A.N.: Hi! This story was originally written in Portuguese, after almost finishing it I decided to translate it to English. So English is not my mother language, if you find anything that is strange or wrong, please tell me, there is so much that I still can learn. If you like, leave a review: it would make my day! You can contact me here or at roubandomaca . I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Draco Malfoy was used to this kind of dinner: some executives gathered, eating, and drinking with little discussion about what they were doing there in that expensive restaurant. That's why he always carried his personal assistant with him, which caused astonishment for at least a few reasons: she was always the only woman at the table, the only secretary present, the person who always remembered the business to be discussed and because she was Hermione Granger.

"Gentlemen, we must take this rare opportunity that you are all together to discuss a matter of utmost importance. I didn't want to waste your time and set up a new meeting at a time that could disrupt your extremely busy schedules." With a smile and taking a sip of her wine she could divert attention to the subject at hand. The strategy was infallible.

Draco leaned against the chair, observing the reaction of each participant. He let Granger practically drive the meeting by herself. She was a tough negotiator, she knew every detail of that project. And knew what everyone at that table wanted in return.

He felt a certain pity for all these middle-aged men who had never lived with her. Before they realized, they were already finalizing contracts.

They finished dinner, all satisfied with the terms reached. Draco felt a wonderful drowsiness that only wine along with feeling of work well done provided.

"Granger, come on, I'm asking Alex to drop you off at home because it's my way anyway."

Draco left the restaurant and went to the car that was waiting for him without paying attention around him. He came in, sat down and waited for Hermione. Meanwhile, Granger finished checking the accounts, smiling, and thanking everyone.

Draco didn't raise his eyes when she sat next to him. They drove for a few blocks in silence.

"Great job today, Granger. We will be able to finalize these contracts later this month."

"Thank you."

"We can then advance the production process of next year's line."

There was silence in the car for a few minutes. Draco diverted his attention from the cell phone to see that Hermione had her head against the glass, looking at the full moon.

"Granger, what do you say we advance to the next year's line?"

She sighed and looked back into the car.

"After we finish the Serenna I will no longer work at Malfoy CO."

"I don't get it..." Draco took his eyes off his phone and paid full attention to her.

"This is my last project with the company. After that I want to leave."

"Are you resigning?" the confusion was palpable in him.

"Yes."

He looked out of the moving car and realized they were about to arrive at her apartment.

"Can I understand why?"

"For personal reasons."

"What do you mean for personal reasons? What do you mean by that?" He was trying to keep his voice under control. Draco actually was congratulating himself on handling this situation calmly. It wasn't the first time Hermione had resigned, but in general these rare requests involved shouting and anger on her part, contempt on his part.

"Well, I want to take some time for my personal life and my projects."

He kept looking at Hermione trying to figure out what was going on.

"What projects do you want to do?"

"I don't know yet. I'll think of something."

"Then why do you want to leave? You don't even know what you want to do yet."

"Because I feel like I need to live my life and that includes new projects, my projects."

"It doesn't make sense. You always participate in new projects, we always work with something new."

"Yes, but these are your projects."

"But your opinions are highly valued."

"It's not the same."

Draco was silent until they arrived at her building.

"This wasn't a conversation I wanted to have with you under these circumstances, but I also didn't want to commit to a new project. Tomorrow we can talk more. Good night." She got out of the car without waiting for his answer.

When she was already at the door of her building, she heard her name and turned to see that Draco was out of the car, leaning on the open door.

"What else do you include in this desire to live life?"

She sighed and returned a few steps.

"I don't know, Malfoy. Maybe travel more, have more time for me, meet someone and have a family. These normal things that I haven't been able to do since we started working together."

"I don't understand-"

"Tomorrow we can talk, Malfoy. It's late and I'm tired. Good night." She interrupted Draco in the middle of the sentence with a gesture of her hand, tense and exhausted.

Draco still stood at the car door for a moment, watching her enter and assimilating what had happened. It was hard to believe that it was true. He spent the time until they arrived at her apartment trying to figure out what projects she wanted to do on her own. And what was going on with building a family? He arrived at his house in the early hours of the morning and still took a long time to fall asleep.

As soon as Hermione arrived at her desk the next morning, Malfoy called her.

"He's in a terrible mood today." Melissa, the other secretary who worked with her, frowned.

"Then let me go just before it gets worse." Hermione just took the calendar that was on her desk, left her purse on the chair, smiled, and entered the room.

"Good morning, Malfoy. Today we will have a meeting at 11am with mi-"

"I still don't understand why you want to leave." He was sitting with his chair facing one of the shelves, leaving only his profile on display.

"I told you I have personal reasons for this."

"But what are they?"

"Personal means personal. I don't need to tell you. What I need to say to you is your agenda today." She was trying not to lose her temper.

"You said we could talk about it today."

"Yes, but details like selecting a new assistant, until what day I'm going to be here... these things."

"These things don't interest me!" He skirted the table and stopped in front of Hermione. She held tightly the agenda that was in her hands, still trying to keep her composure at least, as her calm was quickly fading.

"There's nothing I can do."

"Can you tell me the mo- "

"Look, what I can tell you is today's agenda. If you don't want to listen, it is here." She stretched her schedule in his direction. Malfoy automatically picked it up and put it on the table without even looking at the open page.

She went towards the door. "Today you don't have any muggle meeting, so Melissa will accompany you." She left the room without looking at his astonished face.

Hermione spent the day trying to focus on work, but it turned out to be an unproductive day. She had no idea that Malfoy's reaction would be that when she resigned and, frankly, he was acting like a spoiled child. Anyway, she had to keep remembering that it would do no good to lose her patience with him.

As she was getting ready to leave at the end of the day, fixing the papers on her desk, putting her coat on, Draco appeared on her desk. The floor of the presidency of Malfoy CO was divided in a very simply way despite all the opulence in which it was built: the largest room for the president, with large glass windows with a pleasant view of London, an ante room with the table of his two secretaries that were always a shout away, an attached waiting area. There was still on that floor the vice president's office, remarkably similar, but smaller in size, and a meeting room. It was not a busy floor, so few people witnessed the big fights that were going on between the president and his oldest secretary.

"Granger, I've been thinking throughout the day and I'm going to make you an exceptionally good offer. You won't be able to refuse..." She opened her mouth to talk. "No, wait. Just listen to me. I'm going to give you a 50% increase in your salary and promote you to a board position. What do you think?"

Hermione sighed and sat down. All the weariness of the day came at that moment. Rubbing her face, she began:

"You don't understand I don't want any more money or any leadership. I want to do my projects, to be able to create something of mine from scratch."

"But you can do that while you work here."

"Working here means being your assistant, especially when it involves Muggle technology. I want more for myself."

"I can transfer you to another sector. I can even create one specially for you."

"It wouldn't be the same. What I want to do is do something that has my brand, something all mine. When I came in here I thought it would be for a few months only. Just until I found what I really wanted. It's been almost 10 years, if I don't leave now, I guess I'll never find what I want again."

"And what do you want?"

"I don't know yet. I need time to think. But that's it: I need time. Pretty much all my time I spend here."

"I can reduce your workload, I can even hire an assistant for you. Then you will have more time to think about your personal projects."

He seated at her table, next to her chair. His posture was one of arrogance, with his arms folded at his chest and looking pointing at her.

"It's not like that, Malfoy. Why don't you understand? I've lived the last nine years of my life here, in this company. We worked hard, but everything was your company. I'm tired of living like this. I'm tired of having to drop everything and come running because an emergency meeting has come up, or because there's some crisis or because you need some opinion. My personal life is practically nonexistent. I never had another cat because he would spend too many days alone at home. I lost the birth of four of my five godchildren. All my relationships failed because I was never free. All this for what? Because we were working like two crazy people to establish the company. And now we did it: it is stable, strong, respectable some would say! And I'm tired of going back to an empty house every day."

"Take the weekend off. Think of my proposal." That was the last straw for Hermione.

"Ahhhh! You're not listening to me! Take the weekend off? That will not solve my problem! Don't you realize the absurdity that this represents?!"

Draco appeared confused by the sudden change of tone.

"But I'm just trying to-"

"You're not even trying! All you want is for the things to stay the way they are! I spoke to you first out of respect for all of our work together, if you do not accept soon and make this transition in a scheduled way, I will go on Monday to the HR and ask for my immediate resignation! And don't even dream of calling me this weekend!" She got up from her chair in the middle of the argument and when she realized she was already slamming the door.

Draco Malfoy was alone in the middle of the ante room, lost in what had just happened. Starting to get outraged.

He walked in circles, went into his office, served a dose of firewhisky and went after Blaise. Blaise was on the same floor as him and would still be working. He would understand Draco.

Draco entered without knocking, scaring Blaise who was analyzing some documents.

"Granger is absolutely crazy."