A Twisted Tale

Back to Work

Meera's POV

I called Brad as soon as I boarded the jet. Since there was an hour time difference, I made it in time for lunch. Brad arranged for a car and I asked the driver to take me straight to the office. I arrived at the office around an hour and a half later.
I looked at the office building with a smile on my face. I didn't inform Mark that I would be coming back home. To be honest, I didn't even think about getting back until I heard the urgency in his voice. That was the motivation I needed to make the decision. I entered into the building and immediately bumped into Claire. "Oh my God!" She exclaimed as she pulled me in for a bone crushing hug. "You're here! When did you come back? Why didn't you call me up? Mark didn't tell me you were back!" I laughed at her excitement and said "I came back today. I informed Brad to arrange for a car and came directly to the office. I was planning on meeting you tomorrow because I need to catch up with work. Also, Mark sounded worried over the phone. So I didn't want to leave him alone. I wrapped up the meeting yesterday and got everyone on board. I'm glad I ran into you! I missed you very very much!" We hugged some more but Claire remembered that she had to meet a client and hurried out of the office.

I shook my head and smiled as I looked at her running towards her car and proceeded to the elevator. I pressed the button and waited with anticipation. As soon as I got off the elevator, I noticed that someone filled in for Leah.
She looked at me doubtfully and was about to ask something when I sternly said "Save it." I pushed the door open and headed in. Mark had his back to me and was furiously talking to someone. As soon as he disconnected the call, I said "Missed me?"
I've never seen anyone show so many emotions in a split second. His face broke into a huge smile as he engulfed me in a warm hug.

I didn't need him to tell me anything at all. I knew he missed me just by the way he hugged me. And he knew that I missed him too. Neither of us were willing to let go. He was the one to pull back first. He took a good look at me and kissed me on my forehead. "Bloody hell. You have no idea how happy I am to see you here." He said smiling down at me. My stomach growled loudly at that moment and he frowned. "You didn't have your lunch?" He asked. I shook my head at him, still beaming from our little reunion.
He called up Sarah, his temporary P.A. and told her that he would be heading out for lunch. There was this cozy restaurant around Trafalgar square called Terroirs. It was known for it's amazing collection of wine. And I desperately needed a glass of that for I was to get back into professional mode. I saw that the time was already four in the evening so I didn't feel like having anything heavy on the stomach. So I preferred a goat's curd, beetroots and gremolata while Mark chose to have a steak tartare. I chose to have a glass of red wine while he stuck to beer.

"So, how did it go in Milan? And I'm not asking about work here." He said. I contemplated my answer while I kept twirling my glass. "I'll be honest with you. I had a good time. After I called you up asking for a background check, I confronted him about the same. He agreed to all of it and came out clean. I decided to give him a chance after all. We've celebrated the success of the meeting and I spent the night at his place. You know how I am when high. He was suggesting that we go sightseeing today but I knew I had to get back here after our little talk."

Mark seemed to reel from the whole 'spent the night at his place' because I could see him clutching his glass really tightly. I pried his fingers off the glass gently and held them in my hand. "Mark, do you trust me?" I asked softly. He replied back with a yes immediately. "Then trust me to make the right decision. I know you have your inhibitions about Valerio. I do too. But I've decided to give the man a chance to prove himself to be trustworthy. So stop worrying so much and tell me all about the accident." I said.

Mark rubbed his hand across his face and said "Derek and I are trying to figure out who the mole is. We tried looking into the people who have access to the codes but it's useless. There are a whole lot of people who keep moving in and out of the facility so investigation on that direction is futile. The person knew where the cameras were placed which means he took his time planning the attack."
'What about storing the information on the cloud? I mean, our cameras upload the video feed into the cloud every two hours. Can't we access that footage and look for any clues?" I asked.
He sighed deeply in response and said "The feed is refreshed every two hours. But for the information to upload it takes around three minutes. He made excellent use of this time to disable the cameras. On the whole, we have reached a dead end. That frustrates me because I feel like there is someone out there wanting to hurt our family. I can't sleep peacefully knowing that the person is roaming free."

"Why are you under the impression that they're targeting the family? Think about it. We have a long list of competitors who are more or less our enemies in the business sense. Maybe someone took their time planning so that they could financially hurt us and hurt our market value. I mean, we definitely don't know anyone who would want to harm us on a personal level. Charlie hasn't done wrong by anyone as far as I know him." I said.
Before when could respond, my phone rang. I checked the caller ID and saw that it was Leah calling me. "Hey Leah. How are you doing? How is the baby doing?" I asked.
"Hey Meera! I am good and so is the baby. Thankfully she isn't causing much of a trouble. How are you and how is Mr. Webb doing? I heard all about the accident from Brad. Did they find out who did it?" She asked.
I explained the whole situation to her and she sighed loudly. "Well, I hope everything resolves quickly. I actually called you up because I wanted to let you know that the wedding date has been preponed to next week! John and I couldn't take everyone's involvement in the wedding because they were making things too complicated. Everything about the wedding wasn't to our liking. So we preponed it and informed only a handful of people. We'll let our parents know three days ahead. That way they will not do anymore damage than what's already been done. I know I must be sounding like an ungrateful daughter but I'm just upset and they won't listen to me! Anyhow, I gotta go and get things sorted for the wedding. Please tell Mr. Webb to not get too accustomed to Sarah. I'll be back ASAP. Bye! Take care."
I just shook my head as Mark cleared the bill. I told him about Leah's preponed wedding and asked him if he would accompany me for shopping. He agreed almost immediately saying that he too needed to buy a suit for the wedding. We agreed to go shopping tomorrow and headed back to the office to catch up with work.