João Felipe
These words kept hammering in my head until long after I had already ended the conversation with Luana after I offered her a job opening because even if her education was not the same as mine since we studied together at New York University, I would still have gotten somewhere for her with us.
I let her decide if she wanted to continue in Brazil because she would stay at our headquarters here in São Paulo, or if she preferred to return to NY and work in our American branch, and she was left to give me an answer to this question as soon as possible. But from what I could understand of the whole situation, she wants to stay as far away from Octavius as possible.
We parted ways with a formal handshake at the entrance of the restaurant and each headed towards his own car. Viviane and my brother remained at their desk, apparently, they had a lot to talk about, I thought, feeling jealousy invade me.
I went straight to the company as I had some outstanding things to sort out and came home later that day, not being able to have my time with Sarah, which made me a little upset. I was very fond of that little girl and already missed her as I hadn't seen her all day either.
I was in my room, the TV on, but unable to pay attention to what was actually going on the screen, when I saw Isabela approaching.
"You can come in, Isabela. Need something? " I questioned.
She then opened the door fully and I noticed that she was coming with Sarah in her arms, which made me crack a big smile.
"Someone wouldn't stop talking about her uncle."
I reached over and took the little one in my arms, which was already practically throwing itself at me, while incessantly repeating "un-cle". That little girl was very smart.
"Did you miss me too, little one? I missed you!"
I was playing with her for a few minutes when Isabela asked to take her as it was already past the time she used to sleep. Despite the little time I spent with Sarah today, it was enough to make me happy.
Viviane
João Pedro had decided to travel to New York to talk to Jack in person about them. I had fully supported him as we all deserved to be with the one we truly loved and I couldn't stop my best friend from being happy.
If they decided to stay really together, we would solve everything as best we could, because there was only one person who worried me, and that was my daughter. What others would think, I didn't really care. We couldn't hold on to each other for the sake of appearances. That was our agreement when we decided to stay together.
After the first day that João Felipe arrived and on which I refused to join the rest of the family for dinner, I decided that I could not continue to run away from meals with the family while Felipe was here. I didn't want family problems and while he monopolized the conversations at the table, I kept silent
And understood each other and he always managed to relax in the weather, but today he was not and Felipe was taking advantage of the fact, trying to start a conversation with me. However, I didn't cooperate and when dinner was over, I felt extremely tired, psychologically speaking.
One of the things that JP and I had already agreed would be the best thing to do, whatever the outcome of the conversation between him and Jack, was that we should move, and buy a house for ourselves since I was no longer enduring the forced coexistence with his brother and João Pedro said it would be better, even so, that we could have more privacy to live our lives since we were not a couple in the true sense of the word.
Although we did not maintain a couple of relationships, we were very good friends and I was already used to sleeping with him every night, it seemed, I was feeling his absence, mainly because we always talked about everything before bed and had not yet been able to reconcile sleep that night.
The night was a little hot and as I preferred not to turn on the air conditioning, I was hot and thirsty. I looked for my bottle of water and it wasn't on my bedside table, so I went down for water in the kitchen.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a piece of the pudding I refused during dinner when I noticed someone else came into the kitchen. I feared raising my head and running into the last person I would want to meet in a situation like that.
" Pretending I'm not here won't change the fact that I am" João Felipe spoke, but his tone was mild, devoid of his natural arrogance.
I kept eating and kept my eyes on what I was doing. I didn't intend to chat with him at that time of night, especially when we were both alone.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he opened the fridge and pulled something out of there. He put it on the table and after picking up something from inside one of the cupboards, he sat down at the table and started eating.
I felt his gaze on me and it made me feel uncomfortable in such a way that I ended up raising my eyes toward him.
"I'm sorry for everything I've done to you, Vivi."
My whole body was chilled by that unexpected statement.
" Really " He seemed sincere in saying that. " I was very immature in engaging with you when I was still unwilling to take on my feelings."
I really wasn't prepared to hear it, when my heart was full of resentment and just those words, as important as it was that he acknowledged the mistake he made, weren't enough to heal the wound still open. There was a lot more at stake than he knew.
"I get it."
I spoke and quickly got up from my chair as my brain screamed at me to get away from it. I put the dishes in the sink, I didn't even wash it, in a hurry to get out of that situation. I realized at that moment, when I was alone with Felipe, that he still shook me a lot, because my body was on fire, even more so after what he said.
" Do you just have that to say? "
He also got up and practically cornered me, because to get out of the kitchen, I would have to pass right next to him, something I didn't trust myself to do.
"What did you expect me to say? Do you want me to kneel at your feet and give thanks? " I spoke wryly. " Will wait sitting down."
"What I expect from you and what I want from you are completely different things."
I did not stop to analyze his words and faced my fear, passing him as if he had not heard what he said. I wouldn't go that way.
"I know you're married to my brother, and although I can't swallow this story to this day, I'm going to respect your union," he spoke gently holding my arm.
"And you just waited for your brother to be a way to come with everything up, didn't you?" I shook my arm to get rid of his touch and continued. "I don't like you and I'm not interested in knowing what your feelings are, any more than you cared about mine."
I left the kitchen and practically ran toward my room.