The sky was starting to tinge from grey to pink as she stared up at the building she hadn't been inside of in over a decade. At times, it seemed to Betty as if those four years she spent working at Mode had never happened; that they had all just been some crazy dream, like one of her papi's telenovelas. Actually, considering all the insane drama that had surrounded the entire Meade family, that wasn't far off the mark!

More than a few of her colleagues over the years at Dunne had laughed or in many cases, simply dropped their mouths open in total disbelief when she shared some of the more bizarre details of her former employers' personal lives. Who could blame them? Sperm-stealing from a corpse? You can't make this stuff up; right? Still, it HAD happened! To her. Well, to be fair, to Daniel, mostly.

The man had certainly survived quite a lot of personal trauma over the years and Betty had been there, front and center to witness it during her four years of working with him and Claire and the rest of their crazy bunch at Mode. Looking back, a lot of what she remembered seemed almost comical in hindsight, she supposed. She rolled her eyes, smiling as she remembered crazy things like she and Marc, dressing up like a hot dog and bun and Daniel dressing up as an Easter Bunny and her own ridiculous need to always "be nice", that led to her actually throwing her boyfriend's pregnant ex-girlfriend a baby shower where the woman went into labor at the end.

Perhaps the best way to move on from the mistakes we made in our past was to confront them, head-on, she mused. Of course, she had done just the opposite when she left New York all those years ago. She had jumped head-first into her new life, her new job in a new country and never looked back. Not something that was ordinarily in her nature. But she survived, simply by tackling one day's problems at a time, or sometimes just one hour at a time. And she was proud of what she had accomplished in her career.

Now her personal life? That was another matter entirely. It seemed she had gone from one bad relationship to another, all men who had seemed to respect her strong work ethic, but eventually grew to resent her for it.

Matt Hartley had returned from Africa and followed her to London, seeming to expect that she should have been waiting to go back to their relationship. But she reminded him that they both knew they had already ended things, years ago. When he made his decision to leave her behind, it wasn't fair of him to expect her to put her life on hold until he "got his shit together" by becoming a philanthropist.

It didn't end well. He thanked her for "inspiring him" initially, and everything seemed civil enough. But then, after they had said their goodbyes in person, she later got a drunken call from him, crying, and yelling and accusing her of being secretly in love with Daniel Meade, and saying that she never really gave Matt her heart, that she wasn't ever "passionate" enough to him because she never truly loved him.

She had a similar "encounter" with another of her other past loves as well. One year at Chiristmas, she had returned to New York to visit her family and ran into Henry Grubstick. They hugged and went for coffee, catching up with each other's lives. Everything was quite pleasant, they both had been doing well in their chosen fields. Neither had been all that successful in their love lives, however.

Betty joked, as she bumped Henry's shoulder, "Well, too bad I don't still live here, in New York, Henry! It sounds like we both could have ended up getting back together after all! I'm sorry about Charlie, messing things up for your other girlfriends, like she did for us!"

Henry shrugged, shaking his head, as he reached out and touched her cheek tenderly, "You and I never had a chance, Betty! It wasn't just Charlie, or the fact that I became a dad to Nate, or even your career goals that kept us apart! You always had another man you ran after all the time, the one guy you put above everyone else, even me and your family and that was Daniel! He was your true first love, not me!"

She almost choked on her roll, then rolled her eyes, "What? Daniel?! Henry! Come on! You know that was just because it was my job! It was my first real job! I was his…assistant! I'm sorry it seemed like I put him first, but…"

He got up to leave, and hugged her, then chuckled, "No, it didn't just SEEM like it, Betty! You DID put Daniel first…always! And you and I both know it wasn't just because it was your job! You were…in love with him! You almost got burned alive that time, going to his place when that maniac woman was there, waiting for you. And he was always so worried about who you were dating. He was SO jealous of me, of Gio, of Matt…of all your boyfriends! Clearly, he loved you, too! What happened there, huh? I heard he left Mode and followed you to London."

What could she say? He had sort of…done that. Or at least, it seemed like he had "followed her" to London. He did leave his own job behind to start over and chose, of all places, London to do so. Okay, even she had to admit it was suspicious. He couldn't have started over any place in the United States? Clearly, the man had deliberately come to the same place as she had gone for some reason. It only made sense that people would assume it was because of his feelings for Betty.

Then why hadn't they done anything about it if that were the case? He never said anything to her about "having feelings" for her. So what was she supposed to do? Jump into the man's arms and declare her unrequited love for him? He had shown up in London and acted sort of…romantic by "following" her there. He had asked her out on what she thought might actually be a date. But when they went out, he seemed nervous, perhaps like he was worried she might think it was a "real date" so, he acted like they were still just old friends. So she did, too. Nothing happened that was out of the ordinary for them. They laughed, they talked, and all was right with the world, as he had so eloquently put it.

Then he had to go to work for Mode UK, one of Dunne's competitors. His family's business was not doing well and Daniel had to put his own desires to start over on hold. It had started out as a friendly competition, but things got nasty and business became personal. The fact that Betty was a young, new American in a well-established London publication in 2010 when print publications were all but on life-support made Daniel's family's company the enemy.

Her joke about him working as her assistant was not met with the light-hearted enthusiasm and hope she had felt when she mentioned it to Daniel. Her new boss's secretary had been somewhat shocked that she even considered it, "Daniel MEADE? Miss Suarez, surely you must be joking? His family's company has been the bane of our existence for quite some time! Meade Publications is a global empire! Don't you think Mr. Dunne wants that for Dunne Publishing as well?"

Over the next year, many things had been said, on both her and Daniel's end that had been rather mean-spirited and perhaps a bit too personal. Betty couldn't help but feel as if she was repeating her "attack" on Daniel in her blog, and that she had taken things too far, and was hitting him below the belt. But she couldn't put the genie back in the bottle and once Mode UK and some of the other magazines under the UK division of Meade Publications began printing not-so-nice things that were clearly meant to discredit Betty, specifically, calling her the "former frumpy chip-chick" and "Mistress of Cat Vomit", and of course, "Tornado Girl", the gloves were off!

Daniel swore that he had personally never approved any of those particular slurs to denigrate her, but the shouting match that followed between the two wasn't pretty! It was too bad you couldn't slam down cell phones, or neither of them had been in an old-fashioned London phone booth just to emphasize how angry they were in that last argument!

The former best friends soon became bitter rivals and enemies. And even after Daniel left London to return to New York when Claire had a health scare, they never exchanged another word. Betty had sent flowers and asked sincerely after Claire, but any communications went only through the matriarch. As far as Daniel was concerned, Betty Suarez never existed, and it certainly seemed as if the feeling was mutual.

Now it had been over a decade, thirteen years, in fact. Well, thirteen years, one month, and ten days since they had last spoken to be exact. Not that she was counting, of course. But maybe this was the perfect time to try and put the past behind them both if that was even possible. Claire had asked Betty a very special favor and because she still loved the woman and idolized her, it was impossible to say no, no matter how difficult it was to face her boss-turned friend-turned enemy-turned just someone she used to know!

"Daniel, stop pacing, will you? You're pouting like a petulant child right now! Suck it up! I don't care in the slightest about your silly "feud" with Betty! This is not personal, it's business! You're just going to have to get over yourself and learn to work with her again. I think I'm more than entitled to step back and travel with Henr…sorry, HANK while both of us are still in fairly good health!"

"Yes, come on, Daniel! Be a good sport and step up to the plate! Your sister and brother have both taken on more than their share of the empire your father left you. Do you want your poor mother being pushed around in a wheelchair to visit the Sistine Chapel and The Louvre by her young lover…I mean, appropriately aged husband?"

Claire rolled her eyes, but merely shook her head, as she folded her arms across her chest, waving Wilhelmina over, "Are those the quarterly reports, Willy? I do hope you haven't gone crazy with the budget yet again! Even though you know perfectly well that Marc has already tried and failed to gain my approval on following the latest trend? What happened to "Wilhelmina Slater doesn't FOLLOW trends, she SETS them?"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand, Claire, because it's something from the twenty-first century, not the eighteenth like you remember from your youth, but today it's important to have designated young people called "influencers" on your payroll to act as additions to regular ad sales."

"Wilhelmina, can you please give us the room? We'll speak to you about this tomorrow. Send me an email and copy Marc, my mom, and…Justin Suarez with the names, important details and estimated figures involved, okay? And please be specific, no ball-park bull-shit to cover your Brazilian lifted ass!"

Wilhelmina nodded, looking somewhat surprised and almost impressed to have Daniel speak to her on business matters at all and in such a decisive way, "Not a problem, Daniel. Be nice, please! Goodnight, Claire."

As soon as she left, Daniel turned and leaned his back against the door, shaking his head, "Wow, she just never gets any easier to deal with, does she? I thought you said she had "mellowed" since she had the babies and got married…"

"And you handed her Mode on a silver platter? That was years ago, darling. And lest you forget, that WAS her, being mellow!" Claire teased, as she sat at her desk, and gestured for Daniel to sit, "Now, tell me what's on your mind, dear? Besides a certain short, curvy brunette you seemed to be more afraid of than the wicked witch of the upper east side these days?"

He sighed, as he sat down across from his mother, wincing, "Is it that obvious? I don't know what the hell to say to her, Mom! It's been years! We both said…stupid, childish things to each other over…nothing! Because we were "rivals" or whatever, I mean who the hell even cares? I never got why she was so pissed at me! I didn't come up with any of that stuff my staff said about her, but I know damn well she said every crap thing about me she could think of! I felt like we were in a schoolyard! And I didn't even end up staying there, so…WHY was she so damn mad at me? Because my father's company happened to be a competitor with her new one? So what? It just…hurt! It was like when she said all that sh…stuff on her blog that time!"

Claire smiled, "You mean the time when you dismissed her blog as silly and made her feel as if she was still just a naive, young girl, and treated her like your personal slave? That time? The time you called her readers a few "cat-loving weirdos"?"

He made a face, "Okay, you know WAY too much about my life, Mom! Or did you get that stuff from HER? Or…her nephew, since he's on the payroll?"

She shrugged, "Well, that was your suggestion if you recall. I believe when Wilhelmina asked about finding a suitable assistant for Marc when he became her Creative Director, you told her Justin was the 'perfect candidate' during his summer break as an intern, then insisted he be hired as soon as he finished college."

Daniel ignored her remark, getting up to stare out the window and look down.

"You do realize that you can't actually make out people's faces from this high up, right, dear? Plus, she's not coming until tomorrow afternoon, remember? I await your excuse for not showing up with bated breath!" she teased.

"Haha! Okay, I'm heading out! I'll see you tomorrow, Mother. Goodnight!" He leaned down to kiss her cheek and smiled as he left, trying to steel himself to face good old what's her name tomorrow.

He did briefly toy with the idea of finding some legitimate reason not to attend what was sure to be the worst board meeting ever, and that only competed with already painfully boring, tedious or back when his father was still alive to torture him, embarrassing hours spent listening to the Meade board of directors drone on and on…ad nauseum! Perhaps he should end the evening with a nightcap, just to make certain he was able to get a good night's rest. He recalled one past meeting where he actually fell asleep! Or was that some meeting at Mode? So much of that time just melted together into one group of time he had begun to think of as, 'BB and AB" Before and after…HER!

After his fourth Scotch on the rocks, Daniel began to loosen up and relax a bit more. He knew he had placed his phone somewhere on the table, or had he left it in the men's room earlier? He started to search for it, but as he leaned forward to look under his table, his head became woozy and he felt like he was hallucinating. Again. About HER, Again! He was sure he heard her voice. That silly, squeaky, high-pitched voice of hers. This was becoming more tiresome and annoying!

He wasn't really drunk, but he hated the idea of having to get a new phone! It had everything in it, his calender, all his contacts. He decided to try and retrace his steps, so he headed back up to the bar, and this time, he swore he heard the bartender hand the waiter a stupid, fruity concoction, "Here, Jeff, can you take this Mango Margarita to the serious brunette in the corner, playing pool? That's about her fourth one! But she's so cute, I hate to cut her off!"

"Yeah, and she tips really well, too!" the waiter grinned.

Daniel ignored their conversation and resisted the temptation to follow the waiter, just in case. Surely other silly (pretty brunette) women drank that monstrosity of a drink, right? She couldn't be the only one! Besides, why would she even be here? This was HIS bar, in his neighborhood, nowhere near Queens! She surely wouldn't be stalking him! Although, he supposed someone (Justin or Marc or his mother) might have clued her into where he drank after work as a way to "break the ice", or in case he as his mother had accused him chickened out tomorrow and simply didn't show.

"Excuse me, but I seem to have lost my phone. Did someone turn one in?"

The man shrugged and held up a cardboard box with close to twenty phones inside, some extremely older models, along with his on top, "Here it is! Thank you! Oh, do you need to see some ID or something to prove it's mine? I can give you my number and you can hear it ring."

The bartender shook his head, rushing to the other, extremely busy side of the bar, "Yeah, like I got time for that! Whatever, if it's yours, it's yours. Some hot little chica turned it in about an hour ago, if you want to 'thank her personally', be my guest! She's over there, shooting pool with those guys in the corner. Good luck! Every guy so far has struck out with her! But you could get lucky! It's a nice phone! Her drink is…"

"A Mango Margarita. Yeah, I know." Daniel mumbled as he turned to see her, racking up the balls, and turning. He'd know that ass anywhere.