My Bully Mocked Me in Front of the CEO So I Destroyed Her in Seven Languages Chapter 22

My Bully Mocked Me in Front of the CEO So I Destroyed Her in Seven Languages Chapter 22

The exhibition ran for two months across five cities, pulling in over a hundred and twenty thousand people.

Professor Schmidt made a special trip for the Berlin opening.

He shook my hand and told me, “The seed your father planted has finally bloomed.”

The Dubai stop brought out a lot of Middle Eastern merchants, including a few I’d interviewed for the doc.

The owner of that Persian carpet shop sent me a small rug as a gift.

“For the girl with the Cairo accent.”

In Paris, Mr. Duncan took half a day off from his market stall and showed up in a brand-new suit.

He stood in the gallery for an hour, just looking.

“You’re finishing the journey your parents started.”

I nodded.

He said, “I salute you.”

After the closing ceremony in Istanbul, Caleb found me on the hotel terrace.

“Tired?”

“A little.”

“Five cities, two months. You handled every single language and every single translation yourself.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Don’t get used to doing it alone.”

He pulled a small box from his pocket.

“It’s not a proposal. Don’t panic.”

I stared at it.

He opened it.

Inside was a gold brooch in the shape of a small bridge.

“Custom-made. Because you said your father called you ‘the bridge”.”

I picked it up, the metal cold against my skin.

The design was minimalist, but there was a line of tiny text engraved across the span.

I leaned in closer.

The word “Bridge” in eight different languages.

English, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, and Russian.

“Wait… that’s nine languages.”

“Correct,” he said. “The ninth is Russian. I studied for three months just to learn that one word.”

I looked at him.

The night breeze swept across the terrace, with the lights of the Bosphorus Bridge shimmering in the distance.

A bridge.

“Caleb, you really are…”

“What?”

“Too much.”

“Only for you.”

I pinned the brooch to my coat.

Five years later.

The International Cultural Exchange division at East Ridge has become the industry standard, running over twenty global projects a year with revenue exceeding two hundred million.

I’m no longer the “Eight-Language Girl.” My title is “Global Cultural Liaison”-a bit of a mouthful, if you ask me.

Caleb sat across from me, reviewing a report.

“Revenue is up another thirty percent this year.”

“Yeah.”

“Your salary needs another adjustment.”

“To what?”

“You tell me.”

“One dollar.”

“Are you serious?”

“Take the rest and start a scholarship. For kids studying languages. Name it after my parents.”

He watched me for five seconds.

“Done. The ‘Jacob & Millie Language Scholarship’.”

“How do you know my mother’s name?”

“I’m your husband. You think I don’t know my own mother-in-law’s name?”

I laughed.

Mochi was a very fat old cat now, he hopped off the sofa and sauntered over to my feet.

Outside was the city skyline.

It wasn’t the apartment with the garbage heater anymore.

But sometimes I still think about that window, and the nights I spent crouched there drinking soup.

Back then, I was fluent in eight languages, earning eighty grand, raising a cat, and turning down a ten-million-dollar

inheritance.

I hid myself in the deepest corner, thinking that as long as I stayed silent, it wouldn’t hurt.

My father wrote: “Shine.”

It took me a long time to learn how.

But thankfully-

I did.