My Bully Mocked Me in Front of the CEO So I Destroyed Her in Seven Languages Chapter 18

My Bully Mocked Me in Front of the CEO So I Destroyed Her in Seven Languages Chapter 18

I got back in late December.

New York was even colder than Berlin, but the air had that familiar home-turf smell.

Chloe was waiting for me at the gate.

She had Mochi in a carrier, and the little guy had packed on at least two pounds.

“Welcome home!!!”

I knelt down and squinted at him through the mesh.

“Is he actually this fat now?”

“He wouldn’t stop eating! I couldn’t cut him off!”

I laughed.

A lot had changed at GTS while I was gone.

Wendy had already bailed.

Word was she couldn’t hack it in Admin, and her thing with Julian blew up after someone leaked those seventeen

resort receipts on the company Slack.

Julian got a formal slap on the wrist from Joseph.

The translation department was a ship without a captain.

My first day back, Joseph called me into his office.

“Hazel, the Director of Translation spot is wide open.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s yours.”

“What’s the salary?”

“Three hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Deal.”

“Yeah.”

“My offer for eight hundred is still on the table.”

“I’m aware.”

“Still not biting?”

“Not right now. But thank you for everything. The card, the Flagship gig, that day in Berlin-”

“Don’t thank me.” He paused. “That wasn’t ‘help’.”

“Then what was it?”

“It was just what I wanted to do.”

I stayed quiet.

“You free this weekend?”

“For what?”

“Dinner. Zero business talk. I promise.”

“…Alright.”

Caleb picked me up on Saturday.

He was driving a generic gray sedan, not the flash I expected.

“The car doesn’t exactly scream ‘CEO’.”

“Cars are for driving, not for showing off.”

He took me to this tiny sushi joint on the West Side with only eight seats.

“Best sashimi in the city. Period.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve hit every sushi spot in town.”

I laughed.

We talked about everything over dinner.

He told me he studied in Japan as a kid. He got his MBA in Germany for the language. Spanish was a given. French, he quit halfway.

“You quit?”

“It’s a nightmare. The grammar is a total labyrinth.”

“Actually, French grammar is the most logical of the bunch.”

“You want to teach me?”

“Mr. Sterling, did you take me out just to score free lessons?”

“No.” He put down his fork. “I took you out because I wanted to see you.”

I looked him in the eye.

“Hazel, I don’t beat around the bush. Since Berlin-or maybe even earlier, since the second you opened your mouth in

German-I’ve…”

“You’ve what?”

“I’ve known you’re someone I can’t afford to lose.”