A Love Like Ours

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Five years after.

"Oh my God, Aria! I can't believe you just did that!" exclaimed Cynthia as she hurried along, tittering on the edge of her high heels, after me.

I couldn't believe it either. It wasn't every day I told off my pompous bosses and got away with it. I must have caught them on a good day. The pedantic idiots actually listened to what I had to say. Unfortunately, the meeting hadn't all been a win for me. When I proposed that we lease out our excess land banks to commercial farmers rather than opt for development, I should have known the forerunner to this option was none other than Justin Kay.

Gorgeous, incorrigible, and unforgivably rich Justin Kay.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I hated even thinking of him. He was a blonde Greek god that belonged in ancient times. Not because of his attitude to life, but because of his aristocratic good looks. I mean, who even sported a David-like profile anymore. They just didn't make them in that mould any more. And with reason! There was only so much palpitations a female's heart could take. Any more, and it's a straight off cardiac arrest and off to meet your maker. Not that I had no haste in wanting to meet mine. There were a number of things I wanted to talk to him about. Not the least of it was one Justin Kay.

But that was not why I hated his guts. He had the temerity to be best buds with Dale Carmichael. The very same Dale Carmichael who dumped me five years ago for my dear cousin, Linda Shubeck. Now, his wife—Linda Shubeck Carmichael.

I guess it wasn't really Justin whom I hated at all. It was the Carmichaels. Them, I hated with a vengeance. And it was them that I had to see year in, year out at the various family get-together. And in a close-knit family, there were plenty of such events to attend. It took all I had to face them with a grimace that could barely pass muster as a smile, as was still the case the last time we had bumped into each other.

After five years, you'd think I would have gotten over Dale throwing me over for Linda, but as fate would have it, glorious Linda blossomed with each passing year, and dickhead Dale only got hotter. It didn't make sense that evil should be so blessed. What was wrong with the universe?

Let's face it. It all came down to the luck of the draw, and I really had drawn the short stick. Figuratively speaking, I did not purport any great height to boast off. But at five feet four, I was no shorty either. My growing pudginess did not help either. It was hard to grin and bear it, or more progressively, grin and mean it when I had a shape like mine to compare Linda with.

She was all slim, gorgeous silhouettes. And I was a pear-shaped, melon-assed all woman. In short, I was my mother-in-the-making.

But we can't all be blonde stunners. I believed Justin Kay had already cornered the rights on that market. Anything else would simply pale in comparison.

My own dark-brown hair and eyes to match didn't do much in casting me out of the ordinary either. But on good days, my thick, wavy hair stepped up in the face of dignity and did me proud. That, coupled with an astounding skill in makeup application, and hey presto, I had some convincing if self-delusional hope of not ending up looking like my mother in the coming years. Not that my mother was not amazing to look at. I was sure in her hay days, she'd been a stunner. Now, though, she stretched the limits of pudginess.

I shifted a hesitant hand down my own length, feeling my curves and bumps contorting the expensive line of my business suit to extremes, effectually redesigning the otherwise straight cut of my two-piece jacket and skirt suit. I narrowed my eye on Cyn, who invariably followed the drift of my hand with unseemly interest in her hazel gaze. Cynthia Waters, my assistant, while efficient in her work, was a scrawny fribble of a person and a humongous gossip to boot. I stopped my self-conscious appraisal of my person. There was no way I would allow her disparaging glance at my figure affect me or to let her make mountains of it on the grapevines. Not when I had actually taken measures to rectify the matter. This year would see a new me. No longer would I tumble down the spiral of despair, just thinking about my figure. Thinking of the clothes I could and couldn't fit into. Thinking of where to shop and where not to. Instead, I would do something about it. I had signed up with a fitness club. It would be the start of a new me. A great start to the New Year!