Chapter 6

The whole weekend, Charlotte did not get out of the bedroom. I tried knocking on her door and she wouldn’t open the door, so I decided to let her be. Monday morning, I was still sleeping in one of the guest rooms. I woke up to the alarm on my phone and still having a million questions about everything I saw Friday night. I had no time to just sit on my bed and think so I decided to get out of bed and headed to the shower. After taking a quick shower, I realized that Charlotte didn’t even bother to wash my uniform or even try to help me get ready as she usually does. I just put on my normal jeans and sneakers with a black sweater. I went to the main bedroom and tried to get in but Charlotte locked the door.

“Babe, come on” I knocked on the door “It’s been three days now, we have to talk about this” I knocked once more “Okay then, I’m going to work now. I will tell Angela to prepare breakfast for you” I said.

Angela was more of our helper; she was pretty much getting paid for doing nothing because Charlotte told her to work only two days a week and sometimes, she can spend the whole week without coming to work. I asked myself why Charlotte even paid her sometimes. 

I stood on the door and Charlotte remained silent, I checked time on my wrist watch and realized that I was getting late.

“I love you” I said as I walked away from the door.

I walked downstairs and found Angela wiping the kitchen counter. She glanced at me without saying a word. Angela looked very shy, she was cute and looked too young to be a maid. I wondered if she ever went to school or what because she looked intelligent and could speak fluent English, but I did not bother to ask her about her academics since it was one of the rules that I wasn’t supposed to have a conversation with her. She was not even allowed to do breakfast for me, she was also not allowed to wash or iron my clothes. I never wanted to ask Charlotte why she gave Angela such strict rules, I just assumed that she was insecure.

I stopped at the door holding the hinge before getting out of the house.

“Hey, Angela” I greeted her.

“Hello sir” she replied with a shy tone in her voice.

“Can you please make some food for Charlotte; she’s not feeling well” I pleaded with her.

“Okay sir” she nodded as she too a pan and put it on the stove.

“Thank you” I said as I walked out of the house.

My driver was already waiting for me but this time he was not in a Rolls Royce but a black shiny G-wagon, it was my first time seeing this one. The weird thing is that these cars never stay at our place but somewhere else, only Charlotte her drivers knew where these cars stay. I got into the backseat of the G-wagon.

“Let’s go bro” I instructed my driver.

My driver started the engine and we were on our way. This was my second week at the bookstore and my rides to the workplace always felt like royalty, the only thing missing was the entourage but I felt like I was one those corrupt politicians.

When we got to the bookstore I went straight to my office and Abigail spotted me going through the stairs and followed me. I settled down on my comfortable chair and Abigail got into the office without knocking.

“What happened to Knocking, Abi?” I asked with an annoyed look.

“Oh, sorry about that” she apologized.

I nodded “What do you want?” I asked.

She gave me a surprised look which showed that she came here to ask about the uniform but since she found me not being in a good mood so she decided to ignore it.

“I wanted to check if you’re okay” she replied.

“I am okay” I said with a cold tone.

“Oh okay” she replied as she was turning back to the bookstore.

I felt bad about how I spoke to her and I saw the need to apologize immediately.

“No, Abi wait” I said.

She stopped and approached my desk once again. 

“I’m sorry for being rude” I apologized.

“It’s okay” she looked so relieved as she stood in front of me.

“Uhm, please take a seat I want to ask you something” I pleaded with her.

She pulled the chair and sat down then gave me an intimidating stare as I cleared my throat a preparing to cloud her with a few questions.

“Uhm, how long have you been working at this bookstore?” I asked.

“Well it’s been three years and a half now?” she answered with her loud bold voice.

“Okay cool, so who was the manager before I was employed here?” I added with another question.

“It was some Indian guy” she answered.

“What happened to him?” I asked once more and her intimidating stare faded as she began to look anxious now.

“Why? What do you want to know exactly sir?” she asked with an anxious facial expression on.

“Nothing, I just want to know the history of this beautiful bookstore” my words were accompanied by a laughter.

“There are new orders coming in 30 minutes, I need to go and inform the staff” she said as she quickly stood up.

“No problem, please tell Cindy to come to my office as soon as possible” I instructed her.

“Okay, sir” she replied as she hurried out of my office.

‘The way Abigail reacted to my questions showed that there’s something big going on here. But what could it be? Who is this Indian guy and what happened to him? It seems like there are so many secrets here. The drug operation speculations could be true but who is involved? How did Charlotte manage to get me this Job without me going to the interview or sending my CV?’

As I was in deep thought there was a knock on the door, I came back to my senses and it was Cindy. I stared at her as she walked into the office. Cindy had a curvy body and a very clear caramel skin with long hair. She was so beautiful; you’d swear that she was one of those rich house wives so hard to resist.

“Abigail said you’re calling me” she said as she approached my desk.

“Yes, please take a sit” I replied.

She down as I stare at her, she provided me with enough reasons why I’d cheat on Charlotte for some time.

“Today I’m supposed to take our books to the police station” I explained as she gave me her undivided attention.

“Yeah and?” she replied.

“I want you to accompany me” I said.

“Why me? I mean you can take them there on your own” she sighed, showing me that she was not interested.

“I have figured that you work hard packing those books on the shelves so I think I should give you a little break, and besides they will need someone who worked here for some time” I lied.

“Okay then, is that all?” she said with impatience in her voice.

“Yeah that’s all, we’ll leave in 10 minutes” I replied.

Cindy nodded and stood up. I watched her walk away and my own lust showed me how risking my relationship with Charlotte by fooling around with Cindy was worth it. Her pretty seductive voice was enough to make a man fantasize about her. No man would ignore her well chiseled body, she would make any man stare twice or more, let’s just say that she was a goddess.

I grabbed the three books and followed Cindy out of my office, we went down the stairs and to my surprise, my drive was still there in front of the store. We walked through the main store; everyone was staring at us including the customers.

“She’s even going out with the boss” some of the staff members whispered to one another.

At that point I realized that some of the staff members did not like Cindy. We exchanged glances and she seemed unbothered by the stares and the whispering.

We finally walked out of the store and I opened the door for, Cindy just shook her head and got into the backseat of a G-wagon. I closed the door after her and I used the other door and joined her at the backseat. 

“Take us to the police station bro” I instructed my driver.

He started the engine and drove off.

“You know, I’m curious why you’re Cindy on your name tag and you’re Kate in my cell phone” I said.

Cindy looked out the window for and then she turned and gave me a very interesting stared.

“You remind me of someone” she said with a different tone this time.

I laughed as I thought that she was joking.

I realized that her being rude to me just an act and she was actually more kind than she acted when we were at the office.

“No, I’m serious” she added.

I spent almost the whole year indoors last year, and this is my first-time meeting Cindy or Kate or whatever her name is. There’s no way that she met me anywhere.

“Who…?” I asked

“My high school boyfriend, his name was Kat” she explained.

‘The name that makes Charlotte furious all the time I mention it and now it was being mentioned by Cindy. What’s the deal with this name? Maybe she’s not talking about the same Kat that causes tension between me and Charlotte’ I thought to myself as I glanced at my driver.

“What happened to him?” I asked trying to suck some information about this Kat.

“Well Kat was the sweetest kind, and back then I hardly dated my peers” she paused and opened the window as the car was still moving. “So, Kat was the first one of my peers that I dated” she added.

Cindy was not mean this time like always, last time she cut my call but this time she seemed to be free. To my surprise she was now telling me about her past ‘maybe she might be playing hard to get’ I thought as I was watching her lips move up and down as she explained her once upon a time fairy tale story about the mysterious Kat.

“At the time Kat bored me” she continued “My ex-boyfriend by that time was this drug dealer named Lesly. Kat was that shy kind, he wouldn’t invite me to his place but he’d save money just to take me to the movies once a week, while Lesly would call me any time to come to his place and we’d make love” she added.

I laughed and gave her a few glances.

“Maybe Kat was virgin and too scared to admit it” I joked.

“Yeah, he was” she frowned for a minute as I waited for her to continue.

“Let me guess, Lesly got you pregnant?” I asked.

“Well, yeah” her tone went from just okay to disappointment.

I glanced outside wondering how far this police station was, there was a slight silence in the car.

“What did you mean when you said I remind you of Kat?” I asked.

“Well because…” she did not finish her sentence as my driver stopped in front of the police station.

Cindy opened the door and got out without finishing up her sentence, I grabbed the books and got out of the car. My driver was left in the car as we walked into the building, we stopped at the reception without greeting and this lady who cut her eyebrows and drew them back on, gave us a weird stare with her mouth full of gum.

“Well, their love has got to be story” female voices said behind us.

I did not bother to look who was speaking.

“Are you too love birds going to stand there the whole day?” the eyebrow lady said.

“We are not love birds” Cindy said with a mean voice.

“Lady, I’m looking for Detective Smith and Detective Jones” I explained to the eyebrow lady.

Without saying a word, the lady just took telephone and pressed some numbers. Her nasty attitude was getting on Cindy’s nerves and she was not beginning to get annoyed.

“Did you really have to come with me here” Cindy whispered in my ear.

I giggled “No, I want to take you somewhere after this, that’s why I took you” I replied.

“Well you shouldn’t have brought me here because Miss eyebrow here is getting on my nerves” Cindy whispered in my ear mocking the eyebrow lady.

I laughed out loud and my voice echoed through the room, everyone in the room stopped and stared, I had to hold my laughter. The eyebrow lady cut the call and it seemed that she found no one on the other end of the phone call.

“I think he left the office because he’s not answering” the eyebrow lady explained.

“Can you please give him these books when he comes back?” I pleaded with her.

She nodded as she made a balloon with the gum that was in her mouth. Cindy shook her head and walked away from the reception, I gave the lady a thumbs up and followed Cindy back to the car.

Cindy was just mesmerizing and beautiful enough to make any man fall from glory and this time she had the better of me, my aim was not to take her back to the bookstore but to take her to a restaurant somewhere maybe then I was going to have a chance to lure her into my arms and then maybe she might also fall for my charms. But Charlotte and Cindy had some similarities, they looked alike. Their walks were almost the same, the attitude nearly matched and their caramel skin was the same, one would day I was blessed to be around such beauty. The first time I saw her I thought that they were sisters but how ridiculous is that, I bet they never knew one another.