CHAPTER ONE
Maja
Full birth name: Maja J. Meikle
Marriage name: Maja J. Moore-Meikle
Age: 29
Height: 5’9
Weight: 125
Origin: 40% German, 40% Italian, 4% African descent and 2% Asian
Languages: English, German and French.
Occupation: CEO and founder of Meikle Media Enterprises and heir to the vast Meikle and Koenig fortune.
Personal History: Founded Meikle Media Enterprises at age eighteen before going on to win her first of five journalistic awards by age twenty-two.
Public Knowledge: Maja is the youngest of the Meikle triplets. Each born three minutes apart. Her brothers are Christoff J. Meikle the oldest and Rolf J. Meikle the second born. Each are estimated to be worth $200.5 billion and counting. Mid 2020 the Meikle family announced the mystery surrounding the death of their late father and husband Ewart J. Meikle and offered an reward for the successful capture of a lookalike of the late Joey Mancini. The Mancinis were close personal friends and Chicago’s notorious crime family. Because of this relationship the world believes that the Meikles are more than just business moguls and inheritors of old money. However, no one has been able to prove these suspicions to be true.
Reading over my public profile and hearing the sound of my bedroom door opening, I looked up from my laptop where I was still laying in bed and watched as my one and only ever-faithful personal assistant, Evelyn Ryan strode in with a not so approving look on her face.
“I’d say g’mornin, but I’m guessin’ I’d be too late for that.” She stated in that thick Australian accent of hers as she walked over to the bed and picked up a few of the papers I had scattered over the comforter in my guest bedroom of her parents’ house. “How long have you been up?”
Rubbing my eyes and stretching my muscles, I groaned my exhaustion as evidence of my early morning decision. “It’s only nine in the morning. It’s not that bad.” I said in defense as the golden blonde raised her thin brows my way. “I’ve been up since four but only because I had emails to answer on the sale of MME.”
“Judging from these, not just that, I’d say,” Evelyn muttered as she looked over the papers she had gathered. “Digging into the identity of the Joey Mancini lookalike?”
Smiling slyly at being caught, I locked the laptop and threw off my comforter. The remaining papers flying around the room. “Okay, so you caught me. But can you blame me? Ever since the truth came out about Signore Mancini not being my father’s killer, I can’t just ignore it. I need to find this man. I want him brought to justice.”
“Maja, you know what you are doing is dangerous. I can’t under good conscience let you keep digging into this.” Evelyn said. “Leave this to FBI.”
Pinching my eyes together, I groaned. “I am a journalist Evelyn; this is what I do! I cannot sit and wait on the FBI to decide my family issues are worth their time. They were after Joe Mancini and he died and then it turned out that Basilio was who they were truly after. And we know how that turned out for him. I just think –”
“I think that we have talked about this more times than I can count.” Evelyn cut me off and started to gather the reports I had collected on this mystery man that had landed on the ground. “You insist on selling MME when I know all you need is a long vacation to get your head back into the game and fall back in love with what you had worked so hard to build. Investigating this man is helping you, but as your personal assistant, I cannot advise you to do either one.”
I bent to help her. “I’ve already told you my mind is set. I’m selling Meikle Media Enterprises, and I’m stepping down as CEO. CFO is just as good a job as any.”
“Aye, it is, but not for the woman that built the company and has won over five awards as a journalist, three as Fords, top two youngest entrepreneur women of the year, and led her company to six awards from the global media.” Standing straight and crushing the papers I had printed during the night Evelyn walked over to me and took the papers from my hands. “Maja, you have burnt yourself out over the years and it’s normal to want to move on to other challenges, but the answer is not to sell your legacy, or to go looking into the underbelly of darkness. If you just follow my advice, you’ll see in six months that I was, and am, right. Give this vacation a chance.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I ran my fingers through my tousled bed head hair and sighed heavily. “We have been in Australia for two months, and it hasn’t yet changed my mind,” I informed her. Knowing I was being defiant.
“Maja,” Evelyn gave a soft, half-sympathetic smile as she looked at me before continuing. “I know you have had it rough last year with the –”
“I don’t want to hear it,” quickly cutting her off. My voice stronger, and my mood instantly turning defensive.
Nodding, Evelyn looked off as if trying to find something in the room to help her talk to me. “If you’d stop looking at your emails, every chance you get, then maybe Sydney could work its magic on ya.” She smiled softly and placed the pile of crushed papers on the bed and reached for my laptop. “I’ll keep this for a while, and in the meantime, you need to relax and focus on nothing. This vacation will help if you give it a try. Now we are going to be late for the airport and late for our tour. Get dressed and meet me downstairs. Dad made breakfast before he and Mom headed out to go sailing.”
“Evelyn, your dad, really doesn’t have to make breakfast every morning. It’s been two months now, he can stop.” I told her, as my voice had softened, and I felt the need to say something after her small lecture.
“Nah, that’s Dad for ya. Breakfast is his favorite meal, so it’s not a bother for me ole’ man.” Picking up the papers, she headed for the door. “Get dressed and let’s go. You know I hate to be late Boss.”
Once Evelyn closed the door, I fell back in bed feeling defeated and screamed into a plush pillow. Letting out my unwanted emotions, my frustrations, my disappointments. When I felt satisfied and my throat was starting to hurt, I hugged the pillow to my chest. My hands fisted tightly into it, as I stared at the ceiling fan as it spun in lazy circles until I started to relax my mind and body.
Over the past year and seven months, stress had become a close friend of mine. With my hidden secrets and what I refused to face, my shoulders carried my heavy burdens alone. There had been a time when I never had to carry anything on my own. A time when I could and would tell my family what was going on in my life and trust my brothers to be there for me.
With my life going from an all-time high to a sudden plummet to the ground and being unable to stop it or fix it, it was something that was just not me. I was Maja J. Meikle. Badass businesswoman, tougher than her older brothers and the fixer of everything. Everything! Only I couldn’t fix anything when it came to my own personal life.
Moving the pillow aside, I got out of bed and walked to the Jack and Jill bathroom, which connected to the bedroom Evelyn was occupying. Closing her entrance door, I quickly brushed my teeth and stared at myself in the mirror. Seeing the woman I had slowly become over the past year.
A woman with doubts, a woman ashamed of looking back, a woman who did not know what to do next.
How was it that you have everything in the world except the two things you wanted most?
Disgusted with the constant questioning and ashamed of myself, I turned my back to the mirror and stripped from my silk polka dot pajamas to take a shower when the sound of the doorbell rang.
Wondering who it could be so early on a Wednesday morning, I dropped the thought as I stepped into the shower and turned on the hot water. Whoever it was, Evelyn was downstairs and could see to the door.
####
“I would tell ya welcome home, but in a few seconds, you won’t be that much welcomed here.”
I heard Evelyn say as I descended the stairs that lead to the kitchen. Chuckling at her poor ass welcome to whoever she was talking to, I entered the kitchen with a bright smile on my face as I laughed.
“Evelyn, is that any way to treat your guest?” I asked looking around for her and finding her handing a cup of coffee to a sandy blonde hair man in dark shades with a small neatly shaved anchor beard. “I’m sure if you know her, then you know this is how she normally is.”
“I do know that.” He answered in a too familiar voice that had my smile disappearing instantly.
Looking from Evelyn, who had been watching me from his side by the breakfast table, I stared back at him as he took his glasses off and it was hard not to recognize those dark grey eyes. Blinking as I looked Jason over it was easy to see why I didn’t think it was him. After last seeing him a whole year and seven months ago, my husband had transformed from the boy I had known and fallen in love with, to a sexy man looking … man
Having grown his sandy brown hair to almost his shoulders, Jason had paired it with a stylish beard that fit his inverted triangle shape face and had worked at building his torso to a well-toned, lean upper body, that currently filled out his plain white cotton shirt and off blue denim jacket extremely well. With a long enough silver chain around his neck and his wedding ring at the end of it, Jason’s whole new image screamed “bad boy beware”.
Looking as if nothing of the past had ever happened. As if we have not been separated this whole time. Smiling as if he had never walked out of our New York penthouse doors and never returned.
Never calling. Never texting. Never to be heard from again.
Reminded of that hurt and loneliness, I turned my back to him. Hiding my sudden desire to cry.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. Managing to hide my pain.
“We need to talk.” he answered and I spun around to glare at him. Then looked at Evelyn. “Wait, she didn’t tell me you were here. In fact, she didn’t answer my calls, texts or emails.”
He quickly defended Evelyn, as he knew I would blame her for his sudden uninvited presence back into my life.
“I wasn’t going to let him in, but I knew he wasn’t going to leave, even if I had slammed the door in his face.” Evelyn explained with a sorry, not sorry, look of mischief on her face. “You would have seen him out there eventually once we left. Besides, he is still your husband and that still makes him my priority.”
“Uugghh!!” I groaned with a roll of my eyes. Having completely forgotten the most important part of Evelyn’s contract with me – to protect all Meikles that come into the family either through marriage or birth. “You couldn’t throw that one rule out the window today?”
Smirking with a shrug Evelyn gushed. “I love my job. It paid for my parents’ earlier retirement and two apartments in two different countries. I’m not losing it over your marital problems.” Popping a grape into her mouth from the fruit bowl that was my breakfast, Evelyn walked past me out of the room adding “I follow my contract to the T and more, and that’s why you love me, Boss. By the way, we still leave in fifteen minutes.”
Hearing Jason laugh I looked over at him once Evelyn left and saw him shake his head in amusement.
“You two are more like sisters when I listen to you two talk.” He chuckled sipping on his coffee.
Breathing out a frustrating groan, I threw the shoulder bag on the table and sat down to eat, so I could leave. “If she never told you where we were, then who did?” I asked as I took a bite of my sausage and eggs.
“Your brothers of course. Your mom certainly wasn’t going to tell me after I told them we weren’t together any longer.”
“Yes, well, thank you for the heads up on that by the way. It was quite fun to explain that to my family unexpectedly.” My words sarcastic and laced with anger.
Sitting up straight, Jason sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. Pulling it back and releasing it.
“I do owe you an apology for that. I am sorry Maja.” he said sincerely as his eyes softened on me.
Sitting in front of me, in Australia, in Evelyn’s parents’ house with a relaxed, confident demeanor that he had never had before, Jason examined me silently. Taking me in fully for the first time since seeing me again. A part of me had wanted to get up and take a spin for him. Show him the new me as well but I couldn’t.
There was no new me. Only a new hairstyle, with new clothes. I hadn’t grown as a person in the way I sensed he had. I was just, plain old same Maja, I thought sadly.
Shaking my head and snorting in disgust, I shot my brow up in disbelief. “That’s all you’re sorry for? That’s the only apology you … you have for me? A year and seven months and that’s all I get?”
“Maja, I know this is hard and I don’t plan on making this –”
“That doesn’t sound like an apology.” I interrupted. Getting up from the table and throwing my half-eaten breakfast in the trash, suddenly losing my appetite. “I have somewhere to be, so you have to leave now. It was nice seeing you Jason. Let’s do it again say… in another two years?”
Grabbing my bag and not waiting on Jason or even caring, I walked out the kitchen and into the living room where Evelyn was standing by the open door, tapping her watch at me.
“Wait! Maja, I need to talk to you!” Running up behind me as I searched for my sunglasses, Jason reached beside me and picked out my glasses from the pocket of my black jumper and handed them to me. “Still the same. Too busy to remember where you put things.”
Glaring at him for the comment I grabbed the sunglasses from his hands. “I knew where it was. I was looking for something else.” I lied. Turning my back to him and walking to the car. “Whatever it is that you want to talk about, send me an email and I’ll have Evelyn deal with it. Now goodbye.”
Taking a hold of my arm Jason stopped me as we got closer to the car. “I am not going to email you about something this important. Will you stop for a second and listen to me Maja!”
“I’ll listen when I hear an apology!” I shouted. Pulling my arm away.
“For what? You told me to leave and I did!” Raising his voice, Jason blew out a breath of frustration as he looked down at me. “The only thing I did was tell the family we were going our separate ways without you always having to stop and prepare how and when we did or say anything!”
Moving from him, I yanked open the passenger side door, shaking my head. My anger growing as I listened to him. “I’m so sorry I did things to make our lives and marriage easier. That was really uncalled for.”
Slamming the car door before I could get in, Jason growled as he grabbed me by the arm. “That was not what I meant, and you know it. You always had to have things your way and they always had to go your way. There was no in-between with you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course not. You’ll never stop long enough to understand what I mean. That was one of the problems in our marriage.”
“Well you solved all our problems when you left a year ago Jason. So why are you even here? To tell me what a horrible wife I was?”
Turning away as he ran a hand down his face and placed the other on the lower part of his hip Jason looked back at me. Confused by what to do but finally deciding to give me an answer. “I’m here because …” His voice dropped to a hushed tone as he groaned frustratedly before continuing. “Maja…I’m here to ask you for a divorce.”
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