CHAPTER TWO

I hail a cab and head to the office still very nervous but excited as well. The pay of the job is not as much as I want it to be but the company stated on the employment letter that is not fixed, and that the employee's performance will determine if the pay will be increased or not. I’m determined to put in my best effort, probably even more to ensure I get the pay up to what I’m comfortable with.

I am about to relax and calm my excited nerves when I feel the car collide with another. “Jeez ouch! What happened?” I ask when I bump my head on the car door.

“ I think I hit a car.” The cab driver says looking very worried as he gets down from the car to inspect the damage. “I'm so sorry, it was an accident.” I hear him say apologetically.

“ What bloody accident will make you not see my trafficator or are you blind?” The other driver says angrily with a thick French accent.

I get out of the car before the cab driver responds. I need to settle this nicely so I won't get late, first impression and all. I walk in front of the driver, give a friendly smile, And say. “Is there any damage done to the car?”

The driver stares at me with cold eyes and says. “Oh no, why will there be, the car is sparkling new and fresh after your blind driver hit it.” I can clearly hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice and it is starting to piss me off.

I try to calm down for the sake of my new job and take a diplomatic stance. “Sir, please let’s be mature about this, from what am seeing the damage doesn’t seem that serious besides, this driver here said it was a mistake,” I say as I point to the cab driver who was standing at a spot.

“So you are trying to say I’m being immature, you fucking hit my car and you are telling me to be mature.” He says pulling my last straw of sane reasoning, he isn’t being rude to just me but also to the very remorseful driver and I can't take it anymore.

“ Maybe you should have used your fucking horn. Just maybe you wouldn’t be standing here ranting like a mad man, I’m sure you went to a fucking driving school to know that you can also use your horn when need is or does your horn not working as well as your shitty mouth.” I say glaring daggers at him. I’m not good at controlling words that come out of my mouth when I’m angry and he pushed me to my limit so he is responsible for the way I just spoke to him. Minus the fact that I don’t get easily angry when I do, I lose the most sense of rationality.

The driver stands there totally shocked by my outburst but is not given a chance to speak as the car door opens and a man with a very dark aura steps out dressed in an immaculately tailored business suit. “Oliver!! Do not say another word.” He says sternly to the driver, who immediately bows his head in respect and hurriedly gets into the car.

He slowly turns his gaze towards the cab driver and then towards me causing goosebumps to rise all over my body. I can sense very clearly that the cab driver is frightened even when the man’s gaze is fixed on me.

I can't seem to take my eyes off him also, he looks extremely familiar, but I can't tell who he is or where I’ve met him before.

“ I’m sorry for how my driver spoke to you.” He says with a completely different tone than he used to talk to his driver. His aura changed too, it felt like the weather moved from extreme cold to pleasant warmth.

He gets into the car without waiting for a reply, even though he wouldn’t have gotten one from the shocked me.

Everything suddenly clicked. I know where I’ve heard that voice before, I know that face, those eyes, and that extremely intense aura.

They are the same ones I see in my dreams, it is the same deep, rich, sultry voice I long to hear every night in my dreams.

‘It's you.’ I gasp as I realize who he is and how completely fucked up my life just became.

I move my very stiff leg back in the direction of the cab driver who looked very strange, I could see mixed emotions of fear and gratitude not that I even paid much mind to it as my mind was filled with thoughts of every single night I had an erotic moment with him in my dream.

As I get back into the cab, my thoughts drift back to the day my grandmother was buried which was the same day I set my eyes on MR Stranger.

I remember everything clearly as if it just happened yesterday, after the evening my grandmother called me, a meeting I surprisingly cannot remember in detail as when I try to think about it, everything becomes foggy and my head starts to hurt, all I know is that it was the night of her death. Reina and I planned out everything perfectly, right from the escape plan to how we would survive when we succeeded.

The plan was to leave Paris and move to New York, start a different life than the one we had, and change our names, our hair colors, and our eye colors too.

I didn’t do the eye color part though, I love how green and earth-like my eyes look, it's one of my peculiar family traits. My mom had green eyes too though my dad didn’t and I took after my mom while Raphael took after my dad.

I lean my head back on the car seat and remember when Reina brought in our new identification cards, her name was changed from Reina Royals Mickelson to Natalie Rosette Johnson. Mine was changed from Jasmine Brigitte Alexandre to Annette Guillaume Denis. I had mixed feelings back then, I was both excited and scared. Excited about the new things I’d get to do in a new place and around new people and scared that the new life we were about to start would not be as pleasant as we believed it would be.