Her Secret Affair

Chapter 25

"W-What?"

"You heard me. Living with a man who doesn't love you, that is not a life you want."

"Was she talking about Joseph's father?" she thought. Joseph never spoke about him. He passed away 9 years ago before she and Joseph got back together.

Seeing she was at a loss for words, Mary-Anne stood up and cleared the table. She brought the empty teacup to the kitchen and took out a plate from the cabinet. Opening the bag Frankie had brought with him, she took out the container of food.

"Mmmm, this smells really good. Do you mind if I have some with you?" she said as the smell of the pasta wafted through the room.

"Sure," Brianna answered absent-mindedly, food the last thing on her mind.

Mary-Anne brought two plates of food with her to the living room, placing one in front of Brianna. "Here, you need to eat something."

She took her fork and took a few bites. The pasta was amazing, the flavour of the tomato-rich pasta sauce complimenting the tangy cheese grated on top. She had no idea where Frankie kept finding these restaurants, it's definitely not ones Joseph has taken her to. They ate their food in silence.

"Brianna, I have to go pick up Nicky from school," Mary-Anne said after a while. It was already 2 pm. "But think about what I have said. It doesn't matter that he is my son, but I do not take a man hitting a woman too kindly. I will have a word with him about that."

"Please don't. He will think I ran to you with my problems."

"Fine, but I hope I do not see another mark on you next time I come here."

She put the plates in the sink and ran off to pick up Nicholas. Brianna stayed sitting in the living room, alone again. She picked up her phone, wondering whether to text Frankie. He was angry when he left. She decided to give him some time to cool off and went to bed.

**********

Everyone at the office could see that Frankie was in a foul mood. Adam was the only one who dared approach him in such a state. "Mr. Sims," he said cautiously, "will you need a driver to go to your 3 o'clock or would you prefer to take your car?"

"I'll take my car. I'll be heading home after. Brief me on this meeting."

Without missing a beat, Adam gave Frankie a quick run-down of the purpose of the meeting, even if he knew his boss already knew.

"Sir, GreenHill is in the top 5 accounting firms, currently acquiring one of the top 15. They want to discuss the possibility of outsourcing the IT audit of the other firm's IT infrastructure and assets. It seems the IT systems are more advanced than theirs, and GreenHill wants to ensure smooth integration of their two systems. Possible development of new software to facilitate communications between the two software if integration is not possible, until such time when they update all IT infrastructure across the merged firms."

"Jeffrey was the one working on this. Ask him to accompany me. Organise the car for him. I'll meet him in the lobby of GreenHill." Jeffrey was a new Systems Analyst & Developer, who had been working with Sims Enterprise for the past six months.

At a quarter to 3, Frankie collected his things and left for the meeting. As he waited in the lobby, he took out his phone and sighed.

F: Brie, I'm sorry. I'm heading into a meeting, but can we talk when I'm done?
B: Ok.

As Jeffrey walked in, they were greeted by a young woman with a folder in hand.