Jansu ran into her office, covered her face with her hands, and began to cry. How unbearable, unbearable, unbearably painful! She didn't listen to Niko four years ago, she didn't listen yesterday on the island, and now it's late. With her pride, her donkey stubbornness, she destroyed all the most important, the best in her life. And now ... it's over.
Niko returned home and locked himself in his study. The desire to get drunk was intolerable, but he did not follow it. Alcohol has not brought anyone to any good yet. And the point is alcohol anesthesia. It passes, and the pain returns with a vengeance. He is to blame for his troubles. First, he hid his problems from Jansu. Acted cowardly. Then he believed the lie and did not insist on talking. How so! Proud Niko Bianco does not humiliate himself in front of anyone and does not ask anyone for anything. Then he nurtured hatred and a thirst for revenge. He dragged into his bed everyone who, even remotely, resembled Jansu in appearance. Got engaged to Ornella. Knew it was a mistake, but stubbornly committed it. He wanted to prove to Jansu that he could live without her. But he only proved that he was a scoundrel. She is right! A thousand times right that she does not want to know him.
He couldn't stay at home. The walls pressed on him and it was difficult to breathe. He wanted to get out into the air. After dinner, the sisters and Ornella went to the cinema for an evening screening of the new film, and he sat in the Maserati and drove to the promenade near Ortakoy. Leaving the car in the parking lot near the shopping center, he walked to the very edge of the water. Putting his hands in his pockets and exposing his face to the wind, he stood motionless for several minutes - and then sat down on one of the benches. The coolness of the sea slightly eased the burning sensation inside.
"Niko!" A ringing voice sounded very close.
Niko looked around. Emine Diana was rushing towards him, beaming with a joyful smile, at full steam. He picked her up in his arms and, sitting her down on his lap, greeted her.
"Hi, Princess! I'm glad to see you."
"I'm very glad too," she replied. "My mom and dad and I went out for a walk. It is good for mom to breathe the sea air."
The girl spoke so authoritatively, and at the same time was so similar to her father that Niko involuntarily smiled. Lucky Iplikci. They have such an inexhaustible source of joy and happiness.
The lucky Iplikci also came to the bench and sat down next to him.
"The weather is fine today," Defne said. "It's a crime to sit within four walls on such an evening."
"You're right," Niko agreed with her.
"Emine," Omer turned to his daughter, pointing to a bird at the water's edge. "Look what a big seagull. Come on, let's get a closer look at it."
"Let's!" She agreed enthusiastically.
Father and daughter went to look at the seagull, leaving Niko and Defne alone.
"I told Jansu," the woman's voice sounded soft and sad.
"But she stayed with her opinion," said Niko, not hiding the bitterness in his voice.
"This is an involuntary, momentary protest," Defne tried to cheer him up. "Jansu will calm down, start thinking sensibly and leave her stubbornness. You are dear to her, Niko. Very much. For four years she rejected everyone, without exception, men who tried to court her. And among them were very worthy people. But Jansu hadn't seen them as men - they were empty places for her. Because you lived in her heart, Niko. She loves you ... even if she doesn't show it."
Her words warmed his heart and the pain became less acute. Defne Iplikci is truly a merciful angel ... although she has a sharp tongue and a heavy hand.
"I love her too," Niko said, looking at the blue waters of the Bosphorus. "Loved all these years. That's why I made so many mistakes - because my feelings and emotions overwhelmed my mind."
Emine Diana ran up to them and happily mumbled,
"We fed all my cookies to the seagull!"
"Maybe you shouldn't?" Straightening her daughter's dress, Defne asked her doubtfully. "At this rate, it will get fat and will not be able to fly."
"From a couple of cookies?" Emine said skeptically. "Unlikely. But I was left hungry."
"Emine, we just had dinner," Mom said indignantly.
"When was that," said the little girl and slyly added, "I have a growing body and good metabolism."
Defne and Omer, who the bench, laughed.
"Okay," said Dad, "let's go buy ice cream. What do you want?"
"Strawberry!" Emine exclaimed happily and immediately grimaced, "Only I won't go with you. My legs hurt."
Dad raised an eyebrow, but the little girl didn't even blink.
"Let mom go with you," she said. "It is very useful for her to walk by the sea. This is what grandmother Turkan used to say."
"Ah, Emine," Defne shook her head and turned to the Italian, "Niko, will you look after her for ten minutes?"
"With pleasure." He answered and smiled at the sly, red-haired foxy.
And Emine, waiting for mom to get up, immediately flopped down in her place.
Omer and Defne leisurely walked to the ice cream stand. Emine looked after them, then looked sideways at Niko and asked a question, "Did you find Jansu on the island?"
"Yes. Thank you," he thanked. "I owe you."
"I'll remember that," she said in such a tone that Niko had no doubts that the favor would have to be paid. Emine, intently scanning his face, asked, "Did you ask her for forgiveness?"
Niko shook his head and honestly admitted, "No."
"Why?" she asked sternly.
"It didn't work," he answered sadly. "You see, sometimes it's too difficult."
'What are you saying - difficult! Hard! What is so difficult here?"
She jumped to her feet and stood in front of Niko. Giving her face an authoritative expression, she began to teach him the basics of human communication.
"You go to Jansu, you look at her like this," Emine exactly repeated the guilty look of the cat from the cartoon about Shrek. "And you say – 'Forgive me. It's my fault' - Jansu hesitates. Then you hold out your little finger and say, 'Peace?'"
"Do you think it will work?" Niko said doubtfully.
"I swear to God, it'll work!" Emine Diana assured him. "Tested a hundred times! And on Jansu too," she added innocently looking up at the sky.
Niko smiled. The red-haired foxy with olive eyes, the wisdom of the Pope, and the character of a tomboy - was the best antidepressant in the world. How he wanted such a daughter. He would be proud of her pranks and love even when she, with her antics, would bring him to a nervous tic. Like her mommy. Niko shuddered. Even now, when there was not the slightest, illusory chance to return Jansu, he saw only her as the mother of his children.
Niko sighed heavily and gave himself a verdict - he is hopeless.
Exactly such thoughts were wandering in Jansu's head. With her legs tucked under her and wrapped in a shawl, she sat on the swing under an old oak tree and thought. She was thinking about what she heard today, analyzing it, and concluded that she would not forget Niko. The love for him was stronger than all other feelings and desires.
Jansu took a deep breath and admitted to herself that she was hopeless.
Both thought that reconciliation was impossible - but both wanted it eagerly. They wanted to be together. They wanted to love openly and freely. They wanted to be happy.
***
The next morning, a guest came to the house rented by the Bianco family. Lucia opened the door to him. The man who crossed the threshold was quite handsome and expensively dressed, but the girl did not like him at first sight. He had shifty, oily eyes and thin lips.
"My name is Tony Remarco," he introduced himself, rather unceremoniously examining the girl from head to toe. "I would like to meet with Signor Bianco."
"Niko is in his office," Lucia replied with restraint. "Wait in the hall, I'll tell him about your visit."
And so the gloomy Niko, hearing the name of the visitor, became darker than the cloud. But he addressed his sister affectionately, "Please, honey, go up to your room."
They went out into the hall together. Lucia headed up the stairs, and Niko approached the intruder. But, before speaking to him, he followed his sister with a glance and made sure that she was gone.
"You have a beautiful housekeeper," Remarco said cheekily. "But warn her that to call the owner by name in front of others is bad manners."
"This is my sister," Nico enlightened him in an icy tone and looked with such a look that Tony involuntarily took a step back and muttered, "Sorry. I did not know."
Niko winced and, ignoring the rules of good manners, asked unkindly, "What do you want, Tony?"
"Don't you guess?" he asked in response. A malevolent smile stretched his thin lips. "I was brought here by the shares."
Ornella opened the e-mail on her laptop. She rarely received messages and her inbox was empty for months. But now there was an unread letter in it. Ornella pressed it. Her hands were shaking and her head was spinning. The message was from the same research organization where she submitted her resume. After reading the text of the letter, Ornella stared dumbfounded at the screen for a couple of seconds, and then stood up and jumped around the room. She got it! She was hired!
Beside herself with happiness, she rushed out into the corridor, where she ran into Lucia. Her pretty face, always sweet and serene, looked preoccupied now. She glanced at her cousin and put a finger to her lips, urging her to be quiet.
"What's happened?" Ornella asked her in a whisper.
"Niko has a visitor," Lucia replied in the same whisper. "A very unpleasant type. Niko is not happy with his visit and told me to go upstairs."
Ornella tiptoed to the top of the stairs and looked out into the hall. Niko stood with his back to her, and the opposite was a vaguely familiar man. Ornella recognized him. Tony Remarco. Jewelry company owner and a slug. She had to communicate with him a couple of times and after each conversation, there was a feeling of sticky dirt that she wanted to wash off.
"Do you know who is he?" Lucia asked quietly.
She, too, walked to the edge of the stairs and stood behind Ornella's shoulder.
"Later," she answered with one lip and listened to the conversation.
"Shares?" Niko's voice sounded cold and wary. "I told you - you will receive the won shares in three days. Or do you doubt my word?"
"Well, what are you saying?" ironically stretched out Remarco. "I don't doubt your word at all. It's just that the circumstances have changed. Now your 20% is not enough for me. I need everything. Then my vote will be decisive in the Association."
"And you naively decided that I would give you all my shares?" asked Niko, looking at the impudent man like he was a filthy insect.
"You don't have to," Tony said complacently. Niko wanted to strangle him. "But you're not the only one with shares. Ozcan Baisal also has stock. I made some inquiries here. It turns out he's obsessed with his daughter. I wonder when the choice will arise - her reputation or stocks, which will he choose?"
The blood drained from Niko's face. He realized the horror of the situation. If the story of the bet and the fact that Jansu spent the night in his room becomes public, it will be an embarrassment for both her and her father.
"And if Mr. Baisal chooses the shares," Remarco shrugged his shoulders, "well, then I'll be satisfied with the money paid to me by journalists for a funny story about a touchy princess who is not at all untouchable..."
Niko grabbed him by the chest and hissed in his face, "You wouldn't dare!"
Remarco tore his hands off the lapels of his jacket and said threateningly, "How dare I?! This proud girl rejected me and immediately jumped into your bed. I do not forgive such humiliation!"
"There was no bed," Niko said firmly. "Jansu is my ex-wife. We were just talking. Figured out our relationship."
"Tell this nonsense to someone else," Remarco advised him mockingly. "Settling a relationship in four years! If you believe the newspapers, that's how much has passed since your divorce, hasn't it? Who will believe it? But to sleep with her ex-husband ... yes. You are handsome and, according to rumors, you're such a stallion. The princess wanted to remember the joys of marriage ..."
Niko raised his fist to strike, but Remarco hissed in his face.
"Just try it. I will ruin you all."
Gritting his teeth so that it pained in his temples, Niko closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them and said, "I will sign over my shares in the Association of Jewelers to you. But, God forbid, you decide to continue blackmailing or open your nasty mouth against Jansu. I will destroy you!"
The threat sounded too real. Tony even shivered.
"I'm not an idiot," he muttered. "But you will give me the shares today. At the notary."
"Tell me the time and address," Niko said.
"Burhan's notary office in Nisantasi in an hour," Remarco blurted out.
"I will be there," Niko said. "And now - get out of my house!"
Remarco backed away, and when he walked a decent distance, he turned and jumped out the door. There is nothing to show off and risk health. That madman would break loose and beat him half to death.
Niko was furious, but his head worked clearly. He worked out in his head the steps to be taken before going to the notary. And the first is to contact a lawyer. It is naive to believe the word of the blackmailer. He needs to protect himself and Jansu from repeated blackmail.
Ornella and Lucia, unseen by Niko, watched him from the top of the stairs. When he walked into the study, focused and determined, they exchanged glances. Tears glistened in Lucia's eyes.
"How so?" she said desperately. "Is this fair? Niko worked so hard to acquire these shares and gain weight in the jewelry sector. They are so important to him and the entire company. And now he will just take and give them away? I understand that he is protecting Jansu, but ..."
Ornella was well aware of what that meant. Losing the shares of the Jewelers Association would be like throwing the firm back a hundred points and leaving it alone with the aces of the jewelry business - who pounce like bloodthirsty sharks trying to devour a successful but unprotected company. If Niko has made that decision, then Jansu should know about it too. Ornella straightened up decisively.
"I'm going to Jansu," she said to Lucia.
Her eyes went to her forehead.
"Do you know her?" she asked, stunned.
"Yesterday we met," answered Ornella, thinking hard about something.
"Niko will strangle you when he finds out," Lucia warned her.
"Most likely," her cousin agreed. "But in this situation, there is no other way. Jansu should know what Niko is willing to sacrifice for her. Perhaps she can help him. I'm going. There is very little time."
"I'm with you!"
Ornella looked at Lucia in surprise and reminded her,
"Niko will strangle you too."
"So be it!" She boldly declared. "I cannot stand aside when what he created for many years, collapses."
"Let's go!" Ornella agreed.
Taking their handbags, they left the house and caught a taxi. Ornella named the address of the business center where the offices of Sapphire and Passionis were located.
"Just please hurry up!" she asked the driver.
"If there are no traffic jams," he replied, pressing the gas.
They still got into a traffic jam. The business center was just five minutes away when the taxi came to a standstill in a kilometer-long traffic jam. Thanks to the taxi driver, he advised them to get there on foot and even showed a short way. The girls, with all their strength, ran in the indicated direction. Out of breath, they rushed into the lobby of the business center and were stopped by security. Since their names were not on the guest list, the guard called in Sapphire to Jansu Baisal. And time went on. More precisely, it flew at a breakneck speed. When Jansu permitted to let them in, both rushed headlong to the elevator.
Jansu put the receiver on the hook and looked at Defne in surprise. They were discussing a financial statement when the internal phone started ringing. The confused expression on her sister's face worried Defne.
"What's happened?" she asked.
"Ornella wants to see me. She said it was very important."
"Ornella?" asked Defne. "Niko's ex-fiancee?"
Jansu didn't have time to answer. There was a clatter of heels in the corridor and the door flew open. After Ornella, flushed from the fast run, a pretty and very young girl burst into the office.
"Lucia?" Jansu said in surprise. "Good to see you. You have become quite an adult ..."
"Oh, my God! Jansu, later you will pay tribute to politeness," exclaimed Ornella. "The situation is really serious!"
She quickly recounted the conversation she had heard. Jansu and Defne looked at her with eyes widening with indignation.
"What a jerk!' Jansu exclaimed indignantly. "No wonder I hated him at first sight. And how did Niko manage to contact him?"
"The devil confused his mind," said Ornella recalling the words of Niko, uttered in a drunken delirium.
"He was very upset with you," Lucia spoke quietly. "And crushed. When you filed for divorce ... I was afraid he would go crazy. And then he clung to the firm and worked as a man possessed. And at nights, in his sleep, he called out to you. I heard ... our rooms in Palazzo Bianco were next door. In the summer the windows are open. When I heard it for the first time, I was scared. And then every time he cried..."
Jansu listened to her and turned pale. Tears appeared in her eyes. But it was not the time to cry. She's more to blame than Niko. Much more. If she had not run away then, if she had burst into her father's office and demanded an explanation from both, if she had listened to Niko, none of this would have happened. And the fact that now he is ready to give everything just to protect her reputation and pride is unfair.
"Where do you say this meeting will be?" she asked Ornella.
"Burhan's notary office in Nishantashi," she answered quickly and, looking at her watch, added, "After ten minutes."
"Let's go!" Nodding her head at the door, Jansu ordered.
Defne caught her hand and looked her in the eye and asked, "Do you realize you could be in the middle of a scandal?"
"I can't do it any other way," Jansu replied. Her eyes sparkled with a defiant fire. "Besides, I'm used to it. Big deal! One more scandal."
She swiftly walked out the door. Ornella and Lucia followed. Defne, chasing away uninvited tears, waved her hand near her face and hurried to Passionis as quickly as her seven-month belly would allow.
She flew into her husband's office and presented him with the fact,
"Omer, hurry up! We urgently need to go to Burhan's notary office in Nisantashi!"
"Why?" Rising to meet her, Omer asked in amazement.
"Niko is going to give the blackmailer all of his shares in the Jewelers Association," Defne said, tapping her foot impatiently. "And Jansu rushed there to prevent this."
"What blackmailer?" putting on his jacket, asked the husband.
"The one who lost the bet with Niko" She enlightened him.
"If he lost, why is Niko giving the shares?" Omer asked, shoving his phone and keys into his pockets.
"Because this bastard threatens, if Niko refuses, to demand the shares from dad Ozcan's, of course, having told him everything. And if he doesn't get it, go to the journalists. And to disgrace Jansu all over Turkey."
"That's a scoundrel," Omer swore.
He took his wife by the arm and led her to the door.
"I'm with you!" They heard a ringing voice behind.
Mom and Dad stopped. Omer closed his eyes and apologized in a whisper,
"Sorry. I forgot that Emine plays in the nursery."
The nursery was a room adjacent to the office. When her parents looked around, Emine stood akimbo at its doorstep.
"My soul," Omer spoke, "maybe you will stay with Koray?"
"Ooh," Emine shook her head.
This 'Oooh' was more eloquent than a thousand words. The parents sighed and Omer stretched out his hands and ordered, "Faster! We need to hurry."