ALINA'S POV By the time I looked up, Trent had somehow managed to disappear.Hey, how could he do that?I distantly remember him saying that he was hurt in a playful voice, just like his way of convincing me to give him a hug because he was supposed to be moody.Surely he was joking, right?I glanced around the room, trying to see if he was still around and just playing hide and seek to give me a scare.I honestly would not put that past him. That was him: playful and unapologetically full of action.“Trent,” I called out, looking around.“You could come out now if you're hiding. I made something special for the both of you. My homemade Spanish dish,” I said, still looking around.On a normal day, that would be enough to get him out if he was hiding.He was beyond curious about anything that had to do with Spanish and me in the same sentence. I think he had a soft spot for Spanish-speaking countries altogether. And their people, obviously.“Uncle Trent isn't hiding,” Niguez said, pro
TRENT POVI frowned, shuffling between the files that were on the table. My expression was stressed out; a lot has been happening lately, and it was all I could do to keep myself from overreacting and to appear privately normal in front of people.Gilbert walked into my room and placed my usual cup of steaming hot choco on the table.This was the ritual now.I arrived home all stressed out, managing to survive another day in my head, and Gilbert observed me carefully by the side without saying a word.He would quietly slip into my office and put a hot drink on the table for me to calm down. It was hard these days, especially as I wasn't into drinking at all, but of course, I had faced worse.Yes, I had faced way worse than this."She's just a woman, get it together," I muttered to myself."You've been busy, master," Gilbert said, stopping just behind me. I didn't need to see him to know that he was peering over my shoulder at the files scattered on my table."What do you know," I snor
TRENT POVIt takes a lot of bottled-up hate, fucked-up emotions to save your family members from an unknown number.It's just that I didn't feel anything towards them anymore... Assuming that I did in the first place.I left the Creighton Mansion the moment I was eighteen, and anything that had to do with them too. Which was more than a decade ago.We were nearly halfway across the world from each other. That was it; we were that far away from each other, so they couldn't just stay there, could they?Do they have to torment me for the rest of my life too?“Just leave me alone,” I murmured.How about the unknown number flashing across my screen thought differently.“Ignore it,” I muttered, stuffing the last bite of salad into my mouth.Think happy thoughts instead, I said to my inner self, glad that the pep talk wasn't falling apart today.Happy thoughts, like Alina, whenever she threw back her head in laughter when she was around me. And the way my heart swelled knowing that I was the
Alina's POV— “Miss Amina Diaz,” After our lunch break, I received a call from the manager. I was promoted to the position of his personal secretary, and so far, I have been doing my job pretty well since there were no more distractions. He didn't usually just call me into his office. I shuffled out of my seat and headed for the door. “Yes, sir,” I stood outside with my hands behind my back. Clarence looked up from behind his laptop as usual and waved me inside. “Please sit,” he said, pointing a finger towards a seat with relative ease. That was one thing to call it—the way he moved about like he was in power, like your disappearance of the CEO didn't mean more to him; all his movements were fluid and impeccable, like his part of life was easy. “Now, we don't really do this in the company, I mean,” he began to speak. He shuffled through the files on the table and reached out for one of them, pulling it between his fingers and pushing it towards me. “But with the requ
TRENT'S POVI watched her go with a frown.Was she faking it just to get me to talk? I wondered.That didn't sound quite like her anyway. And besides, there was no way she could have faked that look of worry, like her worst nightmare had finally caught up with her.It was okay if my mind wasn't at rest, but I could not bear it when it was her.I had to figure out what the hell was wrong with her.Surely it wasn't about her son... I knew how touchy she could be when it came to him.“....No... He couldn't. He had no right to after abandoning us. Besides, he won't know that it's me, remember,”I recalled her sentence perfectly. Every damned last word of it.It had to be some family issues. Did she finally want to go back and confront them? Just like me, she barely talked about her family.We knew each other for so long now. Damn it, why did she suddenly feel like a stranger?I hated the feeling of finding out that you knew so little about the person you thought you knew so well.“Then im
TRENT POV So this is one of the times I actually ditch my plans of spending the night at Alina's, especially when she sounded a bit down in the dumps over the phone earlier when I told her that I would have to pass concerning the dinner we had planned in the evening.I felt even extra guilty about it and promised to make it up to her and Niguez after.If I wasn't so exhausted after whatever the company party over someone's promotion or another was, then I could even come later on to see the kid Niguez and tuck him in.Maybe even buy him a toy as a peace offering if I had to. Actually, maybe I would go with that.As for Alina, we could have some exquisite dinner or something tomorrow. I would choose the beach if it were up to me. And who knew, I could make the scene all romantic and touching, so maybe if I asked her to be my girlfriend, she would not have much thinking to do about it and just say yes.I mean, it was necessary to always think positive, right?So yes, that may or may no
ALINA'S POVOkay, so yes, it's absolutely fine that Trent told me he wouldn't be able to make it tonight. It was something about him having to attend a friend's party where it was a bit shady anyway.And it wasn't like I cared that much. Actually, I was a bit happy, or more like relieved, that he wasn't here; otherwise, there was no way I could act normal around him.It wouldn't take him time to realize that something was seriously off about me. And somehow I knew that one way or another, the night would end with me revealing all about the conversation I had with Clarence, the manager.I will tell him how scared I was to revisit my past and go as an undercover worker at Star Frost Labs.Stop. Don't think about it, I chided myself.But it was too late. I could already see Gomez Allen looming over me like a fierce nightmare.Suddenly, I was the little inexperienced teenager in university who got her heart broken over a man who would not look at her again when it wasn't my fault in the f
ALINA'S POVSome days passed, and in the twinkle of an eye, I was standing in front of a huge building on an early Monday morning."This is it," I thought, forcing out a smile that I plastered on my face, and made sure I kept it there all the way through the huge metal gates, even as I walked up to the front door, secretary, and gained access into the main building where all the magic happened.Apparently, everything was already set and in order before my arrival. My only guess was that somehow, our company had spies in their ranks too, making the way crystal clear for me, thus giving me access to the building.Come to think of it, that was only natural. But what I didn't understand was why those so-called spies couldn't do the job themselves. What did they need someone else for since they already had access to pretty much everywhere and could manipulate things in their favor too?“So why did they need someone else, that just so happened to be me?” I muttered, clicking my tongue in di