The Divorce

Chapter 9

"I hope you're taking notes Rodriguez."

I looked up, Gabriel leaning over my shoulder.

"Yes." I whispered back as he sat upright, facing the opposition across from us. Three men, all dressed in pretty much identical black suits, staring at us. Gabriel leaned back in his chair, crossing one long leg over another, and tilted his head to his right side as he looked at the men who were talking.

I knew that tilt, oh dear, that tilt meant he wasn't very happy with what they were saying.

I looked over my notes, generally when I had to take notes, I just blind scribbled or typed what they were saying, and then later when I was doing my summary I would read it to see if it makes sense. If you write without thinking, you could keep up and write everything down.

Gabriel's tilt was most likely because they wanted a 50 - 50 deal with this contract, all profits from this Joint Venture was to be split equally, hence a joint venture. Gabriel never did joint ventures, he only outsourced aspected or had a more significant holding such as a 70 - 30 ownership, it was not 'joint' but a one sided partnership. 

Gabriel had to control everything, a 50 - 50 means equal control and that wasn't going to  happen. Richard sat on the other side of me, nodding his head to everything. He would probably didn't have an opinion until he saw the contract on paper. Richard was a brilliant lawyer, probably why Gabriel paid him much more than the average market rate. 

I went back to taking notes for this long meeting, I really had to start bringing my laptop with me. Writing these notes always made my hands cramp. I stretched my fingers looking up, meeting a pair of brown eyes staring at me. 

He smiled at me, clearly not paying attention to the other person talking. Was I meant to smile back? Should I wave? Wait, why was I this awkward.

Gabriel uncrossed his legs, his motion making me put my head back down and continue taking notes. I don't need my hand chopped off for taking notes.

"We'll email you with your proposal." Gabriel said as he closed his folder. The man carried around that black compendium everywhere, yet I was yet to see him take a single note. I've sat in over three thousand meetings in the last few years and I was yet to see him write anything, even a dot. Nothing.

Gabriel and Richard stood up in sync, and headed out the room, before I could even put away my things in my compendium. Why do they always do this?

I stood up reaching for my bag off the ground when I saw a pair of pants step towards them, and a hand grabbed my bag, handing it over to me. I looked up the black pants to see the same brown eyes again.

"Hi."

"Hello?" I said, it was a bit too late for a Hi, seeing that we had spent the last two hours in the same room.

"You must be new." he said, holding out a hand, "I'm Adonis."

"I'm not new." I shook his hand.

"Interesting name." he said smiling. I pulled my hand out of his grasp.

"Um...no no Rory, Aurora Rodriguez." I clarified as I reached for my phone, placing it in my bag, "I better go. Nice meeting you." I told him, turning to go when he grabbed my arm, halting me.

"I have a proposal for you."

"Sorry?" I asked confused.

He handed me a post it note, on it was a phone number and an email address, "I know why your boss brought you to Greece, get in touch with me if you want to know."

He turned around walking out of the room. I looked at the retreating figure and back at the note, what the hell?

My phone started ringing and I reached for it, "Hello?"

"Where the hell are you Rodriguez!"

"Crap, coming sir." I quickly rushed out, heading down to the foyer where Gabriel was waiting for me, impatiently. 

* * * 

"Are you wearing that to dinner?"

I stopped, midway to closing the door to my room. Richard raised his eyebrow at me.

"Why are you in a suit?" I asked, it was just dinner with Gabriel's grandmother, so why was Richard, who doesn't even wear a suit to work, in a suit now. He even had a tie done up.

"Do you maybe want to not wear jeans?" Richard said running his eyes over my outfit. 

"Why aren't you ready yet?" Gabriel, also dressed in one of his blue form fitting suits, came into view. In fact, every single button on his white shirt was buttoned up, which was off as Gabriel always left the top two buttons undone. 

"I am ready." I said.

Richard and Gabriel exchanged looks, Richard shook his head. 

"Go wear a dress, preferably brown. She hates brown." Richard said turning to face me, "Please change."

"I don't have any brown dresses." I said folding my arms across my chest. What was wrong with jeans?

"This is why I asked you for your dress size,  but your keeping it more secret than Victoria's secret. I'll wait downstairs, Richard, sort her out."

"What's wrong with my outfit?" I frowned as Richard walked into my room. 

Another twenty minutes later, we headed downstairs, the frown evident on my face. Gabriel looked up from the couch and nodded, "We're late. Good, she hates it when people are tardy." Gabriel walked ahead of me.

"Why is a good thing?" I asked, struggling to walk in this tight blue dress. In fact I didn't even realise I packed it, I had just grabbed a bunch of my clothing together and chucked into a suitcase. They were all my work dress, but this blue one was clearly from when I was having a good body day and it fit in the store, and then I decided never to wear it again as it made me feel like a pig. 

Right now my best could barely breathe, as I followed them. I thought we were getting into a car and driving somewhere, no, instead I followed Gabriel and Richard through corridors after corridors, till we reached a side of the estate I didn't even know existed, inside a lavish dining hall. 

There was one big long table, like you would get in a king's palace. It was empty, except for an older looking woman sitting on the other end the table. 

Gabriel slowed down, waiting for me to catch up and I casted him a look, did he need something? If I thought that was shocking, I wasn't sure what to think when he pulled out a chair, nodding me to it.

I looked at Richard, did he mean Richard. 

"Sit." He muttered. 

"Sure. Thanks I guess." I whispered as I rushed over to sit down. He didn't even push it in, not that I expected him to, he just pulled it out and then took the seat next to me, right next to his grandmother, a gorgeous woman who looked like she could be his mother. Well not really she did look old but she aged well.

Her hair was in a tight bun on the top of her head, big diamond earrings hanging off her ears. I was surprised at her age her ears could still handle the heavy hangings. The earrings matched her necklace, I was pretty sure all those stones were real, but maybe they were fake.

"Is this the Skÿla" she muttered leaning towards Gabriel.

"Rory, for Aurora." I corrected her. I wasn't Skyla. She muttered something in another language before sitting back in her chair and I looked at Gabriel for a translation but he said nothing. 

"It means beautiful." Richard said. The old woman scoffed muttering something else.

I shifted in my seat. 

I could tell that this dinner was going to be awkward. 

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