Friday
It had been a long week. One Clara did not imagine she was going to have. It was supposed to be an installation of the new security system for Navio, but now, she had also gained a sister. Who would have thought that revealing the truth by accident would be a good thing?
She was still on pins and needles when it came to her parents, but she promised herself to take it one day at a time. No use worrying about it when it hasn’t even happened yet. Celine was going to call her and let her know what her parent’s schedule looked like so she could let Sebastian’s mom know in advance when they could have brunch at their house.
But today, it was going to be goodbye for now. The past few days, having lunch with Nathan, her father, was just as she always imagined it would be like if they were together. Having d
Friday night It was their last night in San Diego, and tomorrow, Sebastian was giving them a ride on his private jet. It felt delightful and scary to date a very important person like Sebastian, but for now, she will relish the fact that she was in love and she was happy. But fear and doubt were creeping in slowly. The situation felt too ideal, too perfect, and she felt like she was just waiting for the ball to drop. This happy feeling never lasts long. Sooner or later, something will happen, something to make her unhappy. She feared she might not measure up to other people’s expectations of being his girlfriend, even though they both knew that she was more than enough. Bearing the credentials of being the CEO of her own company should have allayed her fears, but there were still doubts that lingered in her mind. She couldn’t pinpoint where these seeds of dou
Clara started opening up to Jeremy about her fears. He would usually let her talk and then give his opinion, but this situation seemed like she just needed to dump her unfounded fears onto him. For a loud, opinionated, over-confident, feisty petite woman, there were a lot of things that scared her. Doubts and insecurities always wormed their way into her active mind. Growing up in an orphanage will do that to you. That feeling of being left behind just never leaves you. The weight on her shoulders was just too much for her to bear, but she had not cried this time, which was good because it meant Clara had solutions to her problems and did not feel very helpless about the situation. Voicing them out helped her realize that she was in control. Sebastian, her parents, these were people she could talk to and voice her concerns. Jeremy had slowly turned off the li
Two weeks after the successful installation, Sebastian and Clara were finally free to pursue their relationship out in public. Most of her staff knew they were in a relationship already, so nobody batted an eye when Sebastian strolled around their building like he owned the place. This was the weekend she would finally let her parents know the daughter they lost 20 years ago was alive. A couple of months ago, Clara recovered her childhood memories when she met Celine. And through a paternity test, identified that she really was the missing daughter of the Jacobs family. Samantha Colfer, Sebastian's mom, looked at the garden and thought she had outdone herself this time. It was a small party, but she still wanted to make it festive. The announcement will definitely shock her guests. But before everything else, she wanted them to feel relaxed and at ease. When
‘I’m not sure,’ Clara said, moisture gathering in her eyes. ‘She called out my old name… Why don’t you go ahead and see what happened? I’ll be outside the bathroom, listening.’ It was not the way Clara planned this revelation. She wanted to do it slowly, but she did not count on her mom recognizing her, and this brought tears to her eyes. Her mom knew who she was. She stood outside the bathroom door, sniffling as she listened in on their conversation. Sebastian had his arms around her. ‘Mom, are you okay? What happened?’ Celine asked as she left the door ajar, so Clara could hear. Emelia was inconsolable, ‘Carmen... oh Carmen, it’s my baby... oh Carmen, I know it’s her. Tell me it’s my baby.’ ‘Shh… Honey, it’s going to be okay,’ Nathan said as he rubbed his wife’s ba
Clara introduced Sebastian to her parents, told them they were together and her dad’s protective instinct kicked in. ‘Young man, I hope your intentions for my daughter are honorable. We should have lunch one of these days,’ he said. She smiled when Sebastian nodded and kissed her cheek, and her dad frowned. It was how she imagined it was like to have a dad. It made her feel warm and fuzzy inside that he was meddling with her relationship already. But she probably won’t appreciate it later when he tries to step in between them. Next, she introduced her brothers Jeremy and Max, and she saw her dad’s eyes narrow when Max said hi. ‘Uh oh,’ she thought, ‘my dad does not like Max either?’ They thanked John and Samantha for graciousl
Boss and Spike have been together since they were kids. Living in the unsavory parts of the city, where kids get born to teenage, drug-addled parents out of wedlock. They usually get taken away by social services to get stuck in a system that doesn’t care about them. If they do survive, then they fall back to where their parents originated from, continuing the never-ending cycle of drugs and violence. They start out as drug runners, lookouts for unsavory characters, and sources of information for their kind. They do not know any other way of life other than being a thug and a criminal. But that one million dollar windfall 20 years ago was the break they needed to start their business. They built a casino as a front for their drug business, and until recently, they had been successful. Their sources got busted by the cops. Millions of dollars went down the drain when their items were confiscated. All becau
On one side of the rooftop garden, Clara had wound herself into a ball, hiding under one of the tables, in between the chairs. She was invisible to anybody who was not aware of her presence. Sebastian was currently in a meeting, and she had come out to the roof because she needed to think. Figure out how she would broach the subject of the kidnapping to her parents. The clues she needed could only come from them, but every time they would meet, her mom teared up, and she did not have the heart to remind her of the past. She planned to ask her dad to come up to the roof so nobody would overhear them. They would see anybody who came up the stairs or the elevator. She was not worried about the recording since she had nothing to hide from Sebastian, anyway. But when she was about to call her father, she heard v
The search for Nicholas Jacobs, Clara’s uncle, got issued as soon as Sebastian learned what happened. He wanted to make sure that the man responsible for Clara’s abduction years ago would be behind bars before she even woke up to face the nightmare all over again. When they couldn’t find him, Sebastian told Anthony, the head of security, to fetch Nathan Jacobs, Clara’s father, and bring him to his office. He needed to know what happened all those years ago, and though he did not know how to broach that subject yet, his future father-in-law deserved the truth. And that is where they found Nicholas confessing his sins to his brother. Nathan had his brother’s suit jacket tightly clasped between his hands. The intention to kill his brother was evident in his murderous glare. ‘You son of a bitch! How could you do that to us? Those girls thought the world of