Claude hides the hint of a smile behind his curious glance at her.Bringing her here is proving to be the best choice he’s made since the afternoon started, dealing with those two bullies will make her day but that would be reserved for dinner chatting later.Riley pauses at the accusatory, and apparently offensive comparison. “I will not accept such a comparison from you, at least the video was not illegally…”“I will stop you right there, Riley.” Claude interjects, with all forms of politeness gone from his voice, “You all were so eager to implicate a poor woman that you never thought to check who the man in that video was, did you?”Riley frowned. “We only saw most of his back, nothing to point us to…”“I will cut you off there, again. Because releasing a nude video of Miss. Stiles here is equal to releasing an unconsented video of me.”It takes only three seconds for Riley to realize what he means, and upon realization, her eyes go so wide that it looked like the balls were going
Taylor’s eyes is pretty fixated on their entwined hands, and subconsciously, Claude subtly tightens his grip to show his possessiveness to both women.“What a coincidence,” Taylor starts, recovering first. “Nice to meet you both here, who would have thought.”“Yes, but is it indeed a coincidence?” Samantha expresses, her eyes twinkling.Taylor simply spares her a single glance full of disgust before her eyes goes back to Claude, a whole three hundred and sixty change in the expression becoming one of interest, maybe more than there should be between a man and the sister of his to-be wife.“If you do not mind me prying into your business, why are you here at the police station?” Claude inquires, the shadow of ignorance missing from his eyes because he knows very damn well why she’s there but he’s not about to reveal his card, at least not immediately.“Oh, I had a friend who was detained for… err… Drunk driving, I came to pick up her bail but I need some specific things to be able to d
With the driver perspiring subtly by the time he pulls into the driveway, Claude resists the urge to chuckle.“Thank you, you can have the remaining day off, I seem to have put some pressure on you.”The driver turns to look at him with relief in his eyes as Claude gets out of the car.“Thank you sir.”He responds with a wave of his hand as he sees a single bag out on the steps, he lifts it along with him and goes inside, of course, Samantha knows the passcode to the front door.“Samantha?” He calls out in the living room, looking around but there’s no sound and she’s nowhere to be found. He sets the bag down and goes to have a peep out the back, in the kitchen, looks around the surroundings but she’s just not there.He picks up the phone and dials her number, the faint ringing comes from upstairs and he follows the sound, coming to a stop in front of the room she had slept in the first and last time she had come over.Claude knocks softly on the door, no response, he opens it a crack
“Mr. Sharma,” Claude starts, returning to the seat he had stood up from earlier. “Nice to meet you, I quite remember your interview. You were confident and exceptional, even laughed a few times in the thick pressure. I personally agreed for you to come to my company but…”Dylan’s shoulder’s drop on hearing that interjectory word that always means that something negative is about to be said.“…What I did not see coming is the fact that you are quite loyal too. I know fully well that she must have called me a jerk and possibly even the a-hole word but…” Claude chuckles at the end of the unfinished sentence.Dylan’s head snaps up, relief evident in his eyes.“And for that, I’d love to give you something, or tell you something that I have not told anyone yet, well, because you seem to be a loyal friend to Samantha. Or I should keep my exclusive gist to myself?” Claude inquires, raising an eyebrow, testing him subtly.“If you don’t mind me asking sir, is it about Samantha?”Claude nods. “O
The weekend practically rolls past with no incidents and then came Monday, Claude got to work a little bit earlier than he normally does, the plan for the day quite steeper than normal since there are some pending issues to be attended to.He takes his elevator to the top to meet it empty, no one is at work yet, and it’s still fairly early so it’s forgivable. He settles at his desk and immediately goes back to the video he had received from Elena on the last working day of the week before.He rewatches it three times in a row and each time he does, he only gets angrier and angrier, she was humiliated, they dared to touch his woman, and even though they did not know, whatever could she have done to deserve such a hostile treatment from fellow co-workers?He sets the phone down, his fists clenched.He had not heard a word from her since Saturday when he dropped her off at home, and even though he had tried to reach her, his efforts had been futile.He’ll pay her a visit after work but b
When his car finally pulls up in front of her shared apartment with Renee, the silence already got burdening but neither of them decided to break it.“Thank you for the ride.” Samantha mutters as she pulls softly on the door’s handle.“Wait.” Claude suddenly says, his brows somewhat furrowed together, not enough to be a frown though. “You said you don’t want to be someone’s special lie? I completely respect that but to me, you are no lie. There are many coincidences in life, admittedly, but this…?” He entwines his hand with hers and pulls it up till it’s her eye level, “Being able to touch me at will when not even my own grandfather can? That makes you more than ordinarily special to me, you are not a special lie and even if we are about to tell a lie for a year, you are my only special lie.”Her stomach drops.“I’ll go inside now.”He nods but she makes no move to leave. He raises one eyebrow at her and she glances at his hands, still holding hers quite firmly.“Oh.” He lets go hesi