𝐎𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞

Chapter Forty-Three

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The night Matthew was to come back to the ocean headquarters, Imani opened her diary. It had everything about her and Matthew, the first time they ever met, his first words to her, his scent described in detail, right to the first time he smiled at her.

Imani read through it with tears in her eyes. She felt she had cried more since they broke up than any other time in her life. Every word written was painted in love. She could feel the love in each word; she realized that she had loved him since the moment he'd asked, "who the hell are you?" His hoarse voice and presence in the room had been intimidating, but her heart felt as if it had recognized him—like they were destined to meet, like the universe had set this in motion the day they were born, and her heart had been privy to that knowledge.

It felt surreal that she could meet a man in weeks and fall irrevocably in love with him within a month, but more unreal was that now they didn't speak to each other. They were separated not only by a continent but by anger, bitterness, unforgiving nature, and ironically, love and passion.

She felt like she was reading someone else's life because how had she gone from feeling this loved to how wrecked she felt at that moment?

The first time they made love, written in bold, the argument they had after that, had a feel of a rom-com. She chuckled when she thought of it and sobered up immediately because, unlike the characters in a rom-com, she wasn't getting her happily ever after. Her man was gone, perhaps forever.

Matthew was indeed gone. He had sworn never to go after Imani, not after how much she shattered his heart with rejection.

He understood it was within her right to say no, to choose not to have him in her life permanently, but it was also his choice to cut her off from his life.

He needed to decide on how to move on, and getting out of the country was the best solution at the time.

Away from her presence, her laughter, and the temptation of going after her. Powering up his laptop for his departmental meeting, Matthew leaned back on his seat, waiting for an introduction from Isaac, and he didn't disappoint.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Ocean."

He was in Italy, having stopped by to say hello to father Josè; he had wanted to skip him solely to avoid speaking about Imani, but he figured the old man was more important than his need to not speak of his heartbreak.

"Isaac, shall we begin?"

"Yes, Mr. Ocean. Buscorp marketing team thinks we should change the name," Matthew gave them a lopsided smile, gazing at Christine, the head of the team.

"Miss Davis. Change it to what, exactly?" His voice held no irritation or anger; neither was there any grain of spite for daring to tell in his that a name that he had approved was not good enough, just a spark of curiosity.

Christine cleared her throat, panicking because her team hadn't come up with a better name, so she decided to give the only one they had.

"One of our members came up with Telexon, but we decided it sounded more like a telecommunications company than a social media site."

Matthew nodded, "I hope you know how hard it is to change a name of a newly introduced product into the market."

"We do, sir."

"Joshua, tell me what you've got so far?" Joshua was the current head of the innovation team. He had taken over the position recently due to his contribution to Buscorp; he was also young, bright, and striking. Matthew sometimes looked at him and wondered whether he was the kind Imani would eventually go for.

He was introverted, financially stable, without the baggage of so much money like Matthew–that was what she wanted, she had said so—not in the exact words, but he had understood.

"We have interesting feedback," he started, "yeah," Matthew raised a brow, waiting for him to continue.

"More than a few of our users say they hate the feature where the owner of a story can see and recognize how many times an individual has watched their story."

"Isn't that a safety feature?" Matthew had done intensive research on social media sites to recognize a few footprints left behind were needed to protect users."

Joshua went silent for a second before he began again, "to a certain level, but it's also leaning on privacy."

"You mean some thinks disclosing how many times they've watched someone's post is invading their privacy? That is ridiculously naive."

"That's not it."

"What is it then?"

"They think we'll be disclosing a particular detail to a third party."

Matthew let out an amused laugh. "Okay. We can look into that."

"Any other Feedback."

"They also would prefer real-time videos."

"No, absolutely not! Not now anyway." Matthew decisively said.

While the employees were speculating on why Matthew had been so adamant about live video, Joshua replied, saying one user from a popular social media site had been murdered by an ex-boyfriend while making a live video. It was said he saw her location from some writings in the background, tracked her down, and shot her dead.

Those that didn't know sighed with shock, staring at Joshua suspiciously as if he was lying.

"What happened?"

"He went back to jail."

"Omg, he had been a convict?"

Joshua nodded, "he'd just been released."

"Whay would he kill her?"

"She was the reason he ended up in jail in the first place. He was abusive, and according to the report, he raped her, which is why she reported him."

"Poor girl," the girl next to Imani said.

When his employees were having that conversation, Matthew left his Italy office to say goodbye to father Josè; the priest was right; running away from his problem wasn't his style, nor would it help, so he was returning; perhaps Imani would have changed her mind, but Matthew doubted it. The girl he loved was incredibly stubborn.

He couldn't believe how uncomfortable it was to love someone this much and not have them reciprocate with a quarter of it.

He loved her so much that these past weeks had been tough on him. He couldn't feel the thrill of work anymore it was as if she had taken more than his heart.

He boarded his jet in the evening that day, knowing in nine hours, he would be in Chicago. The same city as her, in the same building. He decided to take this time to determine if he needed to see her in private one more time. He would take Father Josè's advise.

One more time, my darling. Please love me. Matthew felt the humiliation of that thought even though no one heard him.

Xoxo