"So, why the sudden surprise Mr. Wyatt?" Olivia queried.
"You call this a surprise?" He asked.
"What should I call it then?
"Well, this is more of my gratitude for helping me out yesterday."
"That was nothing." Olivia chuckled.
"I know this is your favorite place; so... I'm giving you a surp... I mean a treat here."
"Okay, But I thought you called me over to discuss something important." Olivia stared at him suspiciously. They were at Giovanni's Food Place in town.
"No. I'm serious. I'm only being grateful. You helped me a great deal yesterday." He insisted. "As a matter of fact, feel free to order anything you want. It's all on me."
"So the discussion...it was all an excuse?"
"I do have something I wanna tell you but..." Olivia's ears were on the ground. "Let's have something to eat first. Waiter," He signaled to a standby waiter who walked in big uneven steps towards them.
"Go first Olivia." He gestured to the waiter to take her order first.
"Thank you. I would like some lasagna and Italian red wine. Thank you."
"I'll have Manchego cheese and the same Italian red wine, please."
"Awesome." The waiter remarked and sprinted off.
"I'm curious. How did you know this is my favorite place? Mr. Wyatt?"
"Please don't call me Mr. Wyatt. Just call me Oliver, or Oly for that matter. That's better."
"Okay, Oliver. How did you know this is my favorite dining place?"
"Um... Cindy told me."
"You mean Cindy your secretary?" Olivia was now confused. "How would Cindy even know that?"
"She has a part-time job here on the weekends... and when we're on holidays," Oliver informed her.
"That is... Were you discussing me with Cindy?" She looked crossly at him.
Their meals had been served.
"No! no, no, no. You got it all wrong." He stretched out his right hand to place his palm on top of Olivia's hand on the table. Nonetheless, She instinctively removed her hand from the table. Oliver removed his hand and held his fork instead. He paused for a while before he spoke up, "I just asked her if she happened to know where you dine during lunch. But she informed me that she often sees you here. So, yeah. I thought this was your favorite dining place."
She laughed. "This is my second favorite place. Only one person knows my favorite dining place."
"And who could this one person be?"
"You." Her expression was eerily serious.
"Me?" Oliver asked, bewildered.
"Nah! Just kidding."
"Um... Could you tell me a little bit more about yourself Olivia? You know apart from you being an employee at..."
Her phone -on the table- rang and its screen lit up flaring a dark light that went on and off until she received the call.
"Was that Mr.Parker?" Oliver inquired of her immediately after she had ended the call.
"Yes, it was." She responded as she gave the waiter, who'd served them, a cue to go over to where she was seated.
"Is it business related?" He inquired further.
"No, it's just something...personal... "
"Personal?" He became as dull as dishwater all of a sudden.
"I'm afraid I have to go now." She tipped the waiter and thanked Oliver for his thoughtful treat as a way of showing his gratitude.
"Do you think we should hang out sometime?" He asked Olivia who was deeply engrossed in her phone as she walked away.
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Olivia unlocked the door to her house and locked it once she was inside. She leaned against the door as she breathed heavily. She sat on the cold tiled floor. Her phone rang -breaking the silence thus startling her.
She picked it up and, "Have you banked the cheques?" A male voice asked.
"I'm on my way to the bank Arnold." She said fearfully.
After the call had ended, she peeked at the wall clock. It was 4:36 pm.
"I still have some time." The bank's official working hours were ending at 5:00 pm. She scuttled up the stairs and into her bedroom. She locked the door and opened her closet, revealing a secret passageway to an inner well-furnished room. It looked more or less like an office on the right side, with a parlor on the left side. She removed a portrait from the wall and entered a combination of numbers on what appeared like a safe. '07' the first code partially opened the safe. '07' she entered it again. "2017" She keyed in the last four digits and the safe fully opened. She pulled out three cheques and put them in her handbag.
She walked over to the window and thought deeply to herself. The cash she was going to deposit in the bank wasn't adding up as per her calculations. It was her luck that she was pulling down $400,000 after she was promoted to CFO. She never deposited all the money in her bank account at once to avoid confrontation with the bankers due to their terms and conditions. However, there was an additional $500,000 to it and she was unable to account for it. She took the six cheques from her handbag and laid them on the parlor table. She analyzed the date on each cheque; they were correct.
"Mandy, send me the finance statistics for this year and last year too." She called the company's accountant. (Mandy took up the role of an accountant in the company after Olivia had been promoted.)
Olivia turned on her rose gold laptop. She opened her email and clicked on the file Mandy had sent her. She scanned her eyes through the previous year's financial statistics and, "Perfect." She mumbled.
Then came the present year's statistics. She was able to instantly spot what was blameworthy about it.
There was a minor flow that only she could spot. It is not that she paid keen attention to every detail. Funny enough, she never paid any attention to detail; only her great, unmatched prowess paid off.
"Mmh," She sneered.
"Here's my chance. I'm going to redefine someone's 'destiny'." She voiced as she laughed to herself. She decided not to go to the bank anymore.
She whistled and twirled across the room. She looked outside the large arched window admiring the beautiful sunset over the distant hills. She sniffed the air gracefully without favor. A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. Not to mention she could view the city from her bedroom.
Her mansion stood there as if the surrounding nature had embraced it, that the flora flowed within it as much as around it. For the architect had loved the trees so much that there was a mighty oak in the center, and the great house had been built around it. The gorgeous abode was welcoming from the open and gleaming door, poised to impress, to the wide hallway. Upon the walls were the photographs of an elderly woman, so obviously so loved. The floor was an old-fashioned parquet with a blend of deep homely browns and the walls were the greens of summer gardens meeting a bold white baseboard with a grand. Within, a spacious living room bathes in natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen gleams with polished counters, stainless steel appliances, and a meal-prep island. Upstairs, bedrooms boast plush bedding and ample storage. That was the life she had always yearned for.
She twirled across the room again until she was at the parlor, she twirled to the right and unlocked the safe. She stashed all the cheques in it and chuckled. "Perfect!" She slipped and hurt her ankle as she took a step backward. "This pain is nothing compared to that which I bear within me." She said to herself. She shut her eyes and lay on the wintry flooring.