“Honestly dude. We thought you weren’t going to show up. Why didn’t you call to tell us you were not coming. You are such a disappointment!” Daniel shouted at him as they entered his office.

“Please, calm down with the noise man, you are giving me a terrible migraine,” Liam pleaded as he sat down, resting his head on the table.

“You got a hangover? What exactly did you do last night?”

Liam sighed. “The funny thing is, I have no clue what it was that happened after Charlotte and I left the club last night.”

Daniel gasped, almost laughing out. “You son of a bitch! You had sex with her!”

This made Liam spring up. “No, I am sure I didn’t do anything as stupid as that.”

“You said you can’t remember. That means you two must have slept together.”

“No, we didn’t.” He snapped back, trying not to shout.

“So, if you are so sure, have you two spoken today?”

Liam gave no reply. The truth was that she hadn’t picked his call up yet and he had called many times. This made him sit back.

“Actually...” he started, picking his words carefully, “not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“Not yet. I have been calling her for a while and she hasn’t picked up yet.”

Daniel gasped and laughed even more.

“Oh my God! She must hate you right now.”

Liam was now beginning to panic. Could Daniel be right? Quickly, he brought out his phone again and began to dial, to his amazement, the line was said to be switched off.

He stared at Daniel.

“Oh my God! What if you’re right?”

“Well, now that you can barely remember how it happened, I was going to ask if you used any protective measure.”

“I don’t know dude!” Liam shouted. His heart kept hammering, coupled with the hangover. He was having such a bad day.

“She is my friend. How could we have had sex?”

“Well, I told you many times that she is into you. You should have believed me.”

Liam rammed his fist into the table. He was really angry with himself.

“But if we had sex, why is she not picking up?”

“The sex must be really rough or perhaps, you forced yourself on her,” Daniel suggested.

“I can’t believe this, not until someone tells me that he or she saw us together entering my house last night after leaving the bar. Or where else would we have had sex?”

Emily was busy scribbling some notes down on her legal pad while Kate, who was sitting in front of her, kept looking at her. She had to stop.

“What?” she demanded.

“Are you okay?” Kate asked.

Emily looked surprised but nodded. “Thanks for your concern, but I’m okay,” she went back to her scribbling.

“Well, if you say so,” Kate replied and Emily stopped again.

“What does that mean?”

The lady shrugged. “Earlier, during the meeting, I am positive that you were not paying any attention to anything that Joe had said and you stared at your boyfriend for almost ten seconds and now you are scribbling as if the poor document has offended you before.”

“I listened to what Joe said.”

“Really, okay remind me what he said.”

Emily frowned. “Well, I, um, he said, um...” she stopped. It made her angry that Kate was right.

“Well, now you know that I am right after all. Thank God you didn’t deny the fact that you were staring at your boyfriend...”

“He is my ex, not my boyfriend.”

Kate looked surprised. “Really? Thought your relationship was on a temporary break.”

“Well, it’s permanent now,” Emily replied, handing her the document.

Kate looked even more surprised. “Wow! What happened?”

She shrugged. “I caught him with some woman last night.”

“Wow! So soon! How did that happen?”

“It’s really a long story Kate.”

“Well, I have all the time, so tell me what happened?”

Emily was surprised that the lady was even a bit interested in her life but, it would be good if she had someone to talk to after all.

“You know Tom?”

“Oh, that idiot that wanted to steal you from your boyfriend?”

Emily almost gasped. “Well, since you put it that way, I am sure you know him.”

“Hold on, before you continue. Could whatever happened between you two be the reason why you didn’t want to meet in Joe’s office?”

Emily nodded.

“Good. Shoot.”

She sighed and continued. “Well, I went with him to a club last night because I thought Liam was moving on.”

“So you also wanted to move on?”

“No, I only wanted to not be alone in the house.”

“Okay, continue.”

“So, I found Liam there with some other lady and the way they were dancing just made me so jealous that I ran out.”

“You ran?”

She nodded.

“What happened to asking him about it?”

“Well, I was with a man as well so I couldn’t.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“Tom was being protective of me or so I thought, before we ended up in a hotel room.” Kate raised a brow but she didn’t interrupt. “What he said was that he didn’t want me to sleep alone in the house and since it wasn’t the first time, the last time, he had gotten two separate rooms for us and I thought he had no agenda.”

“Tommy always has an agenda!” Kate shouted.

“Really?”

“Yes! He almost ruined my relationship last year when I got nominated for my first partnership, but I was wise and I wasn’t even interested in him, to begin with. Stupid conferences, stupid sexy accent, I thought he was a gentleman. So what happened?”

“Well, so he wanted to sleep with me and I had to rush out but not before I slapped him.”

“Good! He deserved that. Men like that are pigs!”

“The exact word I used.”

“So you are angry because Liam was dancing with someone?”

“No, I went back to his house and found a lady in his room. The same lady that I had seen that night.”

Kate smiled. “So you concluded that they were sleeping together.”

“What other reason could it be? I have been so stupid. I still love him but he should have waited at least.”

Kate inhaled slowly and then put both hands on the table.

“You know there is something you should know.”

“What is that?”

“All those conferences that you attended, all those women you see on the front pages of the report every month, do you know that none of them is happily married to their husbands?”

“What?”

“Yea. Eighty percent are divorced because they are so busy trying to climb the ladder for money, fame and success, they abandoned the one thing that should matter most, family.”

Emily gasped. She never knew.

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course, there is no one who would tell you that. Did anyone tell you about their marriage or ask you to meet their husband?”

Emily shook her head.

“Even the CEO and his wife have been divorced eighteen years ago but they still bear each other’s names for the company’s sake. So, you need to ask yourself, what you really want? A new girl in Liam’s life cannot matter to him as much as you do. The only thing that can stand in between the two of you, is your ego but if you can scrap that, believe me, it will be worth it.”

Emily let out a deep sigh.

“I know you see me as an unsuccessful woman who is not grabbing all the chances there are to grab but I love my man so much and, we are getting married next week. I don’t see anything that can come in between us. So everything depends on you. What do you want? Money and fame or a love that will be with you every step of the way?”

The tears were coming, but Kate stood up, picked the documents up and smiled as she walked out of the room.