Chapter 6 - Hill family (2)

The drive was pleasant, and Sarah enjoyed the familiar views passing by. Mix of trees and secluded villas was slowly being replaced with more dense housing, as they were approaching heart of the city.

Sarah was thinking about the upcoming lunch, and with every passing minute she felt hear heart filling with happiness since she knew that she is getting closer to her sister.

All three Hill sisters are very close, they are to each other true best friends. All of them have busy lives. That causes them not to spend much time together. All three of them have a high IQ and are gifted in their respective areas. To everyone who had a chance to observe them it seemed that there is nothing these girls can't achieve, and if they decide to focus on a specific area they will excel. Their eye pleasing physical appearances, and high intelligence makes others see them as super-humans. They look alike very much, with one interesting difference: eye color. Sarah has green eyes, JoAnna has blue while Sophia has brown eyes.

In a short while Sarah observed high rise buildings on the streets, and soon they entered an underground parking of "Orion Enterprise" headquarters building. Sarah took the private elevator and headed to the 22nd floor where CEO office is.

Elevator opened and she saw a secretary at the end of the hallway, sitting behind a desk, typing on her keyboard while talking on the phone using a headset. Sarah recognized her, it was Leah, Sophia's personal assistant. Leah and Sophia met in high school and are very good friends since then.

Leah looked at Sarah and gestured that she can enter the office.

Sarah entered a spacious corner office. Ceiling to floor windows are on two sides of the office in the front and to the left when looking from the entry doors, the whole town is visible. In the distance you can see mountain range. Office is well furnished with a work area for CEO, two sitting areas defined with sofas and coffee tables, and on the right, there are two doors, one is leading to the restroom, and other is for suite which has a bedroom, full bathroom and a mini kitchen. Behind a large desk, Sophia is reading a document. Sophia looked toward Sarah and nodded to acknowledge her presence, and then moved her attention back to the document.

Sarah noticed that there is a man sitting on the sofa in one of sitting areas. Sarah recognized him: Mark, director of legal department in "Orion Enterprise". He has a short brown hair and looks sharp in his well-tailored light gray suit. He is also quietly reading some document.

Mark and Sophia met in the law school, they both graduated from Harvard with high honors. Shortly after Sophia took over as a CEO, Mark accepted a position in "Orion Enterprise". Sarah got some hints that while Sophia was still in law school, she did an internship together with Mark, and there was some romance between the two of them. Sophia never talked about it with Sarah. Few times in the past, Sarah was trying to get some information related to relationship between Sophia and Mark, but Sophia always avoided to address the topic, so it was difficult to confirm any suspicions that were lingering in Sarah's mind.

Mark stood up to greet Sarah, and after exchanging some common pleasantries, he told Sophia that he will be back to continue their work later in the afternoon and he headed out of the office.

When door closed behind Mark, Sophia stood up to greet her sister with a warm hug, "Hey, nice to see you after so long! Let's head out, I booked a French restaurant for 1:30, it is newly opened, food is great, and you didn't have a chance to try it out yet. We can talk there."

During the short drive to the restaurant, Sophia was talking on her phone while checking out some information on her laptop. Sarah watched with admiration serious-business mode her sister took on whenever she was dealing with matters related to company.

Lunch passed quickly, service was great, food was tasty, and with her sister by her side happily chatting, Sarah felt her chest filling with happiness.

Sarah was by herself most of the time due to her family being busy and her lack of friends, and she usually didn't mind that. Only when she was with her sisters, she would truly enjoy being close to someone, without worries of being hurt or schemed against. Sarah wished to find few more people who would fill her life with this pleasant feeling which she can only describe as 'safe'.

After lunch, Sarah headed home in a cab, while Sophia took the company car back to work.

When Sarah reached home, she decided to relax until dinner time, but soon after that she remembered that she got an email from Aiden with requirements for the project. Sarah turned on her PC and started reading the document. She had a confused expression, and decided to text Aiden to clarify some things that were bothering her:

[Sarah]: I'm looking at the requirements you sent. Is this a project for course?

Few minutes later, she got a response.

[Aiden]: Yes

[Sarah]: What course is this?

[Aiden]: Does it matter?

[Sarah]: No. But this is a full project with back end, services and front end. For this large scope, project is usually done in a group so that work can be divided.

[Aiden]: I joined course late, so I didn't have team members available. Is this a problem?

[Sarah]: Not a problem... but it will impact the timeline

[Aiden]: OK

[Sarah]: I need few clarifications, will send you an email

[Aiden]: I'm waiting for you

At first, Sarah was wondering how come he ended up with such a large project. But now it made sense. She was sad while thinking, 'It's unfortunate for him that he got stuck with a whole project because he could not find teammates.' Sarah was a bit impacted by this information. She always worked on her projects by herself, because even if she teamed up with someone, she would end up doing all the work. It was much better to be the only one working on it from the beginning. She didn't mind extra work, but when she looked at people chatting while working in teams, and she would feel lonely.

Sarah wondered if Aiden also feels lonely. She read his last message few times: "I'm waiting for you". Part of her hoped that he is waiting for her, and not for her email.

Sarah read the document he sent and took notes inline. When she finished, it was close to dinner time. She uploaded document with her notes to her cloud storage, and responded to Aiden's email:

"It's easier to collaborate and track changes when document is online.

My comments are inline. Let me know when updates are done.

You have 'write' access.

Sarah"

Then Sarah headed downstairs for dinner.

While descending the stairs, Sarah heard voices coming from the living room. She entered the room and saw familiar faces.