When Love & Hate Collide [Completed]

Chapter 77 - Landing Face Down!

A/N - This is unedited version so pls ignore any errors. I wanted to but couldn't do a quick edit and I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer. So have uploaded as best as possible. I should be back to my regular schedule soon, once I am fully cured.

************************************************

Mr O'Connor had been surprised with my decision to return to work, but he welcomed me gladly. He had been happy for me but personally he had been upset that I would no longer be available to manage his books and things may go back to the way they were before I took over accounts. Still he had not dared asked me to continue, thinking about Norberto being a big shot with enough booty to keep him and his generations cosy and comfortable.

So, when I had showed up at the factory, he had been pleasantly surprised but soon it became an irrelevant question and we all went back to our work. At the end of the week, my colleagues decided to invite me and Norberto to their Sunday brunch. They said it was their regular monthly thing. They never invited me earlier since they weren't sure of me being comfortable among all the couples but now that I was officially a couple myself, I could join the gang.

In fact, when I tried to decline the invite, I was made to feel it was not a choice. More than for me, they were all interested in finding out more about Norberto. I could literally visualize Norberto's cold, rude reactions to their nosy questions. That would not do anyone any good. I had to get out of this tricky situation. I tried to convince them but started hearing them nag that probably I wanted to keep my rich husband away and how this was his way of looking down at them.

Knowing such rumours would not be good for Norberto and my delicate relationship with him, I agreed to trying to make it work. I couldn't let them think negatively about him even before they knew him. Though my trying to make it work was ridiculous cause whey they did know him, they would end up talking negatively, nonetheless.

For that was the impact Norberto had on most people. His charms worked wonderfully well in upsetting people and putting them off. So, in a way it was going to be a futile effort. But I was still hopeful that I may be able to manage an impossible feat by keeping him from biting off people's heads.

That night during dinner, when I had broached the subject of Sunday brunch, Norberto had straight away rejected the invitation, as expected. I should have just ended it there, but I took the rejection a little too personally.

Behaving very much like my nagging colleagues, I complained about him acting snobbish and looking down at my work and my work colleagues. He had looked visibly exasperated and yet he did not make any efforts to accept the invitation. Dejected, I had almost given up when Raul had unknowingly come to my rescue.

"I think it would be a good idea for you to join the brunch," he had said to Norberto.

Both of us were surprised by his suggestion. When Norberto asked him why he thought so, he replied that many of his classmates had parents working at the factory and every time there was this brunch the kids would have stories to share since it was organized at some of the employees' home. They would take turns every month and that ways most kids would get to see the Sunday brunch. Next day they would walk proudly in the class and share the highlights as if it was some important event. Kids would surround the one with information of the month like he was a chief guest and the kid would get to live like a sought-after celebrity for a day or two.

Since I was never invited to these brunches, Raul never got to be that all-important celebrity. He quickly added it never bothered him in the past but now that he had both his parents, he would like us to host a brunch at Gregorian Castle some-day.

I never knew kids in primary section in school would be affected by such inconspicuous things and that Raul felt left out because of my decisions in life. But most so because despite the feeling, he never expressed his dissatisfaction, never letting me even have a whiff of such childish expectations.