I pretended to be happy as we celebrated my birthday in the confines of Dave's apartment. Dave was acting weird, occasionally going to receive calls from the bathroom. He and I never had secrets before, but it seemed he had changed a lot.While having the meal he prepared for me, the door bell rang. Dave quickly stood up and went to open it, making sure to block me from seeing the person on the other side. “Why do you want to arrest her?” I heard him ask. Curious, I stood up and went to the door. A dark cop was standing there, walkie talkie in hand. “April Hartfield?”I nodded. “How can I help you?”“Could you please come with me to the station? We've received a complaint about you.”“Excuse me?”“Mr. Waters has accused you of slander,” the man said. “I'm not arresting you. We just have a few questions for you.”“Where's the warrant? You're not taking my girlfriend anywhere. Today is her birthday.”“Unfortunately, the law doesn't care if today's her birthday.”“It's okay, Dave. I'll
I didn’t say anything when Dave returned after ending his call. I continued to watch as the television hosts discussed the breaking story. Apparently Carolina and Alaine had found themselves vying the same spot at a country club. Carolina had tried to command the younger woman to vacate the place but Alaine refused, prompting her to resort to violence. A trending social media video showered Carolina grabbing Alaine’s hair and pulling it before slapping her. Alaine lost balance and fell down before starting to cry.“I like that girl,” I told Dave. “I hope she sues Carolina’s stupid ass for all it’s worth.”Dave turned sharply. It looked like he wanted to say something but decided to keep quiet instead. My eyes moved to his fist which was unclenching. I pretended to not have noticed anything and continued to watch the program in silence. Something was fishy but I couldn’t put my finger on it.During the commercial break, Dave’s phone rang. The first thing he glanced at was my face, be
Carolina’s POVThe day I married that late bastard Davido Mendoza was the day I swore never to do chores again. Now I was stuck in a jail cell washing plates because Aracely Narvaez had never forgiven me for taking him away from her. She even blamed me for killing the infamous drug lord, which may or may not be true. I won’t confirm it here. All I can say is I felt totally done with his controlling shit right before he died. I guess karma is real, because I found myself in the same prison with my worst nightmare. I was pretty sure that Alaine had bribed someone to have me wait for my trial in prison and also be ineligible for bail. In a very short time, a lot of people I’d wrong in the past came up with their own stories, hence trumping my charges. Now, I looked like a serial beater. Over 20 people had come up in less than five hours. Sure, I had beaten up many in my lifetime but I was sure some of those 20 had been paid to lie. Then to make things worse, I got put in the same cell
Chapter 30April’s POV“Wow, this place is so cool.” Maria said, looking around the apartment mason had helped us move in to. He had wanted me to start living alone but I knew I couldn’t afford it yet, so I had to live with my friends who also needed a place to stay. Mason talked to one of his employees who had a friend with a low cost apartment building.The place had a light brown themed interior. The furniture was brown but the walls and curtains were lighter. The living area and kitchen were fairly small but bigger than those in Waters’ building. I chose the best bedroom which overlooked the city.I’d barely settled in when my phone started ringing. I groaned upon seeing the caller ID. Mum. After our last encounter, I didn’t feel like talking to her. But when she called again, I started to get worried. What if Carolina’s people had done something to her?“Hello.”“How are you?” she asked. My eyes narrowed. Her tone was nice, which surprised me since she had been treating me quite
“I swear I didn’t do it, officer.” I told detective Carver for the umpteenth time. I seated across from him in the interrogation room. “My mother gave it to me.”“Your mother is nowhere to be seen so we can’t believe that,” he said. “Until she turns up and supports your version of the story, we’ll hold you.”“You can’t do this to me,” I insisted. “Doesn’t my word count for anything?”“As long as you were found with the item in question, it doesn’t count for much. Whether your mother gave it to you or not, it doesn’t belong to her. What if you two tried to rob Mrs. Mendoza and it failed? As long as Mrs. Mendoza says the item was stolen, you’re not in the clear.”I couldn’t believe my mother had taken off after what she’d done? Had she really betrayed me to work with Carolina? No that was hard to believe. My mother was a scum bug but I didn’t think she’d do something like that to me. “I need to make a call,” I told the officer.“You’ll be able to do that later,” he said. “Now stand up
Mason spent the night at the apartment and left early the next morning. He had an urgent meeting to attend to. Bea and Maria had gone for a run when the doorbell rang. After the whole Carolina debacle, my level of trust for humans had gone really low so I had to find out who was out there before opening the door.“Who’s there?” I asked, standing near the door.Silence.“Okay. I won’t open.”“It’s me,” my body stiffened when I heard that voice. I pulled the door open so hard it nearly fell off. “Your mother.”“How could you do that to me, mum?” I yelled at her.“Can I please come in?” she asked.“Why? So you can betray me again? No, I don’t think so.”“I’m so sorry dear. I really didn’t intend for any of that to happen. I swear I believed Carolina when she said she wanted us to make up. I didn’t know she’d do something like that.”“Didn’t I tell you she couldn’t be trusted? Carolina is not your friend. The woman wants to destroy me.”“Everything isn’t about you,” my mother said. She pu
True to his word, Mason showed up a few minutes later with red roses. Snatching the red roses from him, I pulled him into the house and pushed him against the wall, before kissing him hard. He took over, leading me to the couch and kissed me. When his hand went under my bra, I pushed it away, laughing. “Not here.”I had made the rule that none of us should get intimate on the couch. If I didn’t follow it, I couldn’t enforce it on the others. The thought of having different people have sex on the place I knew we’d spend a lot of time on didn’t sit well with me.“Bedroom?” he asked.“Let’s go to your house.”“I need you now,” he whined. He looked adorable when he did that. I giggled when he tickled me, before quickly getting away from the couch. Mason sat up and tried to touch me but I ran to my bedroom to get my stuff. He followed me there.“I like what you have done to the place,” he commented.“Thank you,” I said.I was hunched over the bed, stuffing some clothes into a backpack. He
April.“This looks exquisite,” Mason said, staring at a bronze vase.“Exquisite?” I chuckled. “It looks plain. This is nothing special.”“Actually, it is.” a new voice said. Raising a brow, I turned to look at the owner. The woman was wearing a black pencil dress with red flowers all over it, her feet adorned with gold flats. “This is one of the artefacts recovered from the Antonine wall built in AD 142. It’s not just a vase.”“Was that the wall that ran across Scotland, from coast to coast?” Mason asked the woman.“Yes, that’s the one. Everything in this museum is original with accurate history. As you can see, this side is dedicated to all the artefacts from the Antonine wall.”“I heard there are some artefacts from Cook’s pacific voyages. Do you know which part of the museum that is?”“Yes, of course. Come with me.”“Let’s go baby,” Mason told me. I was feeling small because I was ignorant of everything they were talking about, thanks to my meagre education.“I forgot to introduce
Mason’s POVA continuous beeping sound woke me up. Opening my eyes, I squinted at the brilliant white ceiling before closing them again. Whoever thought it was a good idea to use such a bright color for a hospital room must have been mad.I could tell I was in the hospital by the smell and beeping machine with a cord attached to my hand. After blinking several times to help my eyes get acquainted with the light, I opened them fully. I was alone, thankfully. I looked at the blue bed sheet covering my body and pushed part of it off.Memories of my last minutes of consciousness flooded my mind, reminding me of the problem at hand. Hannah was still missing. I pressed the sound button by the bed to get someone in the room. I needed to get out of there.Almost immediately, the door opened and Carolina walked in. I frowned. Was she the one taking care of me? I was definitely not happy to see her.“Finally,” she said, coming to the bed and kissing me on the forehead. “You’re awake. Was almost
April's POVImages, video footage and text swirled over the screen intermittently as a female reporter's voice spoke in the background. I backed off to the nearest chair, letting my body collapse on it. With wide eyes, I continued to stare at the screen, which had now switched to the station’s studio and listened to the news reader as he spoke about the shooting that had left Mason Steele in hospital fighting for his life.Despite knowing it was futile, I dialled his number and held the phone to my ear. No one answered just as I expected. I had been trying his number in vain for hours. Quickly getting up, I grabbed my purse from the table and walked out of the apartment.Chilly midnight air greeted me when I left the building and drove the car I'd parked outside. I drove like a mad woman, in the bid to reach my destination as fast as possible.My heart relaxed as the hospital came into view. After parking the car, I stalked to the building. A team of paparazzi hounded me but I refuse
Mason’s POV“You have to do everything possible to find her,” my aunt Eleanor said, clutching my hands over the table. Her grip was tight and her knuckles were extremely pale. I wondered what was wrong with her. She seemed so scared, even more scared than I was, and yet I was sure she didn't love Hannah that much. For the most part, they didn't get along very well.“I’m trying, aunt Eleanor. You know I will do everything possible to find her.”“You need to find her before anything happens.”“What are you scared of aunt Eleanor?” I asked. She quickly withdrew her hand and jumped in her seat. Her unexpected reaction was starting to make me feel suspicious. “What kind of question is that? Hannah is my dear niece. We might not get along all the time but I don't want to see her die.” “She will not die,” I said. “Please leave now. I have some work to do. I’ll call you in case of anything.”I felt more relieved after she left. Settling down, I started to do some paperwork. The cops had p
April's POV“It’s her,” I said thirty minutes later. We were in a private jet on our way to Miami. “It has to be.”Mason turned and gave me a confused look, his brows furrowing. “What are you talking about?” He asked.“Carolina Mendoza,” I replied. “I think she’s the one who has kidnapped your sister.”Mason’s eyes narrowed. He didn't seem convinced. He had probably never considered it, given that Carolina was a good friend of his. “Why would she do something like that?”“Because she wants to separate us.”“I know Carolina likes me but I don't think she would do something like that just to get rid of you. She’s quite stubborn but not immature enough to play high school games.”“You clearly don't know her well enough. You have no idea about all the things she has done to me in order to keep us apart.”“You never tell me anything. What did she do?”I studied his face, looking for signs that he would believe me. “She-”The door to the cockpit suddenly opened and the young copilot steppe
Two hours later, Mason and I were riding down a smooth footpath. Having never been on a horse before, the experience was quite daunting at first. Mason seemed like a reckless schoolboy ready for adventure when he climbed on a black stallion without fear. Meanwhile, I'd settled for a little brown mare that seemed almost as timid as I was when the stable boy helped me settle on it.Although I was very scared at first, Mason’s confidence soon gave me the energetic boldness I needed. Within a few minutes, I was racing him down the hilly path.Trading words every now and then, we found ourselves in a small artificial forest that we had been briefed about. It was a beautiful forest with many beautiful trees, well kept bushes, painted stones and manicured picnic lawns.“I wish we hadn't eaten,” I said, staring wistfully at one of the picnic areas. “Would have loved to have my lunch over here.”Mason smiled as he studied the area. “Certainly looks very nice,” he commented. “We need to get of
April.The single’s event was held in the resort’s conference hall. When I went in, a middle aged woman was giving a speech about how to interact with new people. Soon, she wrapped up.“We’re going to start with a game called lock and key,” she said. “For this game, men will be given a lock and women will receive a key. We’ll have enough time to mingle with each other. After speaking to a person, you’ll try the lock to see if it opens. If not, proceed to another person and try again. It will be a fun game. You all need to stand and let our employees move the chairs to the back of the room so that we can use the space for the game.”People stood up and started moving around, leaving the chairs. Suddenly, there was considerable silence. I turned to follow everyone’s gaze, then I realized why they had frozen.Mason Steele was walking into the room. He wore a dark blue suit and had his dark hair combed to the side. The tall and handsome man exuded sophistication and confidence which had a
April.If I had to do one more interview with Nicky Jones pretending to be deeply in love with him, I’d go mad. After a long day of interviews, fake smiles and kisses, I impulsively packed up a few things in a suitcase and left Miami. I switched off my phone to avoid calls from Nicky and Kylie who couldn’t get enough of the fake romance. I was done. I didn’t care about the consequences anymore. Faking it was not in me.When I arrived in the peaceful small town called Flowood, I booked a room in a midrange resort. I had the most peaceful night I’d had in a while. No one seemed to know me, or they didn’t care. I choose a quiet place in the bar and enjoyed a few drinks before going to sleep.As I had breakfast in the morning, I was given a flyer by one of the staff. It was for a single’s event, a matchmaking affair. I didn’t plan on attending anything that put me in close vicinity with other people. The town might have been in the middle of nowhere, but there was possibility of one of th
Mason.I woke up in an unfamiliar place. I could tell even before I opened my eyes. When I opened them, the confusion turned into horror as I saw Carolina lying next to me peacefully. Seeing that we were both stark naked, I figured we must have had sex. Although Carolina was a very beautiful woman, I didn’t want any of that to happen.I turned to lie and my back and stared at the ceiling, trying to recall the events of the previous night. How on earth did I end up in Carolina Mendoza’s bed? I remembered her invite and having fun at her game party. When everyone was gone, she poured me a drink and a few minutes later, I lost conscious.“Fvck!” I cursed loudly. And then I turned to look at the woman beside me. She looked so peaceful, and yet she was a conniving b*tch. I was sober when my cousin left, so how did half a glass of whisky make me drunk. Realisation dawned on me. Carolina had put something in my drink.I sat up. “Carolina.”She stirred in her sleep and her right hand moved to
Mason.“I can explain.”I was on a date with a beautiful nurse when I received the message from April after ignoring the calls. After reading it, I switched off my phone, feeling angry. How dare she? Did she think I was a love-struck fool who had lost his mind? She was living her best life, kissing her new boyfriend in front of cameras. I was angered by the fact that she thought I could listen to her. My days of being a simp were over. April Hartfield was not the only amazing woman in the world.I was a billionaire for fvcks sake, able to get any woman I set my eyes on. April slipping through my fingers did not mean I could not do better. There were many great women from all walks of life, and I could choose from a wide variety because of my status in society.“Are you okay?” Melanie asked, her blue eyes showing a great deal of concern.I smiled, looking into her mesmerizing eyes. She had a sweet smile to accompany them, making her easy on the eyes. Her only flow was the inability to