Payton knew that one of the best ways to not seem weak in front of the man was to always dress well. Of course, she was not dressing to please the man. She would never do that.She just wanted to maintain her elegance around him. She would never let him catch her unkempt.She wore a shimmery black material dress. The V-neck was a little deep, held up by two small spaghetti straps, but then there was also a drapey off-the-shoulder cap sleeve. She had actually worried that the dress would make her shoulders look huge as it was her first time wearing it, but with the pushup strapless bra she was wearing, she loved it. The material gathered below the bust then it loose fitting to the floor, with a slit that goes halfway up one thigh.“You are so beautiful, Ma’am,” Tiana commented as Payton looked at herself in the mirror again.“Thank you.”“But, are you going out after having breakfast?” Tiana asked again.“No, why?”Tiana stared down at her dress again and then shook her head.“Nothin
Payton knew that what offended her strongly was the fact that the man had brought another woman here, and to top it all, they did not mind being lovey-dovey around the house.So, why should she give up the jar of water for that woman?“Payton…” King gnashed his teeth like he was going to erupt and she gave him a sneering stare.When Payton did not budge or seem like she was going to leave the handle of the jar, he withdrew, patted Sasha’s back and asked if she would drink from the bottled water.“You know that I am sensitive to these things. I know it is sealed but I would prefer a purified water,” she said, feigning a tiny, pitiful tone as much as she could.Payton moved the jar over to her side, dropped her hand on it, and shook her head.“I will get you some,” he said, stood up, and hurried away.After he was out of sight, Payton chuckled at his stupidity and then lifted the jar to pour water into her glass cup.“Bitch.”Maybe her ear had heard wrong. Maybe…Because there was no wa
“Why did you do that?”“Can’t you talk without grabbing my arms? Does doing this make you a man or does it show how angry you are?” She frowned.King swallowed hard and then pushed her away.This woman has been bringing out this side of him that he did not know that he had.He has never hated someone as much as he hated her.Her arrogance. Her eyes. The way she talks. Everything!They annoy him.They rile him up!“Why did you do that?” He asked, trying to be as calm as he could.“What did I do?”“Why did you say that to Sasha?”“Ah…” Payton drawled, nodded her head, and then moved away from him.“Ah?” King raised his brows as he turned to look in the direction she was walking in.“I am asking you a question, Payton!” He snapped when she stopped by a table that was in the corner of her room and picked up a brush.Seemed like it was one of her brushes for painting.“You are here because of her?” She finally turned to look at him, pointing the brush at him.King walked over to her and sl
King stared at Dariel in annoyance as he would not stop laughing after what he told him.“So, she told you to stay away from each other because you might end up killing each other?” Dariel asked amidst laughter.“I hate her temerity so much! She is impudent and arrogant!” He snapped.“Is this coming from you, Thorn?” Dariel laughed and King smacked his tongue.“It is a mistake talking to you,” King nodded his head as he agreed to himself and Dariel asked again.“But…” he stopped laughing and furrowed his brows.“Why did she come to your place?” “Who?”“Sasha, of course. Why did she go there so early in the morning?”“She has missed me terribly, and I understand,” King nodded his head.“How the fuck did you earn your reputation with this sluggish mentality of yours?” Dariel asked.King frowned as he remembered what Payton had said to him the previous day.“How did you become a top billionaire with that brain?”She had asked him.Dariel asking him something similar was so annoying and h
“It’s time,” King swallowed hard as he looked around the room like he was going to find something else.“Time for?” Payton frowned.“Press conference,” he said and then turned to leave.Payton and Dariel exchanged glances and then shook their heads before they walked after him.After they got out of the office, King turned to look at Dariel and removed his hands from his pocket.“Have my office locked. No one should go in till I return. I am conducting a manual search in the office and I will be in attendance,” he said and turned to leave.“Alright,” Dariel nodded his head.As they entered the elevator in silence, Payton took her lower lips in her mouth as she saw him press the last floor. She folded her arms across her chest and then squinted her brows.“You mean… you could get bugged too? YOU?” She stretched her words like it was impossible for him to get bugged and he hissed at the tone.He did not answer, instead, he looked ahead as he pressed his lips tightly together.The last t
“Are you insane, Payton?!”King snapped the moment they entered the elevator after the press conference was over.Payton tilted her head, twitched her mouth upward, and then turned to look at King.“What are you saying?”“What is with those lies you were telling? We met two years ago? I chased you for two weeks?”“Oh?” Payton smiled and palmed her mouth gently.“Oh?” King raised his brows.“I thought it was a lying competition right there. I did not want to lose,” she blinked as she shook her head.King frowned and moved over to her and then, the elevator stopped but instead, he pressed the last floor button again and then covered the space between them.“Lying competition? I told you to keep shut and only watch!”“Why, though? If you can lie as you please, why can’t I? And… Max was my good friend which you were aware of too?” She scoffed and shook her head.Deep down, she was hurt that King had classified Max as that.She was still feeling guilty as she was.What if he saw the news?
“Another one?” King raised his brows as one of the men in charge removed another bugging device and then gave it to him.He swallowed hard and watched, it was the third one they were removing in the rooms aside from the first one they had gotten.“King,” he turned to look at Dariel who entered the room and then moved away from his spot.“Did you find anything?” He asked.Dariel nodded his head, moved over to King’s table, carried the laptop, and then returned to it.King watched as Dariel inserted the flash drive into the laptop and then waited till the video played.His brows furrowed as he watched the woman who looked around before she plastered the wall with the bugs and his eyes met with Dariel’s.“Is she not the cleaner?” Dariel asked as he stared at the screen again.King tilted his head unsurely and looked also. He had noticed the woman multiple times as she was always going around with buckets, mops, or whatever. Ah… she was the cleaner.“I think she is!” he snapped his finger
“The cops are on their way,” Dariel said to King who finally stepped out of the house too.“Fuck!” King hissed and slapped his forehead.“Why did she have to die?” He questioned while he pointed his index finger at the door.Dariel pressed his lips together and shook his head. This was the least they were expecting.Meeting the woman in her own pool of blood was the last thing they were expecting to see.“I was only going to ask why she did it and who put her up to it,” King lamented again.“Did they kill her because of that?” Dariel asked.King shook his head and then pressed his lips together.All he would have done even if the woman had refused to tell him was threaten her. Not kill her.Whoever was behind this would probably not sit still while they got blown easily, he knew that much.—They waited a bit longer for the cops and when they did, King and Darien moved over to the side while the policemen rushed in.“Mr. Thorn!”King turned to look in the direction of the man who call
“Fucking fuck!” Payton screamed as soon as she entered the room and locked it behind her.She stood transfixed in the middle of the room, covered her mouth with her palms, and then stared into a space.Hold on… did she really have sex with… KING?!No. No way that would happen.That would have never happened.But… How can she explain their naked body joined together on the couch in the morning?Did he really take advantage of her?There was no way she would let King have se—And the memories of the previous night came crashing into her head which made her widen her eyes and then scream."Don’t look so naive. Your dick is shaped like a banana, and I think I had imagined it getting into me once, right?"The words she had said hit her head and she widened her eyes again, this time like it was going to pop out of her head.“THE FUCK— I SAID THAT?!” She screamed at no one in particular and then shook her head.“No way I said that. Jesus! That is defamation!”“But… we truly had sex?” She sl
King couldn’t believe that he was doing this right now. It shouldn’t be right because Payton was so wasted, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull back either. The feeling of her lips on his was so intense, and he couldn’t stop himself from licking her lips like it was a cherry. He slowly pulled her by the waist, but she slipped once more into his arms. He laughed softly, unable to believe that Payton was actually in his arms. "Think about it, you wouldn’t be able to leave my hold if you keep doing this. So, you have all the time in the world to leave now," he said softly."You talk too much," she mumbled as she placed both hands on either side of his face.King growled as he looked into her drunken eyes. "I don’t want to talk too much anymore," he whined as he pulled her head down into a kiss.He could feel her hand all over his body, and he loved it. Their kisses turned sloppy, and Payton tried to slide his shirt off. She was literally wrestling with it at that point. King softly
“What if I told you that the feeling is mutual?” He asked amidst laughter, enjoying every bit of anger that was on her face.“I hate you so so much!” She shrieked and tried to slap his arm again, but he was quick to catch it.He dragged her down to his position, her face just a few inches away from his.“We…” King started, his breath fanning her cheek.“Are we ever going to stop fighting and probably get on the same page?” He asked, almost in a whisper.Payton stared at his pink lips and then breathed out heavily. “I doubt that, asshole.”She pushed him away and then stood upright. She adjusted her clothes and then walked away.King leaned in the chair comfortably, placed his index finger on his lips, and then smiled.“So cute.”He does not know exactly what was cute, but, ‘so cute.’===Payton exhaled as she stabbed the another piece of the stir-fried beef and put it in her mouth.It had been a week and a couple of days since she had that discussion with King and to her greatest surp
King stared at Payton whose legs staggered and then settled on the floor gently.Was she being sentimental because of what he had said?If he knew that he would be getting this reaction from her, he might have told her since.In fact, he would have told her that the moment he found out.“No one believed me,” she started as she picked on her fingers.“Only Savanah did, though.”“Ah… Savannah is my friend, but she has traveled out of the country again,” she said as if he had asked her who Savannah was.“Even my father didn’t believe me. No one did. In fact, it got to a point that I started to believe that maybe, I had done it on purpose. Maybe I had gone to your room that night by myself… or maybe I had set you up like you had claimed…” she inhaled and shook her head.“The truth is not always what we see, right?” She chuckled.“Even Ava did not believe me and that was painful because she knew so well that I would not have done that.”‘But she set you up, dummy.’King thought inwardly.W
When King had arrived home and had not met Payton, he, at first thought she was somewhere around their perimeter but when he walked around and didn’t find her, he proceeded out of their property.Finding Payton with another man was the least of what he was expecting. She didn’t know anyone here, so he did not expect that he would find her with someone. A man especially.They were standing so close to each other that he wondered what they were talking about.Not thinking twice, King rushed over to her, and then wrapped his arm around her waist, like he was marking his territory.“What are you do… doing here?” she struggled to ask the man who refused to let go of her even for a second.“I have been looking for you,” he repeated, still staring at the man.“Ah… he is your…”“I am her husband,” he said as he finally released his grip on Payton.“Why are you here?” Payton grabbed the tip of his clothing.She knew this look in his eyes.He looked like he was ready to pounce on Ramon and then
“I… I did not know you could cook though,” King said after he finally finished eating in silence.“I guess I should have walked around with vegetables hanging around my neck,” she said casually, and he shook his head.“You could have just accepted that compliment without being insultive,” he hissed.“How is that a compliment? You think I could not cook. Is that a compliment?”“Is it not? Women like you don’t know how to cook,” King said as he worked on his juice and he was still drinking it before he realized that he might have said something to annoy the woman.“Now, that is an insult. You cannot tell me otherwise,” Payton seethed and he shook his head.“You think that is an insult?!” He widened his eyes.“Women like me… It sounds like you are being prejudiced.”“Or it is you giving it too much meaning,” he shrugged his shoulders off.“I guess I should not have gone through the hassle of cooking for you.”“It is a hassle?”“You are ungrateful,” Payton smacked her tongue and stood up.
The previous night had to be the most hectic night that Payton had ever had.Did she even close her eyes at all? She doubted it.The evident eye bags were proof on their own.When she and King had retired to the room after a very silent and awkward dinner, she divided the bed with the side pillows on the bed and warned the man sternly to not cross the line.King only watched while she performed what he had called stupidity.It was not like they were little kids that something would happen even if their bodies just touched a little.After the woman finished dividing the bed, he lay on the side of the bed, and he did not know why he had slept off almost immediately.Only when he woke up at midnight did he see that the woman was sleeping, while sitting and her back resting on the wall.He shook his head, and then returned to sleep, comfortably of course.When they woke up, he could hear the woman cussing and mumbling that she had a worse night, but still, he said nothing and had his busi
When the chauffeur dropped them off late at night at the house that their mother had arranged for them, Payton breathed out in relief as she entered the beautiful house that was literally built with glass.While she was outside, she could see the inside clearly and even though she could, she could not wait to enter the house.It was a beautiful glass house that was located by the island, and this was the kind of sight that she had always longed for.Maybe it was nice that she was on this honey— no, vacation.She had not had the chance to travel out for vacation before. It was all for work, and strictly work.It was not that she could not afford to, but she spent all of her time working, and coming up with new ideas.The pressure of running her mother’s art gallery was a bit heavy and she had never admitted it to anyone before.She wanted to do well.She wanted to work so well that no one would blame her mother for leaving her with something like that.And she knew she was trying. She
Payton and King sat in silence in front of each other in the plane as it forced its move forward to the air.Payton leaned her head comfortably in her seat and shook her head.Before they had entered the plane, King and her had tried to persuade their mother but Amerie remained adamant and then went ahead to tell them that if they kept pestering her, she would extend it by two months.The plane was silent. It was just them and the flight attendants in the awkwardly comfortable plane.She had never been on a plane alone before. Not even when she had business outside the country. Why would she anyway?The space they were in was so huge and comfortable that it could pass for a room. The seats were facing each other and without saying much, they settled in front of each other even though there were many seats in the plane.As she remembered again that she would be stuck with King in an unknown place for the next four weeks, she breathed out in frustration and shook her head.King raised