Chapter 3: A Second Time

The moment Aiden Patrick drove into the office today he heard the sound of a familiar heartbeat and smelled descent of a familiar rabbit as he entered the elevator with his assistance, and the elevator climbed to the 10th floor.

The smell got even stronger as they moved up, this let him know he was getting closer to her. The elevator doors opened, and it did not take him more than a second to lock eyes with her.

The moment she saw his face, she went as pale as a sheet of paper. For some reason, her erratic heart at this moment and the look of horror on her face were very interesting to him.

It only took a second before he looked away, but her world seemed to have been completely crushed to rubble. There was no hope. Life was bleak. Just when she was high up in the sky, he had to be her boss.

He greeted the department managers before making his way to the top floor. He had only bothered to greet certain specific departments when he entered as they were very key to the projects he was about to take on. He wanted to know every one of them by face.

His mood was chaotic when he first entered the office today, but the moment he saw her face, for some reason his mood lifted. He let out a breath full of relief. For some reason, he quite liked knowing exactly where she was.

“Harley.” He tasted her name on his lips before going ahead to fulfill his task for the day.

While he was having the time of his life, Harley's life was completely getting destroyed.

It did not take long for Arch Enemy, Dora, to notice that something was wrong and come around like a vengeful ghost, to haunt her when she's at her lowest.

“Miss Forbes, why do you look like you've seen a ghost?” Dora asked,

“Maybe it's because I have seen a ghost.” Harley said, “always haunting me, hovering around and looking for a moment to pounce, to take over. If you are not a ghost or Poltergeist, what would you be?” Harley asked.

“You dare call me a ghost? I was just worried about you. You suddenly became several shades whiter. It can't be that you have already annoyed the CEO before he's even entered the office right.” Dora asked,

Harley wondered how she could be so spot on to this, she nearly frowned and almost gave herself away. ‘Did she notice?’ She did not believe it.

“Wouldn't that mean that I know the CEO. I did not know you had such wild imaginations Dora, but don't worry if any of us is going to offend the CEO first, if any of us is going to get in trouble first, it most definitely wouldn't be me.” Harley said.

She felt she had hidden it enough, hoping Dora would leave. She returned to her task very quickly.

The day moved on, and Harley almost forgot she was doomed. But that feeling didn't last. She went into work mode and forgot about her troubles until she was invited by the head of her team to join a very important project meeting.

At first she was pleased. She had always wanted to be part of big projects like this. That was until she walked through the doors of the meeting room and came face to face with her new reality.

The moment she laid eyes on Aiden Patrick her head lowered to her chest, allowing her hair to cover her face.

She found somewhere to sit quietly, hoping he would not notice her, but she must have been dreaming he could smell her from a mile away.

As the meeting progressed and nothing particular happened, Harley started to regain her calm and confidence. Maybe he did not remember who she was. Maybe he had not seen her face clearly that was night. After all, it had been dark in the car too.

With this thought in mind, she slowly calmed down and studied participating in the meeting. She hoped that if he one day recognized her as the one who had forcefully kissed him that night, he would at least be also filled with the memory of her hard working nature.

The moment she calmed down, she noticed, he wondered what went through her mind that calmed her down so quickly for a moment, he even had a slight delusion that she may be so focused on her work that she could forget that he was there.

But how could anyone forget that he was there? Aiden's presence was so large it could swallow the room whole.

But as though the universe was out to get Harley, Aiden took out his phone from his pocket to connect it to the projector and share the first project that he would be spearheading as CEO of the company, a project that was very vital for the marketing department to prepare from the beginning when his phone started to buzz.

Suddenly, text messages covered the screen, and everyone in attendance found their eyes bombarded with the same words repeated over again. It was almost as though the CEO's phone had been hacked by an army of bots.

The Messages read, ‘you have a girlfriend, bring her back home.’ It was clear it was from the boss's family. But did they have to hack his phone? Were they this nosy in private, these messages with no single change, even a punctuation stacked onto each other, blocking the screen.

Before he could react, the messages changed. The new message is read. ‘Do not deny it. We have evidence.’ It was followed by rolls upon rolls of the same picture.

Even though it was dark, one could still make out the figure of the CEO kissing a girl in red.

Aiden's hand froze midway to his phone, and he locked eyes with Harley on the other side of the room.

When these messages first appeared on the projector screen, Harley was like everybody else wondering if they should be reading what they were seeing, but the moment she saw the picture on the screen, she almost jumped out of her chair.

It took everything in her being to sit still. Her head lowered again into her chest, and she peeked from under her lashes at the CEO at the end of the desk to find him staring at her.

The moment they locked eyes, he raised his brow in question. It was only one action, yet Harley's newfound confidence collapsed like a sand castle. She knew at that moment he most definitely recognized who she was. He most definitely knew she was the one who had kissed him last night.

Panic was not enough to explain the state of Harley's being at this moment, she wished the ground could just open up and swallow her whole.

She glanced back at the picture, but only saw it for a moment before it had been taken off the screen. But even then, she recalled that only her back had been in that picture. She was confident that no one would be able to recognize that it was her in it, even her mother.

She was slightly relieved. But what did it matter? The most important person who was the victim of her actions that night knew who she was, and even if she could have denied it before there was no evidence,

Harley felt exposed. She felt as though she was sitting there stark naked, even though the meeting continued, as though nothing happened. Every time his eyes rested on her, she felt as though he could see right through her clothes.

Harley almost couldn't sit still. She needed to clear the air. She needed to explain herself, and more than anything, she needed to apologize.

She thought of many excuses in her mind. She had even written a big speech in her mind, something akin to a fascist oath of loyalty. But she was not sure how she could meet him.

After raking her brain for the entire work day, completely distracted, she figured with the rumour and gossip she had heard about him, he would not leave work that early, so she had a plan.

When everyone had left, she would go up to his office and bow, kneel and grovel if she needed to anything to save her job. The one moment she decided to do some daring, she messed up her life. She truly regretted it.

Aiden, on the other hand, was oddly uncomfortable since the kiss from the night before. His emotions churned all night and as the day grew, the tension in his being was expanding.

His emotions were building and were about to explode, but night had come. No matter how much he tried to stay focused, he felt he was about to transform.

This was odd, given that even a full moon would not be able to force him to transform and go into a full blown wedge as a pure blood wolf King.

He hurriedly dismissed his assistant and secretaries and made sure he was alone. Unknown to him, a little rabbit was coming up to make things worse.

If he had been half as sane as usual, he would have noticed the moment she stepped out of the elevator on his floor, he had forgotten to lock the door to his office.

And while he was barely holding on, barely keeping sane, his office door cracked open and the little rabbits stuck her head through.

The room was dark, but Harley could still make out a man in front of a desk. So she inched closer, because she had started rattling away her memorized apology. She did not even register the sound of growling that close to her.

The next moment, she found herself slammed onto the office desk. She was disoriented for a moment, only to look up into very sea eyes, she saw his face distorted into a human and found that his teeth, which were kin to that of a wild beast, could know more teeth. They looked like fangs. They did not just look like fangs. They were fangs.

The moment she noticed what was happening, her mind raced and fear gripped her. She had watched enough movies to know this was the moment someone would get killed.

She struggled and thrashed wildly, but his grip was too strong,

“Sir, sir.” She called out to him, but he seemed unable to hear her.

“Aiden. Aiden.” She started to call his name, and for some reason, he had a hint of clarity, and his grip weakened enough for her to crash onto the floor and crawl away from him.

Whether because of panic or plain stupidity, she crawled away from the door, seeing as he was now by the doorway, she knew her root out had been blocked.

She did not notice that Aiden had started to calm down as she went on her knees and started praying.

When Aiden heard her prayer, he almost doubled into a fit of laughter.

“God, let my meat be sour. God, let my blood be bitter. May my head not roll like a ball on the streets.” She said,

“What nonsense are you sprouting. He asked, “don't people usually ask for their enemies to die at this time or to be saved?”

“Where do you see a saviour coming?” She asked him, “since you are going to eat me anyway, I must make sure you don't enjoy even a second of the process. I pray for your food to be bitter.” she said.

Seeing that he had calmed down, she was slightly relieved, but knew she had gotten herself into worse trouble.

“I will not tell anyone.” She said, and he stared at her silently, before approaching slowly. She retreated until she was completely hugging her knees, plastered to the wall. He crouched down and lifted her chin,

“Harley,” he said, lifting her chin so she could look at him, and she shivered at his voice. “Such a fuzzy rabbit, you can't be let out of sight.”