At the company, Jane was simmering as she flipped through the pages of one of the stockpile of documents waiting to be reviewed before the next one. That was why she was scared, instead of being happy. When she has been promoted by her boss to be his secretary. She had experienced a mild sense of grief with it because, it felt like she had been trapped before she could tell her boss how she felt. He was a workaholic who didn't give a hoot about his employees, well, unless they broke down due to stress.“God, for how long will i keep doing this?” She cried out in frustration.That was why she was flared up as she gazed vacantly across the room, the file she was carrying suspended on the air. She knew that she was slowly approaching breaking point. An approaching footsteps drew her back to reality. She hastened what she was doing, knowing that she would be in for serious trouble if he caught her not doing anything. At some point she was able to drift along and rest, but that was only
When Vincent arrived at the slated restaurant, he was already minutes late and he hated the cold weather, which had propelled him to use a leather jacket. He looked around the whole place and found Jessica seated at the edge, with the menu card in her hands."I was beginning to think that you wouldn't make it Vincent." Jessica said, the moment Vincent arrives at the seat."Let's go straight to the point." Vincent demanded, but a hand gesture from Jessica ordering him to stop, would force him to hold his horses."How about we act like civil humans and order meals and eat....think of it more like a date." Jessica stated."I am not here for any stupid date. I came here with a note of warning to you. That stunt you pulled back there at my house yesterday, I don't want it to repeat itself." Vincent warned.Jessica rolled her eyes and leaned back to the chair, staring at Vincent unfazed by any of his threat. "It pains me each time I realize that the only wrong I have ever done against you i
When Isaac arrived at his apartment, the weather had become warm once more and he turned on the air conditioner, while heading to his room to change into something simple. It was a long day and the night seemed to be a little bit long, he had hoped. However seeing some of the mess in the room got him pissed. When was Polly ever going to learn to arrange the entire house? He wondered.While he went down to get the pillows, he noticed something unfamiliar. He looked to see Polly's slippers at the front of his bathroom. Polly never used his bathroom before, so what was going on? He wondered as he made his way, slowly and silently to the door of the bathroom, where he leaned closer to get a grasp of what was happening.The shower was running and it appeared that someone was having their bath. The moment he opened the door, Isaac yelled out at the top of the voice as the scene of horror displayed itself right before his eyes.He was staring at the lifeless body of Polly, who appeared to h
Vincent was surprised by how horrified she looked. It was clear that whatever was going on in her mind regarding Jessica, must have brought her terrible traumas."I just need big information regarding her whereabouts. I need to understand that she is okay." Vincent lied through his teeth. He noticed the woman looking everywhere and then leaned forward to his side, apparently with the intent to tell him something. "Jessica was a crazy girl. When we discovered anomaly with her, we had to transfer her to the hospital, where she was given a therapist to stay with." Vincent froze for a second. All thoughts about Jessica flying through the course of his head.It was no wonder she acted strange. He thought to himself."Can I know where this therapist lives?" Vincent asked and almost immediately, the woman pulled her phone out and looked through the contact and handed it over to him."That's her number." She revealed and Vinc
Vincent couldn't take any of what the therapist was saying to him any longer. He wanted to be away from that place, he needed to reach out to his wife. "I will uhmm, I will be on my way." He announced and got up and left the room, even as the therapist wished to explain something to him.As he pulled into his car, he tried ringing Jane's line, but it wasn't going through and the moment he turned on the ignition of his car, he heard a beep on the phone and checked through. He gasped the moment he noticed Jane on the bed all asleep.It wasn't something bad, but the reality that it was an anonymous individual who had taken that photo horrified him. There was only one person, who could pull such a thing and that was Jessica.Vincent drove through the road like a raging bull. If anything happened to Jane, he was willing to find Jessica and kill her. When he arrived at his apartment, Vincent got down from the vehicle and rushed to the ho
Though he employed a new important staff without her acknowledgement, she wasn't going to just sack him. What were the other staff going to think of her?The company wasn't her private life where she would behave anyhow.But why on earth does it have to be the stranger she met in the elevator.Trying, her day was cursed.Everything gave her a headache.Jane looked up at Vincent with disgust. Their first meeting wasn't okay and sacking him might give up the wrong message. And if he tells everyone what she had done, social media won't haste."Can I have your papers?" Jane requested but Vincent 's frown has become his new mask."I hope you know, all documents are being submitted so, they should be on your desk." Vincent said angrily. " What is your name?" Jane asked as she flipped through some documents.Even Roxie wanted to act because she didn't understand why her friend was being harsh to the new staff
Alright, let me get this straight to be sure I understand. You're saying Mr Vincent asked if you would like to be a co-lead in the ongoing Gartrich Project? As in the same multimillion dollar project our company is working on alongside Rutledge Fay Inc., which took him several months to pull off?”“Keep it down, Tracy. Someone might hear you.” Jessica looked around, tucking a loose strand of hair behind the back of her ear. “Yeah, Gatrich project, the same one Broadway Enterprise, the company's major business rival showed interest in,” Jessica said with a shrug, fetching a can of fruit juice from the dispenser. “Ain't no way you'd be thinking about accepting the offer, girl! That's a big catch! Co-leading? One more word about thinking through the offer and I'm gonna whoop your ass really hard.”Jessica rolled her eyes, walking past a couple of chattering employees, greeting one of them, Cathy, the assistant of Gary Simon, he
Mrs. Vera stomped her feet as she knew that no matter what she said, her words would fall on deaf ears as Vincent had already made known what he'd do.She brought out her phone and dialed Arielle's number.Jane was already in the car Vincent sent when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket."Hello, Mrs. Vera." She said immediately she picked up the phone."Jane darling," Jane could picture the wide smile on Mrs. Vera's face as she spoke."Will you keep on calling me Mrs. Vera? You are my granddaughter-in-law, and I want you to call me grandma." Mrs. Vera told Jane over the phone.Despite the marriage not being real, Jane still blushed at the mention of her being a granddaughter-in-law to someone."Yes, Mrs- Grandma."Jane blushed harder as she said the word."Where are you now, darling?""I don't know where we are currently, but we are coming home already.""Alright, d
Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr