Maritza went into the hotel's restaurant. It was Friday night and the place was lively, thus she was able to go incognito. She tip toed away to the back of the restaurant where the private dining room was located.

With a little bit of stress and looking around her, she pushed the tall wooden doors. Thankfully, the staff was too busy running around to notice her presence. Maritza knew exactly where the 'Joie de vivre' sign was located; it was an emblem and the staff all took a picture in front of it at least once to pretend that they were living the life of the rich and beautiful people. Plus, it was the restaurant's best seat.