Love Me, Loathe Me.

Breathing so fast that she felt lightheaded, Mavis stood in the intimidating glass walled waiting room on the twentieth floor of LW Group, staring down at the people on the roads beneath, like looking at ants going about their daily lives, like the people twenty floors down on the road besides the tall building.

The waiting was nothing but immense torture.

Everything, every last thing concerning her life was based on this visit, and the realization of that made her legs weaken and her insides knot with intense anxiety and tension for what could possibly be the outcome.

It was sad, that her last resort was the man who she had sworn all those years ago to never see or have anything to do with again.

Taking deep inhales and exhales as beads of sweat gathered on her forehead, she closed her eyes for a while and tried to minimize her expectations. She wondered if he would even agree to see her.

People don't just show up without appointments to meet the world's husband, Lance Wesker, he was well, well, above that status of being easy to meet.

She was only in that room solely because his secretary had taken pity on her. Stuttering while requesting to see him earlier, Mavis had been so white and nervous that the older woman had become concerned and had stuck on to the fact that she should have a sit and wait in the air-conditioned waiting room. Having served her a glass of coffee, the woman had given her a small smile and almost assured her that Mr. Wesker really was not as dangerous as the world made it seem.

But Mavis knew differently. The woman would have fooled Mavis if she didn't have first hand experience of how cruel Lance can really be.

He wasn't just dangerous, no, that was a terrible understatement, he was made of tough metal and like a lethal weapon, she knew it was going to take way more than a cup of hot coffee to face that man on the other end of the hall.

What was she even going to say to him?

How was she supposed to tell him about what brought her to his presence again after all these years?

Where exactly was she to start from?

She could not appeal to his conscience or even a sense of decency because he possessed neither of both. Helping people was not at all on his list. He only ever used people, and most especially, he used women, naïve ones like her right at the top of the line. She knew that better than anyone did. Past pain tore through her as she recalled just how badly he'd treated her.

To her, he was just a cruel, ruthless, self righteous billionaire with just one thing he wants and that is the lifelong pursuit of pleasure, any kind of pleasure he could possibly get from women.

And for a short peaceful time, she had been his source of pleasure.

Her heart felt like an heavy weight in her chest. Looking back on it now, she couldn't believe how naive she'd been.

How trusting and stupid.

As an idealistic, romantic eighteen year old, she'd been willing and eager to share every part of herself with him. She'd held nothing back because she'd seen no reason to hold herself back from him. He'd been the one for her, her everything.

But she had been his nothing.

She curled her fingers into her sweaty palms, swallowing the growing lumps in her throat and reminded herself that the purpose of being here today was not to rehash the past. She was going to have to put aside the memory of the pain, the panic and the blood infusing humiliation she'd suffered as a result of his careless and cruel rejection.

None of that mattered now anyway.

There was only one thing that mattered to her now, only one person, and for the sake of that person, she's going to bite her tongue, smile, beg or even grovel at his dirty feet or whatever it took to ingratiate herself with Lance Wesker, because there was no way she was leaving Atlanta without the money she needed.

It was a matter of life and death.

She paced the length of the room, trying to formulate some sort of plan in her mind, trying to work out a reasonable way to ask for five million dollars from a man who had absolutely no feelings for her.

How was she going to tackle the subject?

How was she going to tell him that she was in serious trouble?

And how could she make him care?

She felt a shaft of pure panic as the large glass doors opened and he strolled into the room unannounced, the sun shining exquisitely on his gelled black hair, his face hard, handsome and unsmiling.

Mavis suddenly realized it was going to take more than she thought. She was in even more trouble than she had imagined, her heart coming to a stop as he strolled in and walked towards her.

*

She looked like a baby deer caught in an ambush.

Without revealing anything of his thoughts, Lance surveyed the slender, impossibly beautiful redhead who stood shivering and pale on the far side of his waiting room as she stared at him. She looked so frightened that he almost found it possible to feel sorry for her.

Except that he knew too much about her to fall again for those deceiving looks.

And if he were in her position, he'd be shaking in his boots too.

She had one hell of a nerve coming here.

Seven whole fucking years.

He hadn't seen Mavis Port for seven years and still she had the ability to seriously disturb his day.

Endless legs, silken red hair, soft mouth and a wide trusting smile...

For a time, she had truly fooled him with that loving, giving, generous act that she had perfected. Accustomed to being with women who were as sophisticated and calculating as himself, he'd been charmed and captivated by Mavis's innocence, openness and her almost childlike honesty.

It was the first and only occasion in his adult life when he'd made a serious error of judgment.

He knew that now and she knew that he knew.

So what could possibly have possessed her to throw herself in his path again?

She was either very brave or very, very stupid. He strolled towards her, watching her flinch and tremble and decided that she didn't look particularly brave.

Which just left stupid? Or desperate?

“Well, well, well… I can’t exactly say it is nice to meet you.” Lance Wesker annunciates with thick sarcasm, taking a seat right there, and offering Mavis none.

“…” Mavis tries to speak, but her mouth just is not co-operating with her brain.

Lance scoffs. “Fancy seeing you appear before me, after seven years of disappearing on me like that. To what do I owe this august visit?”

“Lance…uh…Mr. Wesker, my name is Mavis—“

“Cut the bullshit, what the fuck do you want from me?!”

Within the second, he has her back pinned to the wall, the band holding her red hair in place falls to the ground and her hair scatters around her shoulders as she stares up at him with those eyes, the same eyes that had deceived him for so long in the past, and even now, her eyes still disarm him.

Her breathing seizes for a moment as she tries, and fails, to gather her thoughts off the ground. Her body is trembling and her heart is beating so fast, and so loud that she’s almost sure he can hear it. The way he’d looked at her just now, if she could just lean up on her tippy toes and…

“Fuck!” Lance swears, stepping away from her before he repeats that damn mistake.

“I need your help.” Her weak voice comes from behind him.

Hearing a soft thud, he turns around and sees her kneeling down. He raises one eyebrow, scoffing as he puts his hands in his pocket, watching her hunched body for a few seconds. “And what could you possibly need my help with?”

Mavis raises her eyes to meet his, and there is moisture in them, tears that will roll down her cheeks in any second as her fingers clench into fists, willing herself to say what she has come to see him for. “I need five million dollars.”

There is a momentary pause between them, just before Lance bursts into cruel, harsh laughter.

“Mavis Port, you never cease to amaze me.”