Chapter three

"Honey, I'm home!" I announced to no one in particular the moment my feet stepped past the threshold of the apartment. I slid my feet out of my flats and walked into the sitting room. I found Kate laying spread-eagled on the couch, her long legs dangling from the side and her laptop perched on her folded legs while a talk show played on the TV. A can of soda and an open box with only three slices of pizza in it sat on the coffee table beside her. "You're back from work early?"

"Yeah." She glanced up and turned back to typing furiously on her laptop. "My dumb boss allowed everyone home early. So, how did the interview go?"

"Like utter shit," I said, somberly as I walked to the kitchen, sighing dramatically. I walked over to the sink and washed my hands. A loud beep came from the microwave, and I turned my head just in time to see a bowl -almost full to the brim- of macaroni and cheese before the inside of the microwave went dark.

I sighed.

A few moments later, I strolled out. The sound of Kate's fingers tapping the laptop's keyboards ceased as she looked over her shoulder, catching the sight of the bowl of her favorite food in my hands. "Have I told you how much I love you?" she crooned and batted her lashes up at me.

"Mhm-hmm, quite a lot if you ask me, but really, who am I to complain when I don't want a pickaxe in the head?" I droned, placing the bowl beside the soda can on the coffee table and flanking down beside her.

"Well, I fucking love you."

I arched an eyebrow, giving her a flat look. A very flat look. "You pluck my eyebrows while I sleep."

She rolled her eyes. "At least they look a lot more better on you after being plucked!"

Now, it was my turn to roll my eyes. "That shit hurts like a bitch, Kate."

"Fair point, but that doesn't mean I'll stop."

I made a face, trying very hard to hide my smile but failing miserably. "I love my eyebrows just the way they are, thank you very much, dearest best friend."

"That's because I pluck them for you!" She threw her hands up in the air and her laptop tilted to the side. She caught it just as it was about to plummet to the ground.

I sighed, cursing my clumsiness and wishing I had reflexes like that. "Once again, Kate: that shit hurts like a bitch."

"You'll thank me when, in less than ten years, we pass the big Three-Oh, and everything starts to slip and droop, and your eyebrows look as hairy as an Oompa Loompa," she piped.

"Oompa Loompa isn't hairy."

"That's my point exactly," she voiced, her eyes flickering to the mac and cheese on the table. "But I still love you."

My already-high eyebrow went higher, determined to fly off my face and reach for the sky. I glanced at the almost-empty pizza box, soda can, and bowl of macaroni cheese on the coffee table before my eyes slid back to my best friend. "Almost as much as food?" I inquired.

She looked at me mischievously over the rim of her laptop lid. "A million and one times more, sweetheart."

Feeling and hearing my stomach growl, I leaned forward and pulled out a slice of pizza from the box. Kate shot me a look from where she sat, a look that'll result in most people cowering at first sight, but I waved my hand dismissively at her face. "A girl's gotta eat," I sang cheerily before shoving the pizza into my mouth.

A commercial about a wart removal cream played on the TV, drawing our attention to it. It was definitely about a new product seeing as it was the first time I was hearing about it. A few video clips came up, showing us people with different sizes of warts and pimples and how the cream 'made the warts go away'.

"No matter how big it is, the Clydesdale Cream will suck it up!" the commentator said with glee just as the commercial ended and the talk show resumed.

I snorted as did Kate.

"Well, whoever Clydesdale Cream is, he or she has gotta have one wide mouth," Kate said while I snickered.

Then, she slammed the lid of the laptop shut and put it aside. She sat up straight and reached for the bowl. Her scrutinizing eyes zeroed in on me, narrowing to slits. "Don't tell me you were waiting for me to ask you to spill the milk. Come on, spill it, woman."

I took a deep breath, the smell of melted cheese and pepperoni emanating from my open lips and dancing salsa around my nostrils. I leaned back on the couch and tilted my head. "The interview went great."

From the corner of my eye, I saw that her expression didn't falter. Instead, her gaze hardened and she took a spoonful of her mac and cheese, eyeing me warily like a Sherlock descendant. "Great. Now spill the actual milk."

"You're a pest, you know that, right?"

"A pest that loves food, country music, and Sean O'Pry," she corrected. "Now, spill before I jab a plastic fork between your eyes."

I took another pizza slice from the box, tipping my head and letting out a heavy breath. And I told her everything, starting from the moment I stepped foot into the skyscraper all the way to when I threw the broken doorknob (that my boss gave me as a complementary welcome-to-the-company gift) in the nearest trashcan available on my way back to the apartment. When I was done talking, I all but panted for air.

I watched Kate's face stretch into a suspiciously mischievous smile. "Damn, bitch. You met Ivan Trevelyan."

It was more of a statement than a question but I nodded anyway. "Yep, I guess, and I'm proud to say that he's an asshole."

Her smile stretched wider, and she took her can of soda, and brought the rim to her lips, I could have sworn she smirked. "So you hate him?"

I narrowed my eyes, plucking out a warm piece of pepperoni from the last slice and nibbling on it. "I didn't say that but yes. I mean, who fires an employee who did nothing wrong? And he freaking called me Miss. Yellow. I just want to grab that thick hair of his in my hand and-"

"Kiss him till kingdom come?"

I shot her a look. "No, Stupid. I want to-"

"Jump his bones till the world blows up?"

I gave her a flat look. "No, Kate. I want to shove his pretty little face into a pot full of boiling, watery shit."

She opened her laptop lid and soon enough, her fingers started to fly fast across the keyboard at lightning speed. "Suuuuuure, honey."

I threw her a displeased look, wondering what she was driving at before slinging my leg up the armrest of the couch and turning back to the TV. An interview with a musician I didn't recognize was playing on the talk show. I watched with intense inquisition after plucking another pepperoni off the last pizza slice. A few minutes into the talk show, Kate nudged me and shoved her laptop into my hands. I glanced at her and she jerked her chin towards the screen.

When I looked at the laptop, my mouth popped open.

Ivan Trevelyan's press photos were staring right back at me from the laptop screen.

There was not very much of them -considering the fact that he was a very important person in the business technology world- but there was enough to me to see.

The first one I saw was a caught-off-guard photo probably taken by a reporter who didn't want Ivan Trevelyan to know his picture was being taken or something. He was doing the hand-on-chin-and-look-away gesture (how he managed to pose expertly like a model without actually meaning to pose for a camera was a mystery), and there were two bulky men in black suits with this cliché white earphone thing hooked into their ears, who I immediately guessed as bodyguards or escorts, on either side of him.

I hadn't even realized I was staring until I felt Kate shift beside me and playfully bump her shoulders against mine. "Oh, that's really hot. Damn, you're one lucky bitch. You caught a big one."

I spun my neck to face her. "I did not catch anything. He's hot, I admit, but he's an asshole. And that's doesn't sound like something that'd make me a lucky bitch."

Kate shrugged as she spooned the last scoop of mac and cheese. "Just saying, sweetheart." She didn't wait for me to respond. She stood up from her spot on the couch, taking the bowl with her, and heading to the kitchen.

I veered my attention back to the laptop and scrolled down the photos. Most of them were all caught-off-guard pictures, it took a while to dawn on me that the man probably didn't like having reporters take his pictures, which seemed quite unfortunate.

Unfortunate because someone like him didn't have many press photos on the internet for horny women to gawk at and swoon dramatically.

Not because I wanted more pictures of him to drool over.

When I started to see pictures that didn't look anything like the sexpot asshole I had met that day, I sighed heavily to myself. "I think those are all his press photos," I said to no one in particular. I was just about to lower the laptop when I caught a glimpse of a picture, and just like the normal human being that I was, my curiosity spiked. I furrowed my brows and settled the laptop back on my folded legs. The cursor on the screen moved from the exit button of the browser and flitted across the page over to the photo as I moved my index fingertip. 

Then I clicked.

As the page loaded, Kate came, waltzing into the living room with two more cans of fizzy soda and half a breadstick in her hand, humming to herself.

"Jesus, woman," I muttered. "What are you? A pregnant, hormonal hippo?"

She plopped down on the couch across the one I sat. "When a woman's thighs remain almost as skinny as an inflated dildo no matter how much she eats, she's gotta have to take advantage of that. Here, think fast."

I hardly had any time to blink before I saw something flying towards me. A few milliseconds later, I heard the crunching sound of a soda can as it hit my face, bouncing back and landing with a dull thud in the carpeted floor. "Thanks," I mumbled, my fingers reaching up to knead my forehead.

"Sure."

My legs outstretched and the tips of my toes steered the drink back to me and, with expertise, I used my feet to seize the drink high enough for my hand to reach. My eyes returned to the laptop screen and I stilled.

Staring back at me from the screen was Ivan Trevelyan. But not exactly Ivan Trevelyan.

The sexpot I met earlier definitely didn't have grey hair and deep bluish-grey eyes.

Hard. The face of the man displaying on the screen was hard. Unimaginably harder than Ivan Trevelyan's. The type of hard that made you want to curl up in a tangled mess of soft blankets and cry for the population of human beings that had seen and felt the wrath of the owner of the face. The man's face wasn't hideous, no. In fact, it was just as handsome as Ivan Trevelyan's, probably more handsome. A darker shade of golden brown hair with a decent amount of grey strands was neatly combed to the back not leaving any wandering strands behind, depicting an organized and disciplined personality. His jaw was well defined, sharp, angular, and free of stubble unlike Ivan's whose jaw had a little sprinkle of stubble. Thick, dark eyebrows sat atop his stoic steel-blue eyes; with this pointed look in his face that spoke words in a thousand languages altogether spelling out the words rich and powerful. He had this poker-like expression that made me think he knew I was gawking at his picture. However, there was something about the picture, apart from the greying hair and blue-grey eyes, that showed the precise difference between Ivan and the man.

Two things, exactly.

First was the deep and mesmerizing dimple in his right cheek that showed even though he wasn't smiling in the picture. And second was the almost-faded beauty spot on the upper part of his forehead near his hairline.

I had to stare hard enough to notice the last one, though.

My eyes wandered down to the text below the image and I found myself gaping.

Even a kindergartener would have immediately guessed that the man was Ivan Trevelyan's biological dad.

But my dumb ass thought it was an older brother or some shitty distant relative from whom Ivan Trevelyan got most of his looks.

The text underneath the picture read, "Michelangelo Winslow, England's famous business mogul, father of New York City's business mogul, Ivan Trevelyan.

Missing: hot sexy photos. Must include: hot sexy photos."

"Jesus," came Kate from beside me. When she got there, I had no idea because I was too absorbed into the picture to notice. "His dad."

Yeah, no shit.

"Oh, my God," Kate shrieked, managing to sound so much like a wailing banshee, not that I've heard a wailing banshee before, but still. "It's like he's staring right into my soul!"

I didn't respond. I didn't know what to say. My eyes were transfixed on the screen, and I felt like if I removed my eyes off him for even a second, he'd blink and swallow my soul whole. Like those creepy museum statues that gave me nightmares when I was four.

No, I'm not crazy.

The shrill doorbell went off, startling me as I somehow managed to pry my eyes off the laptop screen. Kate mumbled something under her breath as her thin, long feet trod on the blue-green carpeted floor towards the door. She yanked open the door, and conversed with the person on the other side for about fifteen seconds or so before abruptly slamming the door shut.

"Who was it?"

"Those little devils with missing front teeth and tiny fingers who live a few blocks away," Kate murmured, no doubt, her mood sour.

I groaned out loud. Those 'little devils' were three kids, as Kate said, that lived about four blocks away from the apartment—George, Georgia, and Georgiana were their names—they were annoying little brats who took off almost every week, advertising different random products to every single house and apartment on the street.

"What did they try to promote today?"

"Cat food."

"Oh God."

"I know, right?" Kate enunciated, her eyes looking pointedly at the laptop. "Hey, are you done ogling your future boyfriend's dad?"

"I hate you." I took a nearby throw-pillow and threw it at her face.

She caught the pillow fast. Damn her reflexes! And hurled it back at me. But I survived, the pillow managing to whizz past my ear and hit the door behind me. "You know you love me, honey."

"Idiot."

"Oh right. You know you love me, idiot," she belted out loud again passionately, while holding a hand to her chest.

"I'm sorry, Miss, but I bat for the other team."

She chuckled, snatched the laptop from my grasp, and plopped down beside me. "Your future boyfriend's dad is really hot though. But hold on though." Her deep almost-black brown eyes darted to her laptop screen, "isn't his last name supposed to be Trevelyan...?"

Huh? My eyebrows pinched together and I scooted closer to her. "What do you mean?"

She outstretched her long, thin index finger and pointed to somewhere on the screen. "The article title says 'Michelangelo Winslow'. Not Michelangelo Trevelyan."

I let my eyes follow her finger. "Oh yeah, I see that." The knot between my eyebrows tightened. "Weird. Maybe it was a mistake by the writer of the article or something. Or maybe my boss is secretly a married woman."

Kate frowned and quickly typed some stuff on the keyboard like the journalist that she was. "It couldn't have been a mistake," she mumbled quietly to herself. "The article was created three years ago by some doofus named Joel Yuckman. If there was a mistake, it would have been corrected before now."

I watched as she exited the page and typed something into the search bar. Joel Yuckman, she typed. "Kate," I said slowly. "Please tell me you're not trying to stalk a stranger."

She paused her typing to throw me a sly look. "Over the internet? Yes. In real life? No, thank you."

I sighed. "It still counts as stalking, like, social-stalking, you know?"

"No, Belle," she deadpanned, looking at me flatly. "No, I don't know. Besides, you do it almost all the time."

I held a hand to my chest as I feigned hurt. "Touché." She rolled her eyes and continued her research work. The page loaded and hundreds of results popped up. I leaned back on the couch and watched Kate examine it with deep, Sherlock-like scrutiny. Then, she scrolled down the suggestions of websites, eyes searching around the screen as if looking for something. The urge to pee suddenly hit me and I felt myself stand up. "Do your thing, I've gotta use the can."

"Mhm."

I sighed, immediately guessing- no, wait cross that- immediately knowing that she hadn't heard a single word I spoke. "Katherine Alyssa Marie Montgomery is a nincomshit."

"Mhm."

"I think so too," I muttered, walking out of the living room. I made a quick trip to the bathroom and did my deed. When I walked back into the living room, Kate looked somewhat fidgety as she ate a piece of her breadstick. She looked up when I took a seat beside her.

"So, what's up?" I asked, popping open the lid of my soda can. "Have you found anything to satisfy your curiosity about my boss?"

"Nope," she said. "Instead, I found something to fuel it."

I craned my neck towards the screen. Sure enough, there was an article from the New York Times displaying on it. "Huh?"

She sighed as if preparing herself to talk."This NYT article says that Joel Yuckman was arrested for publishing false info on the web three years ago."

"Yikes," I grimaced -people get arrested for that?- before my face contorted into a thoughtful frown. "But that doesn't sound like something that an editor from the New York Times will want to add as an article in the newspaper. I don't know if this sounds offensive to the Yuckman dude, but an NYT editor publishing something about the arrest of a normal citizen seems quite... irrelevant."

She snapped her fingers. "Exactly. But when the charges for Yuckman's arrest was pressed by business tycoon, Ivan Trevelyan himself, it's bound to reach the newspapers somehow."

"Do you mean to say that Ivan Trevelyan was the one who pressed charges and got Yuckman arrested?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, it was written in the NYT article, but in a more subtle and discreet way than normal, probably so only people with Einstein brains will be able to figure it out or something."

I licked my lips, letting what she said sink in. "Is it possible that this Yuckman dude got arrested by Ivan Trevelyan for-"

"-posting that article that we just saw a while ago about his dad being Michelangelo Winslow?" Kate piped and I nodded stiffly. "Yeah, it's pretty possible."

"But if Yuckman's article was false, how about the resemblance in the picture? I mean, Ivan Trevelyan is practically the spitting image of this Michelangelo Winslow minus the grey hair and dimple."

She shrugged again. "My guess is that Yuckman found out something about Ivan Trevelyan that Ivan Trevelyan doesn't want anyone to know; something about his relationship with Michelangelo Winslow or," she drawled out the last word. "Or Yuckman just misunderstood stuff and Michelangelo is actually Ivan Trevelyan's gay older brother or distant uncle who chose to change his last name to that of his husband's. I really don't know, sis."

I gnawed on my lower lip, dragging my teeth across it. It seemed pretty wrong to snoop into the life of Ivan Trevelyan like creepy stalkers, but who were we to complain when we had all that information at our reach? "Maybe we should try Googling stuff about Michelangelo Winslow to see if there's anything that hints that he's related to Ivan Trevelyan?" I suggested and took a gulp of the soda.

She ate another piece of breadstick dejectedly. "I wish we could, sis, I wish we could. But we can't just Google personal stuff about someone as rich as Michelangelo Winslow or even your future boyfriend just like that, you know? The IP address of my laptop could be traced by some ex-FBI agent or some psycho computer geek who works for him and -BAM- we get in trouble for being curious."

My eyes narrowed. "He's my boss, not that."

"That's all you got for my speech?" Her fingers resumed typing in the laptop keyboard. "Well, keep saying it till you believe it, honey. All your past relationships always started like that. First, they get under your skin, then, inside your pants, and then, are sent flying straight to your heart."

"Oh, har har. Very funny, Montgomery. I don't hate him, he's just an asshole."

"Now, you're just being bipolar."

"Kate, please stop." I groaned as I picked the last pizza slice, and turned back to the TV.

"If you say so."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her stare at me with the ghost of a smile on her face. "What?" I said without taking my eyes off the TV. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Nothing at all."

I narrowed my eyes, as I took a bite out of the pizza. It's definitely something.

*

I woke up with a groan. A splitting headache attacked me the moment I pried my my eyes open. My muscles were aching and practically begging me to sleep in. I reached out my hand and patted the bed around me blindly looking for my phone. And when found it minutes later, I raised it to my face to check the time.

Oh look, it's eight AM!

I smiled brightly to myself before closing my eyes, and dropping the phone back on the bed. My fingers reached for the second pillow that laid beside me and shoved it into my face as I curled into the fetal position, prepared to slip back into dreamland.

Then, a thought crossed my mind.

All of a sudden, my eyelids flew open and realization settled in the deep pit of my stomach. I shot out my hand and pulled the soft pillow off my face, and I sat up straight, barely managing not to bang my throbbing head on the wrought-iron headboard. My nails dug into the bed as the pulse in my head throbbed painfully.

Are baby elephants banging in my head or what?

My hand caught a loose grip on my phone and I glanced at it.

08:23 AM, it said.

Squeezing my eyes shut and trying to will my headache away, I rested my stiff back on the headboard, the cold wrought-iron pressing into my back, massaging it.

Flashbacks of yesterday's events flew in my mind like a starving butterfly. Flashbacks of me laying on a marble-tiled floor. Flashbacks of a handsome sexpot's posterior. Flashbacks of me walking in an empty hallway with an opaque glass across me. Flashbacks of-

Oh yeah, I have a job!

My eyes flew open again without asking for permission from my brain, and I stifled a groan. They slid back to lit screen of my phone and widened on their own accord.

Holy shit! I'm late for work!

I catapulted off the bed and ran to the bathroom. Within ten minutes -which was the shortest time I've ever taken to get ready- I was done.

I all but ran into the kitchen. When I got there, my eyes caught sight of three brightly colored sticky notes taped on the fridge door with Kate's scrawled chicken-stratch yet visible writing on them. I sprinted to them and immediately yanked it off. The first one read:

Went to work early. Tried waking you up but you slept like a goddamn hibernating mama bear. Hope the alarm I set in your phone woke you up. If not... oh well, good luck in your first day!

Then, the second one:

PS there's a granola bar in the fridge, if you don't have time for breakfast.

And the last:

PPS remember to say hi to your future boyfriend for me. xx

I scowled at the last one briefly and threw it over my shoulder. Opening the fridge, I found the bar and shoved deep into my bag. I spotted an apple right beside it and reached for it too.

In no time, I was out of the apartment.

Getting to TE, I ran to the building. When I entered the elevator, I sighed and pressed my back on the wall, rubbing my hands through my hair.

What the heck were you thinking? My subconscious was in her reading glasses and she folded her arms, tapping her foot and slowly shaking her head. 

I heard a ping and I walked out of the elevator. I went to the brunette I saw yesterday.

"Hi." I smiled, though my mind was in conflict. "Is Mr. Trevelyan in?" I asked, clutching my bag tightly, hoping he wasn't here yet.

"Oh hello, you're the new one right?" She smiled at me.

"Yeah. Is he in yet?" I asked again.

"Oh, the boss? Nope, he isn't," She said and I let out a whiff of breath I didn't know I was holding.

You were lucky this time. Next time, just go over to a bar and forget you have a job. My subconscious sneered at me and I shut her out.

"Okay cool, thanks. Do you know where I'm supposed to be?" I asked. I don't even know what being the boss's secretary entailed to. What I was supposed to be doing and all.

The brunette arched a brow, clearly confused.

"I don't know where my office is," I clarified and she mouthed an oh

"Let me just finish up. Then, I'll show you your office," She said. "By the way, I'm Susan." She stretched out a hand.

"I'm Isabelle." I took her hand and smiled.

*

"Here's your office, Isabelle." She gestured her hand toward the office. The office was just like Mr. Trevelyan's except that it was smaller and it didn't have couches. It was about the size of my room. It had white walls. The desk was shining brown just like the desk of Mr. Trevelyan. 

"Seriously." I blinked. "This is my office." It was more than I thought. I had thought that my office would be smaller, way smaller. 

"Yeah, it is. Being the boss's secretary is high, and as you got hired to that position just like that," she said. "You have to be careful. People around here are mean. And because they might think you're the boss's favorite, they will be definitely meaner." 

Oh?

"Okay, thank you, Susan," I said and smiled.

"It's okay. Now get ready before the boss arrives. He hates nose poking employees," She said deadpanned.

"Hmm." I hummed and Susan was about to leave when I called out, "And Susan?"

She turned. "Yeah?"

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Just a week." She shrugged at the look on my face. "They say no employee lasts more than two months."

"Woah? Is that really true?" I asked and she shrugged again.

"I really have to go," she said and I nodded and she left.

I dropped my bag on one of the chairs in front of the desks.

No employee lasts more than two months. My subconscious huffed. Who is he? God?

But he's my boss though.

I prayed to any supreme being out there that exists, that I last more than a week.

I really needed the money. My mum was a heart patient and she couldn't work anymore. My younger sister, Crystal was still in high school and I paid her fees. My dad had died seven years ago when I was still in high school. I needed the money to take of my mum and pay Crystal's fees. My mum and Crystal lived in a flat in Seattle, while I came here to New York to look for a suitable job that could take care of the fees. 

I plopped down on the seat behind the desk and wiggled my hips, feeling the soft leather seat under my posterior. My eyelids flew wide open and my lips stretched into a smile.

I lowered my voice into the deepest, huskiest masculine voice I could muster, "Hey Thomas, don't just stand there looking like a dead fish! Get back to work!" I stifled a giggle, picturing the grumpy facial expression of Ivan Trevelyan in my mind's eye, and morphing my face into a stony grimace. "Straighten up, Victoria, we don't have all day. And would you rather I get on my knees to ask for you to get me some files before I die of boredom!?" I proceeded to raise my index finger at nothing in particular and my chin jutted out. "Yes, Christopher, you're too stupid for your age. Get me some asshole cereal before I deduct the amount of time you waste from your salary!"

I sighed, dropping my hand down and swaying slowly in my swivel chair. The air around me suddenly felt cold but I ignored it and fluttered my eyes shut. The pads of my fingers grazed the surface of the table, and I sensed part of my consciousness drifting off to La La Land. The desk felt smooth and hard underneath my fingers and I drew in a lungful of breath through my nostrils before letting it out past my lips.

"Miss. Greene."

I hummed in satisfaction. Ah, the perks of having a big office, and being alone. I couldn't still believe that this was my office. Susan must have made a mistake. I made a quick mental note to ask her later. I rested my back on the swivel chair, enjoying the cozy feeling.

"Miss. Greene."

Cool air blew over my face and I felt a shadow hovering over my face.

"Isabelle!"

I snapped my eyes open, startled, and saw green orbs staring into my eyes.

With the corner of my eye, I saw a figure standing by the door, jaw clenched, brows pinched tightly together, grey eyes sending a cold shiver up and down my spine.

My boss.