Chapter Two: The Woman Who Challenged Me
928 Words
CHAPTER TWO
"The Woman Who Challenged Me"
(Alexander POV)
I don't usually think about individuals twice.
Operating a billion-dollar enterprise, faces become interchangeable assistants, waiters, investors, part of the buzz of your own triumph.
But that morning, the waitress at the diner wouldn't leave my mind.
Her voice. Her eyes. The way she looked at me as if I were the villain in her story and maybe I was.
I'd stopped there because my car had broken down two blocks from the site, and I needed coffee before my meeting. It wasn't the kind of place I'd ever go under other circumstances, cheap tile floors, curling menus, char of burned oil. But I didn't care. I just needed caffeine, so I had to go for a cup of coffee.
And then she poured it all over me.
Scalding, bitter coffee down my shirt, just before a board presentation that would seal the fate of my business.
I'd lost it. I knew I had. The words that tumbled out of my lips were biting, more than scathing had to be. But I couldn't get the lid on. Decades of stress, fatigue, and perfectionism boiled up in one brutal flash.
But what I hadn't expected was that nobody had ever done anything like this to her before, and that she would speak back.
"You can just keep your nice shirt and your attitude," she'd said. Her voice trembled, but her eyes blazed.
"Some of us actually do work for a living."
I'd felt the air catch in the room around us, and for a moment, I'd not known whether I should laugh or be astonished.
And when she told me, "Maybe if you were kind instead of cruel, your coffee wouldn't be bitter," it hurt more than I would ever let on.
No one ever talks to me like that. Not funders. Not board members. Not even my fiancée, Vanessa, who usually agrees with me on everything, especially when it has to do with money.
But she did.
That waitress Ariana, whose name I'd later hear yelled at by the manager. She had fire in her voice and tears in her eyes.
And I tore her apart.
I humiliated her in front of everyone, tossed money on the counter, and walked out like it was no big deal.
It was easier to lie that I didn't care.
But the thing? I haven't been able to stop thinking about her since.
My aide, Ethan, was already sitting there waiting for me when I arrived at the office. "Morning, boss. You alright? You look like someone just burned your empire."
"Something like that," I growled, unwinding my tie. The coffee stain was removed now, but the memory wasn't.
He scowled. "Bad meeting?"
"Bad morning."
He handed me a folder. "Vanessa called three times. She said you're not responding to her texts about the wedding planner."
I sighed. “Not now, Ethan.”
“Just saying, she’s… persistent.”
Persistent was one word for it. Controlling was another. But Vanessa was the daughter of one of our major shareholders, and our engagement had been a convenient business decision not that anyone needed to know that.
Marriage of convenience. I’d agreed to it to keep my company stable after a messy merger. But lately, even that deal felt suffocating.
I rubbed my temples. "Cancel my afternoon meetings."
"You never cancel meetings."
"I am doing that now."
He blinked. "You're not seriously heading back to that diner, are you?"
I glared up at him, taken aback. "What's it, does it have anything to do with you?"
"Because you've been sitting there staring at that coffee stain for the past five minutes."
I said nothing.
Because perhaps I was.
The diner was smaller when I came back that night. Perhaps because I wasn't angry anymore just… unsettled.
But Ariana wasn't around.
The second waitress, a redhead who had waited there in the morning, looked up suspiciously when she saw me. "Uh. Can I help you?"
"I'm looking for Ariana."
She blinked. "She doesn't work here anymore."
Something twisted up inside me. "Did she quit?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line. "She was fired. After you left. All thanks to you."
The words stung like a slap.
I took a deep breath. "That wasn't what I was thinking."
"Yeah, well, tell that to Dale," she said, crossing her arms. "Ariana's the best employee we had. But I guess a billionaire's ego is more valuable than paying her rent, huh?"
I didn't know what to do.
Because she was right.
I'd embarrassed her, she got fired because of me, probably even given her terms at night. And for what? A shirt and my ego?
For the first time in a really long time, I felt as though I was the villain of my own story.
Back in my car once more, I stared out into the window as city lights blurred by.
Ethan caught sight of me in the rearview. "Find whoever you were looking for?"
"No," I replied quietly.
But I wasn't done looking.
There was something about her, the backbone in her rebellion, the pain behind it that had shaken me to a level I couldn't place.
She'd rebelled against me when no one else had. She'd glimpsed something in me, maybe the things I'd buried behind all the wealth and achievement.
And now, I couldn't prevent myself from needing to see her again.
"Snap out of this, Alex."
I turned to Ethan, I need every information about her, where she stays, I mean everything.
- Writer
