by Anna Kendra
He went ahead and introduced himself to them as Sia’s new guard. He became friends with them quickly and even offered to help them in their duty. He grabbed a chair and sat in between the two men and chatted some more about the fashion house over a few cups of coffee.
But in reality, he had hardly paid attention to them as his entire attention had been caught by the top left TV screen which showed Sia working in her office.
Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun, brows furrowed in concentration as she sketched something on a piece of paper before taking a piece of cloth and working on a mannequin. She would then fold each piece of clothing with precision, small pins sticking out from her mouth, as she sewed the fabric together. All in all, Julian thought she looked incredibly sexy in her blue sundress as she worked her way in the office.
They had been sitting there for a while, observing the cameras, when Julian noticed that one of the guards had fallen asleep and the other was typing away on his cell phone. Taking the opportunity, he quickly wrote down some important numbers from the computer and also took out a small button-sized satellite transmitter device from his pocket and fixed it on the side of one of the screens, hidden from plain sight. Though he’d have preferred to ask the guards for help, their sheer lack of sense of duty threw him off. With guards like these, no wonder the assailant had been able to get that dangerously close to Sia.
“Well . . . I’ll be heading back now,” Julian said as he stood up from the chair. “It was nice chatting with you guys. See you around.”
The guard who was still awake nodded and focused back on the TV screens. Julian left the room smirking. He had done his job without them even noticing. After all, he was called Lucifer for more than just one reason. Although these two guards had been the easiest he’d ever dealt with. If only all the people he went up against were this sloppy.
Julian had just reached the reception area when Sia came out of the room looking flustered and tired. Two people, a man anda woman, went inside her office and then came out a few seconds later, carrying a large bag and a notepad, which he assumed were the designs for the dress. Sia gave them some last-minute instructions before breathing a sigh of relief.
“Millan, get us some coffee,” she told the girl and stretched her aching muscles which gave Julian a nice view of her long slender arms and the shape of her breasts as they strained against her dress.
“I checked out the control room.”
Sia was startled to hear Julian’s voice as she quickly let her hands fall to her side.
“Oh?” she asked stupidly, her mind almost blank from the stress.
Julian chuckled before giving her a heart-stopping grin. “I set a satellite monitor in there so that all the footages shown here will be transferred directly to my laptop. That way, I can’t miss any details. We need to know if there will be another attack. And also, I think you need new guards,” he said. “The guys I just met were too busy snoozing and checking hamburgers on Instagram.”
Sia sighed audibly and ran her hands through her now loose dark brown strands. “I knew they were no good right from the start! But the company provided me with the cheapest offer at the time I first started here. But now it’s already been five years, so I couldn’t possibly just throw them out.”
“It’s not a matter of whether they’ve stayed here for five, ten years, Sia. It is a matter of them doing their job well,” Julian told her on a serious note. “If they keep working like they do right now, it won’t be long before your assailant succeeds in his twisted mission, whatever that mission may be.”
Sia decided that there was no point in wasting her empathy on people who weren’t even willing to do the job she paid them to do. But more than that, it was time to tell him the truth. He had to know the whole story to investigate her case. Although the truth was something she would never want to repeat, not even to herself, she had to tell him now. It was time.
“Julian . . .” she sighed, “I have to tell you something.”
Chapter 6
The work station in Sia’s house was almost similar to her office. A table and a chair were placed in one corner near the windows,which allow natural light in. Numerous materials lined the shelves in a cupboard with a glass door, a few mannequins with partly styled clothes hung on them and numerous fashion magazines were strewn all over the room. The only odd ones out were the two bean bags in front of the lit fireplace and a huge bookshelf with a hundred or so novels piled in it.
Sia sat in one of the beanbags in front of the fireplace, a glass of red wine in hand, and looked unblinking at the fire. It wasn’t winter yet, so the fire was only there more as a source of light rather than warmth, but it had rained earlier in the evening so the weather was a bit chilly. The fire gave enough warmth to beat off the chill.
“You wanted to say something?” Julian asked, not wanting to interrupt Sia but also curious as to what she had to say.
Sia didn’t turn to look at him and just stared at the fire. She was wearing a dark green t-shirt and blue jeans, her hair wet from a shower she’d taken right after reaching home. The glow of the fire cast a golden hue on her profile, making her look angelic. Julian could hardly blink. His heart seemed to be on overdrive.
He thought Sia hadn’t heard him when she didn’t reply. He was about to ask again when Sia finally looked up at him. She looked troubled. Her eyes were glossed over, and her lips trembled slightly. Julian wanted desperately to comfort her, to run his fingers through her wet hair, and to kiss those luscious pink lips. He balled his hands into fists at his side to control himself from doing something that could get him fired. But he needed to be near her.
“Do you want some beer?” she asked in a small voice.
Julian shook his head, and some of his dark locks fell onto his forehead. Sia’s eye followed their movement. She looked away quickly before she got carried away and motioned for him to sit next to her. Sia’s action didn’t escape Julian, however, but he controlled his expression and came to sit next to her.
“Julian, the things that I’m about to say . . . are . . . personal.” Sia began as soon as he had sat himself comfortably. “I don’t really want to do this, but for Leo . . . I have to. Just know that I can’t . . . repeat anything I say, ever again. I . . . just . . .”
Julian was instantly alert. He knew something was wrong. He knew that whatever he would hear today would change everything he knew about Sia, which wasn’t much, he thought to himself. He sat on the edge of his bean bag, their knees touching, and he wished that Sia didn’t have to go through this.
“Go on,” was all he could say. Sia nodded and drank the rest of her wine in one go before she narrated her tale.
“I was sixteen when I got married.”
Julian sucked in a harsh breath. Sia continued, now glancing at the fire.
“I was homeschooled. I never got to know what school life was about, what it was like having friends. I never even had a crush in my entire life, and I had never dated. My father was a businessman; he inherited Grandpa’s company. But he was nothing like my grandfather. . . and soon, his prodigal spending brought the company to bankruptcy. It was then that he decided to use me as bait. He always wanted a son, and I was his biggest failure. Mom couldn’t have any more children; she was too weak. So, he decided to put me to good use.”
Sia felt Julian’s hand giving a light squeeze to her knee. She turned to look at him and realized that she had started crying. She lifted her hand to wipe the tears away, but Julian beat her to it. He wiped her cheeks with tender fingers, his other hand still on her knee. After he was done, he nodded encouragingly at her, and Sia looked back at the fire once again.
“His name was Arthur Stone. He bought father’s company—for how much I have no idea—but it was enough that they can live their entire life luxuriously. Arthur wanted to marry me as soon as he laid eyes on me. I would be his trophy bride. I was given no choice. The fact that Arthur was twelve years older than me didn’t matter to my parents.”
Julian’s grip tightened on Sia’s leg.
“He was . . . he . . . did . . . didn’t . . .” Sia broke down, and Julian immediately wrapped her in his arms.
“Shhh . . . It’s okay. It’s over.Shhh . . .” Julian repeated over and over in her ears as Sia’s little frame shook with the force of her sobs.
He was at a loss. He seriously wanted to kill the bastard who had hurt a sixteen-year-old girl. He knew he was going against his work ethics, but he couldn’t let Sia go. She had suffered so much. Julian felt her shivering and pulled her even closer. He didn’t want Sia to remember all these but knew that she had to get it out.
“I-I gave birth to Leo . . . wh-when I was eighteen. After that, I made it my sole purpose to only look after my son. This made Arthur angry, and he got violent. He . . . he would force himself on me . . . hit me . . . he . . .” Sia closed her eyes and buried her face in Julian’s chest. She didn’t care what consequences her actions might have. Right now, this felt like the right thing to do. With Julian, she felt safe.
“My parents wouldn’t believe me.They didn’t care, so I went to my grandparents. They believed me. They were the ones who took me to court and got me a divorce. Arthur was sent to jail for domestic violence and torture and also for marrying a minor. It’s where he has been for the last eleven years. I came to stay with my grandparents after the divorce was settled, then completed my college and started my own company. I haven’t spoken to my parents ever since.”
Julian stroked her hair lightly. His mind filled with everything Sia had just said. He was stunned. He had never thought that she had faced such hardships in her life. His respect for her increased a thousandfold in the past hour. He was right about what he had thought at the beginning: tonight was going to completely change how he viewed Sia.
But now, he had a bigger concern to deal with. And if his gut feeling was right, he was dealing with someone who wasn’t just out to get Sia but also wanted to make sure she paid for what she had done to him. He couldn’t tell Sia his concerns yet, not when she was in this state. But he knew he had to be a hundred percent sure about his assumption before he told her. But he never got a chance to investigate further that night.
Still wrapped in each other’s arms, they both fell asleep before the fireplace, unaware of what the future held for them.
Chapter 7
Sia had a huge headache. That was the first thing she thought when she woke up. The next thing was that she wasn’t in her bedroom.
Events from the previous night came back to her mind, intensifying the headache she was already having. Groaning, she sat up, surprised to find a blanket draped over her body and herself lying not in the bean bag anymore but on the comfortable sofa in one corner of her work station.
Her face heated up when she remembered how Julian had held her in his strong arms as she cried,how he had made her feel comfortable. She could still feel a tingle in her earlobes from when his warm breath had fanned her face. But the good memories stopped there. She wrapped her arms around herself as she felt the past whisper in her ears, trying to haul her back into the darkness that she couldn’t seem to leave behind. But she shook her head, refusing to feed the demons, and stood up from the sofa.
The clock on the wall read 11:23 AM. She sighed and made her way back to her room and went straight to the bathroom for a quick shower. But when she looked at the mirror, she was horrified. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her face was blotchy from crying. How Julian could stand to look at her was beyond her. She looked like nightmare personified. So, without wasting any more time, she hopped into the shower.
Feeling refreshed after her shower, she didn’t feel like going to her office anymore. She had worked overtime yesterday, and all her paperwork had been sorted; if she was needed for anything, Millan would give her a call. She decided to spend the day with her son . . . and maybe her bodyguardtoo. Oh, who was she kidding? Julian was bound to come along with her anywhere she went anyway, it was his duty.
The sound of laughter interrupted her train of thought, and she walked curiously towards the window, following the sound of the voices. What she saw outside surprised her.
Leo was playing basketball with Julian. The ball was in Leo’s hand, and he was dribbling and trying to reach the basket while Julian chased him. The huge manfinally reached for the ball and stole it right out of Leo’s hand and scored. Leo whined about it being “not fair”, saying that Julian was older and faster than him, but he was smiling. It was the happiest Sia had seen him since the incident.
She got out of her bathrobe and put on white denim shorts and a blue top with small white flowers on the collar line. She never wore that much makeup on the daily, but today, she had to apply some concealer under her eyes to patch up the redness around them and her dark spots. She paired her dress with small white rose-shaped earrings and a watch. She gathered her cell phone from her work station and put them in a white clutch and put on a pair of blue stilettos to match her dress. It was almost 1 PM. by the time she made reservations at a nearby diner, but since it was a diner she frequented, the owner, who was an old friend,was able to do the reservations despite the rush hour. Checking herself in the mirror one last time, she made her way downstairs and towards the basketball court in the backyard.
“Boys!” she yelled when she spotted them still wrestling to get the ball into the basket.
Both their heads snapped in her direction, and Julian’s eyes widened a bit, making her blush. She just realized that this was the first time she had so much of her legs exposed in front of him, and knowing his reputation, Sia shook her head. He was her employee, not her boyfriend. Julian wouldn’t risk making a move on her if he wanted to keep his job.
“You’re going to your office?” Leo’s whiny voice brought her attention back to him.
She smiled at her beloved son.It delighted her that after such a long time, Leo was warming up to another adult who was a man. “No,” she answered and smirked when she saw both of them with confused expressions.
“We’re going out for lunch at Paradiso,” she said, smiling.
“Really?” Leo yelled in excitement while Julian frowned.
“Yes, really. Now, go get changed, and don’t forget to wash up first,” Sia told Leo, but he was already halfway towards the house. Her son was a huge fan of Italian food.
“Paradiso?” Julian asked with a raised eyebrow after he saw Leo enter the house safely.
Sia blushed. “It’s an Italian restaurant nearby. Leo and I have been going there since he was five. He loves it. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you. Are you okay with Italian?” she asked.
“Are you serious? I love pasta!” Julian smiled, and it transformed his face from hot to catastrophic.
“Aren’t you going to change?” she asked instead, pointing to his surprisingly dry V-neck white shirt and black denims. It was never a good idea to mix business with leisure.
“Nah! I’m good.” He smiled at her.
“Okay, then.” Sia smiled back.
“Mom! Julian! Let’s go!” Leo yelled at them from the backdoor, now dressed in a black T-shirt and blue denims. She smiled; she’d never seen him change so fast.
“Shall we?” Sia asked Julian.
“Lead the way.”
***
When Julian had woken up that morning, Sia was still fast asleep . . . and wrapped tightly in his arms.
He felt a smile forming, but then, the previous night’s events came rushing back, and his smile disappeared. He clenched his jaw as he went through all the information he had gathered about Arthur Stone and then came up with a plan.
Gently, he brushed back the dark hair from Sia’s beautiful face, tracing two fingers down her pale cheeks. He could see that her eyes were a bit swollen, but it was nothing that a little ice pack couldn’t mend. At that moment, he thought that he could stay right there all day, staring at her innocent beauty, but he had work to do, so he carefully untangled himself from her. Once he was able to regain his composure
, he took her into his arms and got off the floor with her. Sia was surprisingly lighter than he had expected her to be, and he carefully carried her over to the sofa a few feet away and laid her down comfortably before covering her up with a blanket he found folded at the foot of the sofa.
After one last look at her, he went straight to his room and took a quick hot shower before getting dressed in a white V-neck shirt and black jeans. Then he picked up his phone and dialed a number he had been trying to avoid for the past few months. Desperate times. He sighed to himself.
“So, you finally realized you can’t live without me, and now you must go down on your knees ready to beg for me to come back,” said the bored voice on the other end as soon as she picked up.
“Hello, Selena.” He kept his voice professional. “I need you to find what you can about Arthur Stone,” he said, going straight to the point.
“How about I hear an apology first?” she asked, annoyed.
Selena Fraser was one of the top informers of their company and a skilled agent. In fact, she was one of the best that he himself had trained. And she was also extremely gorgeous. It wasn’t a surprise when a junior recruit had fallen head over heels in love with her. Julian had taken pity on the fellow and set up a date with her. What he didn’t realize was that the guy was a jerk and had tried to get into her pants as soon as Selena arrived on the date. After Selena rejected the guy, he went out to his friends and made up a false story about how he had fucked the hot senior. He eventually had to confess his sins while lying in a pool of his own blood while Selena cleaned her hands on his shirt, and ever since then, she’d held a grudge against Julian for setting up the date. But it wasn’t his fault that the guy turned out to be an idiot and like he said, these were desperate times.
