Chapter 125: Breakfast with Kalina

Eren was at the breakfast shop in the Beşiktaş backstreets at 8:40.

He had picked the place on purpose because the plastic tables and the too-loud television would make Kalina uncomfortable.

This was was normally quiet and a great spot for young couples in weekend breakfasts but today was Friday and he missed a normal breakfast without magical fruits or sugar heavy dishes.

Salty food was the right way to go in breakfast and dinners..

The menemen came out on a chipped metal plate and the waiter set it down in front of him without asking what he wanted to drink.

Obviously he was going to drink tea, like everyone else..Duhh.

The waiter was maybe nineteen and kept sneaking looks at Eren’s bare forearms and the shorts Rosa bought yesterday.

Poor boy was trying to see if this was a youtube video content or a social study experiment. And he couldn’t figure out what was happening so asked his inner wonder “Brother are you not cold?”

“No actually. My father’s side is from Finnland.” Total bulls*it..but he had a Finn drinking friend in college who was white like a paper. And he learned enough things to cover almost everything about that nordic place.

“Oh. I heard they can even swin in ice water. Can you do that?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll bring your tea then.” The kid walked off shaking his head and Eren was proud to succesfully make a good, amusing lie.

Eren took a bite of the menemen with a piece of soft bread. This was a Turkish breakfast dish made with a lot of tomatoes, fresh pepper and egg. It was really good.

But the place was also louder than he was intending for the purpose of irritating his old boss.

A small old TV was open and a football commentator above the counter was screaming at nothing about a penalty call from 2019 and the owner of the shop was slapping his own knee in delight about an old game from years ago.

It wasn’t normal even here, in a football dominated country.

Kalina walked in at 9:10.

She was wearing dark jeans and a plain cream sweater and no makeup, no designer coat, heels and no bodyguards.

She had stripped down to the version of herself that Eren had never actually been allowed to see in three years of working under her. She slid into the booth across from him and hung her handbag on the hook above their heads without a word.

“You’re early.”

“I’m always up early nowadays.”

“That’s new. Why?” She picked up the spoon he hadn’t used and turned it over in her fingers.

“Early responsibilities. I have to do a lot of thing even before breakfast.” He also did his hunting job in the other side before coming here.

“A lot is new with you.”

“Yeah.”

The talk wasn’t going anywhere while she was eyeing the menemen. She looked hungry.

He pushed the plate toward the center of the table. She didn’t reach for it. She watched him for twenty seconds and he let her.

She’s not going to eat until I say something first. Why she has to act like this?

“Where were you-”

He didn’t let her finish the question. “I didn’t know you were looking for me.”

A moment of pure rage showed up as her teeth clashed.

He watched her jaw move and remembered the conference room two years ago where she had made him redo a budget presentation eleven times in one night. He had always find her jaw line and lips sexy and she was still the same beautiful, perfect being. Like a god created her with their hands..

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel about it now.

“That’s not an answer and you will tell me why you vanished.”

“That’s the closest one I can give you.”

“No!” She looked really pissed about his disappearance like it was a personal attack.

“Eren.” She put the spoon down on the table and leaned forward on her forearms. Her voice dropped to whisper levels. “I called your mother and we have been talking for years..”

He stopped chewing.

She was watching his face for the reaction and he tried not to give her one. “She knew me for years now and didn’t think it was a big deal to talk about you.

She told me you were on a business trip yesterday and you had finally called her the weekend before. Your mother wasn’t this relaxed in the first month of your vanish.”

He didn’t have a good response ready. He had been planning for her to come in angry about business deal of fruits. He hadn’t been planning for this personal and close talk with her beautiful face coming closer to her.

She knew how to affect people and he was weak to her face, mimicks, lips and pretty hands.

“I didn’t know you called her.”

“Of course you didn’t. But my purpose of pushing you in the job wasn’t personal. I tried to proteck you from being fired. Too many people were laid off right? But not you.” Kalina’s voice cracked in the middle of the word. She hated that it cracked. He could see her hating it. She reached for her water glass and her fingers weren’t steady.

She cared about me..? No way.

The waiter came over with a tray of three teas. He set all three glasses on their table.

“The third one is for the wife when she gets here,” the waiter said without thinking. “Wait. That is the wrong booth. Sorry. The third is for that table over there.” He pointed vaguely at the counter and turned red and tried to pick up the extra glass of tea.

Kalina covered the top of the glass with her palm before the kid could touch it.

“Leave it.” She slid the second glass across the plastic table toward Eren without looking at him. He already finished his small tea already.

The waiter didn’t say anything and left.

Eren looked down at the second glass and pulled it closer and didn’t say thank you.

She didn’t want him to. Kalina was after another thing.

“The fruit,” she said after a long beat.

“Is organic.”

“It isn’t organic.” She finally picked the spoon back up and dug into the corner of the menemen which she was eyeing for a while now and Eren didn’t finish it on purpose.

She was hungrier than she wanted him to see and tore a piece off the bread from the bread basket.

“My client had a piece of it tested at a private lab over last days. Zero pesticides, fertilizers and chemical genetic material. Twenty three unidentified compounds in the pulp. My chemist spent two days on it and then quit and told me it was a genetically modified new fruit or something on those lines. He didn’t know where to begin even if I wanted some answers.

So…” Her voice while explaining something to his was still the same and Eren felt like missing this. Her way of changing her hair with her arm while eating was cute.

Eren didn’t answer and continued to watch her face and body which Kalina noticed and didn’t point it out.

Her heart rate was already over the moon when his eyes were on her body.

Something was telling her, even if he had the same face and eyes, he was different now.

He kept his face flat. He didn’t know what most of that meant and he wasn’t going to admit it.

“What’s your offer Kalina?”

“Partnership. Rosa runs sales. I run logistics and customs and legal. Sixty forty in her favor. Full import documentation that will hold up in court if anyone asks what this thing actually is.”

“And in exchange.”

“In exchange I see where you grow them, where the hell you gone and lastly know what happened to you!”

He drank his second tea and it was too sweet even for him. He set the glass down.

“There’s a third option.”

“The last time you said that phrase I almost fired you on the spot. What is it?”

“I can’t tell you yet.”

She snapped. “Which one?”

“I can’t tell you where I went or what happened, also the fruits are artificially made and their effects are geniune. Don’t worry, they all will have the same beneficial effects. But you should be careful about how much it spreads to people. Wrong people can go after you.”

Kalina wasn’t worried about that side of the job and Eren knew the reason for that. His old company and her work place was a giant establishment of business. If she used it in the right way, no one could mess with them around Istanbul.

Just as they made a deal and Eren was happy to not chicken out all his secrets, Kalina made a strategic move he could see.

“Eren one more thing.”

“What is it?”

“I know you don’t like me and have a girlfriend but we are business partners now and don’t even try to lie about Rosa is above you or anything!

Eren didn’t expect the next words coming from her pink lips and her bashfull expression which he never saw before!!!

“Dinner.. Once a week. You and me… We put it on the calendar and may call it a business dinner but I think I earned it right?” Eren didn’t realize how much her inner feelings were different from outside and how his charisma stats were hitting her whole body and soul.

She was charmed and it wasn’t even because of his passive skills. She had feelings for him even before the portal situation!!

What the hell is going on..?

You had years to share your feelings with me, and now you’re showing interest in me in such a half-hearted way, when it’s too late for everything? Women are really driving me crazy…

He didn’t show that he understood her feelings. What he was about to do was a dick move but also necessary.

“Dinner works for me. But we’ll eat it at my house. And at my table with my wife sitting across from you.”

Her spoon hit the edge of the plate with a small metallic tap.

“Your what.” Her face was full of panic and shock!

“My wife.”

“Since when do you have a wife.”

“We got together months ago but the marriage happened about one week ago.”

Kalina was still not angry but shocked and Eren didn’t know why she cared about his personal life this much. She was way above his league before and he knew that when women considered you as lower than their standards even once, things were hard to change for the man.

“What about Rosa?” she asked after remembering her arc nemesis against her love in the last three years.

Eren didn’t know what to say about it. “It’s complicated with her. Ask me later..”

“You got married two weeks ago and you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to send you an invitation.”

She stared at him with her mouth a little open. Then she picked up her napkin and pressed it hard against her mouth for three seconds as if she was trying to keep something inside her teeth.

“Congratulations.” She put the napkin down. Her voice had gone thin. “What’s her name.”

“Emily.”

“Emily.” She repeated it. “Emily. European name like mine or Rosa’s. Where is she from?”

“Asian..” Emily really looked like an eastern woman so he technically didn’t lie.

Eren watched her eat because he didn’t know what else to do. He had imagined a dozen different ways this breakfast could go on the motorcycle ride over and none of them had included Kalina quietly chewing the whole breakfast table with her eyes wet.

She dropped the spoon when she was done.

“Thirty five percent logistics net. Dinner every Thursday. I’ll send a contract by Sunday.” Her voice was low and when Eren touched her arm to check if she was okay, but that made Kalina froze.

She pulled a tissue from her handbag and looked at him like he was guilty of murder and sadness. She came closer to his arm and sat next to him like she needed his hug for emotional support.

Eren could kiss her if he wanted to. She had that look on her pretty eyes.

Okay.. I really didn’t see this coming.

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