In the cab, Max drapes his arm around Clara. He knows that in her mind, there was a war going on. Her mind is fighting whether she should have backed down, accepting his invitation for dinner to show that arrogant fool that he did not really scare her and on the other, she felt she did the right thing. She would willingly swallow her pride and do what’s good for the company, but she would not let arrogant men like him win.
She leans against Max and sighs, ‘Max, did I do the right thing? It kind of scared me that if he took me to dinner, something else might happen. He looked like he would have been capable of taking drastic measures. What if I’m not as strong as I thought? If I couldn’t fight him back…’
He hugged her closer. ‘It’s okay Clara. He’s just a client. We can find another one. You are more i
-=-Sebastian and Clara had argued the entire day about whether Clara would be safe driving to San Diego with all her staff. He offered to take her on his private jet so he could be with her the whole time and guard her.Sebastian was not driving to San Diego with the team. Because as far as everyone was concerned, nobody knew they were in a relationship. Sure, people see Sebastian in the office from time to time and were under the impression that he was there for the security system to be installed in his company.Providing the security system for Navio is the biggest project they will encounter and will pave the way for SST to be recognized as a national brand.In the end, Clara won, and Sebastian agreed to let her ride with the team, provided she will check in w
After a while, both moms leave Celine and her blind date, Raffy, behind, hoping they would hit it off and agree to a date and hopefully get married in the future. But Celine had a rule. No dating within her circle and people within six degrees of separation. This was because she was a very private individual and did not want her romantic life plastered all over social media. Not even within her social circle.‘So, Raffy, I see your mom managed to drag you out of bed, get you dressed, and agree to this date on this pleasant Saturday morning, huh?’ She poured herself more tea. Celine wanted to show him she did not want to sit and pretend they were coming out as friends after this set-up.‘Yeah, well… I had to keep my mom from nagging me, so here I am. You’d think at this age, they’d just let me do what I want.’
By the time the entire team arrived at the site, they felt too exhausted to work on anything. And Sebastian, being the gracious host, had ordered food for dinner. Pizza, chicken wings, and beer to take the edge off. And for Clara, that was a plus for being thoughtful and attentive to the needs of the group. Sebastian was ticking off a lot of boxes on the boyfriend’s list. Clara didn’t have one, but if she did, Sebastian would have all the standards for what a boyfriend should be. He even offered to fly everybody home on his private jet because he knew Clara would not ride with him and let her team suffer on the commercial flight. It was an excuse to spend more time together and maybe cuddle with her on the plane. During dinner, they talked about who was sharing rooms at the hotel. Max wanted a room to himself, so maybe he could invite Celine over, but C
Installation - Day 1 - Monday‘In the building. Take a break.’ Max sends Celine a text.‘Busy. Meet you at lunch.’This was not how he imagined this day to be. He expected her to be happy he was in town, but it seems something happened last weekend, and she was not as responsive.Celine could not take a break, look at her phone, or even go to the restroom. Her supervisor has been watching her too closely for the past few days. Observing each and every move, waiting for her to make a mistake so he could find ways to punish her. Make her stay late, have her do all his tasks, and declare discrepancies where there are none.He had it for her ever since she came to the company. There was a rumor circu
Max cracked his knuckles as he clasped his hands together and stretched. It was easy to get into the manager’s computer. He had the lamest password in the world, and it was easy to guess, so Max could see what the guy was doing right away. First, Max had his computer screen flickering like it was losing power. He thought the guy was just a prick, so he was thinking of going easy on him, but as he delved deep into his computer applications, he found something that curdled his blood. There was a screen that was dedicated solely to Celine. The f*cker had a hidden camera on nearly all of his staff’s desks. That was why he could tell what she was doing.His breathing became labored as he contemplated what he should do to make this guy miserable. Max shut the supervisor’s computer down, changed all the access codes, and made it inoperable. Sebastian’s people were probably good at th
Installation - Day 3Max was livid. Celine did not tell her anything about her work life, and he respected her privacy about it, but now that he learned why, now with the supervisor laying his hands on her, he just wanted to kill the guy.He finished listening as the tech team recounted and narrated what happened at her office. They had ice cream as a reward for finishing most of the floors earlier than scheduled when two guys approached Clara. He just had lunch with Celine, and he was still on a high being with her, so he wasn’t really listening to what was happening until Clara gasped and he saw her say Celine’s name.He took the video they were looking at and saw what happened.It showed a man approaching a woman at her desk, and he knew it was Celin
-=- R18 -=-Max ran to see Celine. He knew what happened, but he had to curb his anger and excitement so as not to scare and alert her that he was spying. ‘Wait! Why should I keep this from her? Who cares if I know what happened? I saw it with my own two eyes. No lies, Max, no more lies.’ He was busy thinking in the elevator while he impatiently waited for it to get to the floor where the courtyard was.‘What happened?’ He asked as Celine jumped into his arms.‘It was so awful,’ her voice was muffled against his shoulder. ‘My supervisor made a pass at me, and I just… I want to get out of here and forget about it.’ He was rubbing her back to console her. This was the closest he had ever been to hugging her, and she felt very good in his arms. Like they were
Clara loved Max, but the way he has been handling his affairs with women lately did not go well with her. He was the “sleep with them and forget ‘em type.” Most of them knew what they were getting into, but the women always hoped he loved them enough to turn him into the man of their dreams.Max and Clara fought about this issue before, and Clara eventually caved, letting him lead his own life. But still hoping that when he met the love of his life, Max would settle down and change.Not knowing where they went, all she could do was wait for him. It was only 2 pm, and she had 3 hours to figure a way to talk to him so they can talk about this amicably. So maybe it was right for them not to talk right now because she would probably just scream at him, and everything might explode in their face.
Peace had returned to their household, and everything felt right. Celine and Max traveled back and forth between San Diego and San Jose since Celine reconciled with her parents, and Max was getting to know his parents better. They were having fun riding Sebastian’s plane all the time. It was the perk of knowing a billionaire and being closely related to one. What they had really wasn’t a terrible deal, having 2 houses and a place to stay wherever they were. They didn’t even need to pack any outfits since there had closets full of clothes in both locations. The thing is, they couldn’t decide which place to choose, where to stay and which one to leave, and the more the couple got together, the more they wanted to settle somewhere, where it was just them, so they both agreed that Celine would join Clara’s company, SST and Max would find them a house to settle in, something they could call their own. Max was the first to separate from their group, but Celine did not want to live too far
‘I feel nervous as hell. We’ve done this a hundred times before, yet I feel like it’s our first time.’ Celine had been in the bathroom for the last half hour since the reception ended. She couldn’t enjoy the party because she kept thinking of what might happen tonight, resulting in frayed nerves and an empty stomach.Celine hesitantly left the bathroom. She knew prolonging the inevitable would only result in disaster. But the minute she walked into their honeymoon suite, the smell of fries and burgers invaded her senses.‘Hey babe, I ordered room service.’ Max greeted as he arranged the plates on the coffee table in front of the TV, as they always did when they were still dating and binge-watched one of their shows. ‘I saw you touched none of your food, so I ordered us some burger and fries. I figured
‘Do you know what really shocked me, aside from Raffy being my abductor? Is that when I woke up after he abducted me, his butler declared dad was on the phone.’‘Why was Raffy calling you dad?’‘I wanted to tell him you were in town because he kept calling the past few weeks and wanted to know when he could visit.’‘He said you approved of him as your son-in-law? How could you do that to me? You sold me to the devil, and he saw that as an excuse to do what he wanted with me.’ she looked at her father accusingly. Celine was so mad that her father had something to do with Raffy, thinking they had welcomed him into the family when Max was not.Celine and Clara’s parents, Nathan and Emelia Jacobs insisted on visiting afte
It took an hour for the couple to arrive at Sebastian’s house, and to expedite their travel, they were escorted by the motorcycle brigade to navigate and clear the traffic. Otherwise, with the congestion in the city it would have taken them a few hours to get home. By the time they got home, both sets of parents were present together with their siblings. ‘Max–’ ‘Celine–’ ‘We’re so–’ ‘You’re here!’ ‘I’m glad–’ ‘Are you–’ They all yelled excitedly, but Max ignored them and carried Celine directly to the bedroom. She tucked her head in his neck when she expressed she did not want to see anyone. And because she was more important than everybody else, he closed the door and drew her a bath. He wanted to help her relax and scrub all the terrible memories away. Get her clean so she could feel like herself again.Celine clung to him like a lost child would his mother, not wanting her husband to leave her even for one second. ‘Turn on the lights, please. They kept me in darkness most of the
Raffy laughed out loud as he watched the cops breaking into his mansion and finding nothing. ‘You idiots will never find me.’ He left his butler at the mansion to deal with the authorities as a taunt. He knew Max was more resilient than any regular husband, and could track him down faster than the police or the FBI could, so he had to take measures to cover his tracks.The house he was hiding in was purchased for the sole purpose of keeping his victims, like Celine. It wasn’t recorded in any of his financial books, or any of his aliases, and he figured it would take time before they find him, enough to carry out his plans and have sex with Celine. If she doesn’t cooperate, who knows what might happen? He might just do what he threatened her with, and tie her to the bed. He shook his head, remembering how the other women reciprocated his affection.
Celine pulled off all the pictures from the wall, every single one of them, and tore them up into little bits and pieces to satisfy her anger. The last piece that pushed her over the edge was a naked picture of her as she slept, with a hand squeezing her breast. She knows that Raffy probably had copies everywhere, but with Jeremy and Max’s help, they could erase all this embarrassing information from every computer, phone, and tablet Raffy might have them saved in.‘I’m so screwed.’ She cried while scrubbing her face with both hands. ‘Max will hate me for this. Fuck! Now I have to do what Raffy says or he’ll leak the pictures out. Oh, I don’t care. Fuck him! I won’t do anything I don’t want.’ she debated as she paced around the bedroom.‘Why do these assholes have to follow me all
‘Sebastian Colfer! Explain to me who this woman is with my sister?’ Clara barges into her husband’s office, at the same time, the security guard speaks. ‘Sir, there’s a person downstairs claiming his girlfriend never showed up to their date yesterday, and her phone shows she’s still in the building. We called her department, and they said she left early yesterday. What should I do?’‘Search the entire building and see if you can find her phone. Check the parking lot and see if her car is still downstairs. Maybe she ran away with another guy, who knows.’ Sebastian answered.‘What is it, sweetie? I did not get what you were asking.’ he focused on Clara and her laptop.‘This woman was in the elevator yesterday with my sister before she disapp
Celine lies back in bed and curses. ‘How am I going to get out of here if I don’t have clothes?’ So she started exploring Raffy’s bedroom, hoping to find something more decent to wear, when she noticed the pictures on the wall. ‘Fucking pervert!’ she exclaims.There she was, splattered on every surface of the room. Different sizes and images of her. One had her laughing, the other brushing her hair away from her face, and another of her eating. What bothered her more were the pictures of her in different states of undress. In one she was in a bath towel, another in her underwear, while the others had every outfit she has donned in the past year. She even had one in the lingerie she was wearing right now. The pose reminded her about that night she wanted to send Max a naughty video, to which he ended abruptly.
‘Yeah, but my sister, Clara, came… and I needed... You know what, it’s not important. I came by to get my car downstairs. I left it in the building.’‘Hey, tell me, isn’t the boss dating your sister? Is it true that they got married?’ she whispered while getting closer to Celine.‘Yeah, they did. It was a lovely ceremony. I helped plan it.’‘That’s a big ring you have on your finger. Rumor has it that you’re married as well.’‘Can you keep a secret? I got married in Vegas last weekend. Eeekkk…’ Celine said excitedly.May squealed, ‘Omg, are you serious? That is so unexpected. We knew you were dating but didn’t know it