~1~

~Laurel~

I could hear the gasps and the awes from the crowd. I could hear their murmurings and their whisperings.

It has always been a part of my life. I learned to live with it. I had learned to live with the fact that no matter what I do, I would always be a subject for the public to discuss. Barely had my privacy. And it doesn't stop scaring the hell out of me because I knew that someday, a secret I had spent years in hiding would come into light. And I wouldn't like that all. I hated even the smallest idea of it. So to stop these insecurities, I vowed to clean up even the tiniest of mess that comes close to my secret. Because one thing's for sure, I hated everything and everyone that encounters the likes of Kurt Kenton.

The secretary smiled and held the door out for me as I walked into her boss's office.

She stopped me on my tracks, holding a pen and paper out for me. "Please.. I.. I have always been a big fan of yours."

I feigned out a smile, taking hold of the pen and paper, signing into it. "Word of advice?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't be like me. I may wear a smile everyday but all I see is hate."

"Umm..."

I pushed past her and catwalked into the office of Zach Norman.

"Well well well, if it isn't the most sexiest woman alive." He flashed me a grinning smile. "Laurel Hyde in my office, calls for a celebration."

I frowned. "At least wait till I'm out of here, Norman. I'm here to talk business."

"Hmm." He hit his pen on his head as if he was in deep thoughts. "Why is that you can't be nice to anyone?"

I flashed him a toothing smile, taking my seat. "I'm nice to Liam and Wesley."

"Nah. Those two are different." He straightened up. "Well as they say, birds of the same feathers, flocks together."

"At least let me speak."

He nodded in approval. "Go on."

I dipped my hand in my handbag, brought out a file and handed it over to him.

He took hold of the file and brought out the pictures from it. "What do we have here? Laurel Hyde in Midvale? Still cleaning up the trash I see?"

"Make sure no one finds out. People saw me in Midvale and even took pictures of me there. Suspicions might arise. And one thing leads to another."

"Sure. I'll clean it up. Consider it done, my lady. But what do I get in return?"

I rose up from the chair. "I don't fuck men below 6 feet. And you're too thin. Do you even work out at all?"

His jaw clenched. I laughed. One was for sure, he wasn't going all angry with me. "How about a million then?"

"I've transferred five million to your goddamned account. Clean up the mess."

"Of course, Laurel."

~

Los Angeles, California.

I watched as Liam and Wesley surfed out of the water, laughing and giggling as they walked toward me.

"Hey Laurel," Wesley said dipping slowly on the lounger beside me.

I raised my head from my phone and glared at him. He had made me miss something I was about to watch. "What?"

"We caught some waves today again. Aren't you going to go with us tomorrow?"

"Maybe."

"Just leave her alone. I'm sure she has her brain buried in her phone." Liam teased, coming around to seat next to me.

"Asshole. That's what you are."

He grinned, encircling his arm around my shoulders. "But you love me either way."

"I'm going to check up on Kaitlyn." Wesley said, changing into his shirt.

"Sure. I'll meet you guys inside."

Wesley strode out of my sight leaving me alone with Liam.

"Still onto that I see?"

I glared at him again. "Just leave me the fuck will you?"

"No. I'm your best friend."

I groaned. "Ah. Okay please. Please will you just let me breathe? Because I think I haven't done that in the past two weeks now."

"Okay!" He got up on his feet. "I think I may just leave you alone. But don't do anything rash okay? Listen to me..."

"When have I not?" I murmured, smirking at him.

"You barely. Either way I'm going in. My favorite buddy would need me now. Wouldn't miss ranting with him for the world."

"Yeah go. I'll see you guys inside."

After catching up with Wesley and Liam; because they knows I'm normally super busy and I don't easily make time, I headed for my company.

It wasn't really a company; more like an industry. A place where I normally go to, if I'm not filming around the world, shooting or even catching up with my best friends. A place where most of my money goes to. My very own clothing company.

The moment I climbed down from my car, paparazzis crowded me. Like always.

My driver, Leon managed to push past them and safeguard them from me as I walked into my building.

"Good day ma'am," my secretary, Julia greeted me.

"Good day to you too, Juliet." I always try as much as possible to be nice to my staffs.

She chuckled, blushing profusely. "It's.. it's um.. Julia ma'am."

"At least I know what I'm saying." I remarked, stretching out my hand for her to hand over the list of daily activities done for today.

"Em, um, they've finished with the tee-shirts designs, they're just waiting for you to give them permission to brand it."

"Well then go ahead. You know I'm not always around. And I'm leaving for Paris next week. I'll be shooting a new movie there." I handed her back the book.

"Do I get to know the name?"

I glared. "No."

"Well okay. Umm, less I forget, there's someone waiting to see you." I stopped and turned to face her. "In your office."

"What?"

"Um, it's really not my fault. I asked him to wait in the waiting room but he said he'd be more comfortable in your office so...um, Mr Lewis..."

"Did you say Mr Lewis?"

"Um I...I might have."

If my glares could bore holes, I would have done that to Julia a thousand times. She just couldn't get past her mistakes.

"We'll talk after this." I said and walked into my office.

"Mr Lewis!" I moved to my seat immediately. "Sorry for keeping you waiting."

"No problem, Miss Hyde."

I smiled. "So how's our partnership going?"

His face immediately went blank. I was very good at reading people's appearances and the look on their faces. "What went wrong, Mr Lewis?"

Mr Lewis was someone who had partnered with me on some few deals. I also had an endorsement and investments with the organization he was in charge of. He was one of the oldest and one of the richest fashion moguls in the country.

"Actually, my boss said he would like to invite you to our conference meeting here in Los Angeles tomorrow morning."

"Your boss?" I quirked a brow. "That's mythological. Thought you were your own boss? I mean I did make partnership with you in person and you're the one in charge so..."

"I'm sorry, Laurel but I now have a bigger boss." He sighed. "You see, a billionaire bought several industries, organizations and share holding companies last week and ours must have just been one of the unlucky ones to have been bought. Although we didn't lose our jobs but he might have just been the chairman of our corp now. I might be in charge but we report to him. And he asked to see the people we're dealing with."

I let out a bitter chuckle. "Mr Lewis, my deal is with you. Not with some rich dude. If there's anyone I'm dealing with, it's you not just anyone."

"Unfortunately, he's not just anyone."

I sighed in frustration. "Then who the fuck am I dealing with here?!"

"I'm sorry but he prefers to keep everything about him private. You'll get to know him once you've meet him. We're still in charge, please, Laurel, you've got to trust us."

I combed my fingers through my hair. "I'm not doing this because of trust Mr Lewis, I'm just doing this because we're long time partners in this. And we both may have just invested too much in this deal to call it off right now."

"I'll take it as a yes?"

"Yes to what?"

"Yes to come to our meeting tomorrow morning, by ten."

"Yeah, fine. Whatever. See you tomorrow, Mr Lewis. You know your way out of my office." I said, moving round to stand in front of the glass walls of my office.

I didn't turn to look at him but I could tell he was leaving. Well, he must have understood that I wasn't happy with him over this. We've been partners for over seven years and now I'll get to work with a new brute?

Well I hope he isn't one.

~

As soon as Leon opened the door for me, the crowd nearly jumped at me, disorderly and in dissipation. Signing on a few of their papers and if possible their bodies, I made my way into LAGS Inc. LAGS Inc was a organization that deals with everything that makes human beings comfortable in life. Name it; clothes, accessories, brands, skincare products, hairs, cosmetics etc, mine was the clothing aspect. Part of the reason I was here today was because I had an endorsement and investments shares here and secondly, I would like to meet the new chairman of the organization that made millions of dollars every year.

"Welcome, miss Hyde." A man greeted me at the far end corner of the room. I didn't know who he was. "Big fan." He said flashing me the regular smile.

I smiled back at him and made my way further into the large conference room.

Mr Lewis was seated, the CEOs and even the others that made partnership with the organization. We were the biggest shareholders in the organization and I could go as far as saying that they were all present.

"Good day to you all," The acting CEO of the organization started. "As you all know, LAGS is an organization that has been in work for over twenty-five years. Although some of us are still active, some retired and some new. Despite that, We still welcome new, brilliant and talented idea investors every year. LAGS has always been a progressing organization, owning several industries and ventures across the globe. Sorry to say this but someone might have bought this organization from LAGS recently, owning all our ventures and companies acrose the globe."

"How is that even possible? Shouldn't we be aware of this trade? Isn't LAGS a public organization run by several CEOs and different ideas? How can it be owned solely by one person?" A woman, Griffith, spoke up.

"He threatened LAGS. He threatened to buy the lands we had built our buildings on from the landowners and demolish our buildings, thereby developing new competing companies that might outshine LAGS in the market. If our buildings are demolished, sales will go down and debts will be swinging in the air. We can't take that risk, can we? Not to talk of another competing organization like LAGS'? No. Such risk can't be taken."

I was getting bored. I preferred shooting to this crap. "Can we at least know the bastard that bought our organization?"

"Is that impatience I'm hearing from one of your partners, Mr Antonio?" A man, drop-dead gorgeous from the top to the bottom walked in with a very powerful aura. He had his back faced to me but I could tell he was devastatingly handsome just by looking at his perfectly made Armani suit.

Antonio, the acting CEO of our headquarters shivered. "No..um..sire."

"Good." And just then he turned to face us all. And that was when I nearly choked, gasping for breath.

"Are you okay, miss Hyde?" Mr Lewis who was seated next to me asked.

"Y..yes yes, I'm fine." I lied. I wasn't okay at all even though I was supposed to be.

Not only was he more drop-dead gorgeous, excessively devastatingly handsome, hot and powerful, he was also someone I dreaded so much. A man I feared and hated and the feeling of encountering him again after all those years scared me to the core. Kurt Kenton.

He held my gaze for a few seconds before taking his seat opposite me. His eyes lingered on me for another few seconds before transferring his gaze to the people seated.

"I know you all might have heard of me but.. may have never seen me in person and now you're getting the chance to do so, don't waste this opportunity. Because from now onwards, you'll be seeing my face a little more often." He wasn't smiling. He never did. He was just straightforward, arrogant and even his tone spoke of authority, power and arrogance. "I don't care about any one of you here, all I do know is that I am the new chairman of this organization from now henceforth."

"I'm sorry sir, but this company doesn't need a chairman. The separate CEOs handle our branches very well.."

"Fortunately, you do now." He opened a file. "And I'll be changing the name of this organization very soon. Your activities and your role playing in this organization are very poor. I wonder how you even handle the millions of dollars that comes with this LAGS or whatever every year."

"Such arrogance!" A woman in her mid- fifties flared.

"The door is open, Mrs Williams." Kurt spoke up, his jaw clenching as he spoke. He was always quick to anger."You might as well get a refund and get the hell out of my office or I'll make sure your nephew doesn't get the bail he seeks for."

Mrs Williams gasped and the hall was immediately filled with awkward silence.

"So, as I was saying." Kurt continued, eyeing the poor woman who was already sobbing silently. "Keep quiet, Mrs Williams."

"Don't talk to her that way. We have endorsements, as well as rights here." I said, unable to tolerate his arrogance any longer. He wasn't the only one. I had friends who were as rich as him but they weren't as arrogant as he's.

"You are to speak, when you're spoken to, Hyde. And besides, the main reason you have an endorsement in this organization is because you're famous. The rest of you have irrelevant shares." He bit out, his blue eyes searing power.

"You might be the chairman..."

"Not might, I am. And you're not allowed to utter a word without my permission. You're only a partner here. You don't run this organization."

Without hesitation, I sealed my lips and looked down at the table, fidgeting with my pen. I looked back at him but he wasn't looking at me anymore. He had his gaze concentrated on the files in front of him. There was something I learnt about Kurt. He didn't talk much. He didn't like talking. He'd always prefer action over any talking. I knew that even if Wesley and Liam went ahead with their plans of ruining his life, they wouldn't have been able to. Kurt would have fought back. He was as influential and rich as they were.

"I have decided on changing this organization like I have done with many other organizations. The least you can do is follow my orders and report to me or else, I won't hesitate to crush you in a way you'll have no life to return to, once you're out of here, permanently."

~~~~~

Man like Kurt Kenton.

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