21st Century Knight

Chapter 2 A Millionaire's Debt

Gabriella was still musing about her annoyance from lunchtime. Certainly that guy had left a sour memory behind. She went about her cooking that evening making her favorite recipe for risotto. She always threw herself into some kind of distracting work when she was upset or couldn't stop thinking about something -- and her little encounter was not easy to forget. Every humiliation she went through was not easy to forget. There was that time in high school when she tripped and fell flat on her face, that time she fell asleep in a lecture hall in college, her accidently submitting the wrong resume for a job... she shivered at all the haunting memories. But she always had a no dating rule and so considered herself lucky she never had to undergo relationship humiliations. She didn't have an interest in dating and believed it was just a waste of time and energy trying to balance work and a love life. So she had a few close friends, a dozen distant relatives and no special person in her life.

Her thoughts wandered away as she relived the episode that happened that morning and that's when she smelled something sugary – the onions had gotten caramelized instead of sautéed. She quickly whipped it off the stove and turned off the flame, letting out a moan over her precious onions. Drat that jerk, even when he's not around, he causes trouble!

She left out the onions and had an unsatisfactory meal, declaring to herself to never let her thoughts wander while cooking again. She watched TV for a bit after dinner, then decided to go to bed.

She felt restless that night. She tossed and turned thinking all over again about being splattered with fast food. No, she wasn't going to let another embarrassment haunt her memories! She forced the incident out of her mind and then finally dozed off.

She woke up early despite her restless night. She spoke to herself sternly. No more wearing white! She hastily rephrased that. No white to work, only on casual days out. If it happened once, it might happen again. Better take precautions. She opened her wardrobe, selecting a dark navy blouse and black slacks. A little too dark for July but until she could reinforce her confidence in bright colors, (a situation she would not be in if it weren't for that-that ill-mannered jerk) she'd wear all her winter colors.

She made her way down to the parking lot and got in her car. She let out her sigh... she was still tired. She drove to a café for a strong black coffee with three sugars then headed for work.

"Are you mourning or something, Gabriella?" Marci asked patronizingly.

"No, I like dark colors right now that's all." She replied coolly. The only reason Marci was spiteful was because her work was never appreciated but when she made a mistake, the boss would bear down on her like a hawk. So she would take out her frustration by being petty to Gabriella who rarely got told off for mistakes.

Wanda winked at Marci and the two decided to discuss Gabriella's unusual fashion choice over a glazed breakfast donut.

The morning passed in a regular routine, answering calls all day, being polite and helpful, making sure sales' lists got updated as necessary. Gabriella began to feel like everything was back to normal. That is, until lunch... again.

Not wanting to be the object of whispers over her outfit, (not that she cared much) she took her sandwiches to the rooftop and armed herself with a book she had started reading. She ate peacefully for a while until Jones from the finance department came up to find her.

"Gabriella! There's a guy in the cafeteria looking for you. Says you know him." Gabriella looked surprised and wondered who it could be.

"Must be a mistake, no one I know would come here."

"Well, you could at least come down and see."

"What does he want?"

"Don't know. Anyway, I just came up to tell you. If I were you, I'd go down soon, there's a riot starting around this guy." He turned and left, disinterested now that he delivered the message.