AMBERT DRANK FROM his glass, and put the glass down on the wooden counter top. “You didn’t ask me if I’m single or if I’m currently dating someone,” he stated. There were plants over his head, hanging from a steel frame.“Have I told you that I love plants?” she asked him, smiling, when she noticed that he was looking at the plants. Sadie poured herself and Ambert another drink without waiting for his answer. “Brian told me you’re single,” she said and the smile excitedly went back to her lips. “So I didn’t bother asking you that. Brian wouldn’t lie to me, you know. Nadia would get angry at him if he does.” “He didn’t,” Ambert acknowledged as he held the glass in his hand. “And just like I told you,” Sadie said as she smiled the fire-setting smile on her lips again. “I’m serious when I told you I want to be your girlfriend. But let me just inform you that it’s not my hobby to run after men. It’s just that… well, you’re single now, and I know you won
AMBERT STARED AT Sadie again and waited for the punch line.Nothing came.“Dylan Wilson is your ex-boyfriend,” he wanted to confirm, and the confirmation, once he got it, would sprout many complications and implications.“Yes,” she affirmed and flashed her alluring smile. Why are you here? he wanted to ask her but he kept his mouth shut. She promised to tell him a truthful story and he would let her finish it without interruptions.“Don’t get upset, Dylan being my ex-boyfriend and being Olivia’s girlfriend now and you being Olivia’s ex-boyfriend have nothing to do with me wanting to know you. None, nada, zilch, absolutely zero. Firstly, I broke up with him, I dumped him, I wanted him out of my life. I’m not here for revenge, like hooking up with you so we can plan how to hurt them or break them up. I don’t care about him. I don’t care about Olivia and their relationship. But maybe, I should be grateful to them because I got to know you through them. You see, when he became Olivia’s b
AMBERT COULDN’T ESCAPE so he had no option but to let Sadie have her way. Was he surprised that she was kissing her without his permission? Not a bit as she had been looking at him like a hungry tigress that had been wanting to jump on him and devour him. And thinking about it, beautiful girls, most of them thought they needed no permission to kiss a man. And this was probably his karma, Sadie kissing him without his explicit consent, his karma for meddling with Layla’s life without her permission. He couldn’t help but smile against her lips. But this was a beautiful karma, most men would agree. Sadie was gorgeous and her lips soft and sweet, spiced up a bit by the taste of alcohol.Then, he remembered that Sadie might just be doing this because she was intoxicated and really not in her proper frame of mind. He could say in his defense, once he decided to kiss her back so he could taste her lips deeper, that he too was inebriated. But he could still think clearly, so it would appear t
“PLEASE DON’T DO that,” Ambert said in voice that he failed to stop sounding alarmed. “Just tell me when she’s absent, and I will try to visit you during those days. I think she loves her job. And it’s hard to find a job you love these days.” Anika laughed. “Mister, you’re so funny. You should have known that I was just kidding,” she admonished him. “I’m not petty. Even if you’re my son, I won’t begrudge her for rejecting you and making you cry.” “I didn’t cry,” he snapped. “We don’t know that,” she quipped and chuckled. “And I’m sure you’re old enough and smart enough to forget a woman. You easily dispatched Olivia from your heart, repeat it regarding Layla and you’ll be fine. Layla’s a model employee, hardworking, doesn’t complain. In fact, I’m thinking of promoting her.”“You want her to replace you as the host?”Anika laughed. “Sometimes, I wanna choke you to death.”“I mean, she’d be a good replacement once you set your sight on other worthier
LAYLA OPENED her eyes with a scream.She just had a bad dream—she was being chased by a burly and fully-naked tattooed man in an alleyway—whose whole body including the face and his bald head was covered with tattoos—holding a bloodied knife. She didn’t know if she was injured or wounded in her dream or if that blood belonged to another person, an earlier victim, but fortunately, she woke up at the moment the man had finally caught up with her, brutally grabbing her by the hair.Layla remained lying on the bed, calming herself down. Why would she be dreaming of a man full of tattoos? And why would this man want to kill her? She assumed that he wanted to kill her because he was holding a bloodied knife while chasing her. And the way he grabbed her hair, he didn’t care if her neck would break. Speaking of tattoos, she had a tattoo of two small intertwined tribal hearts at her lower back. But she had been thinking of having it erased as that tattoo was a part of unsavory memories. It jus
LAYLA CAUGHT HER breath and rushed out of her room. She ran down the stairs and went to the living area where she saw Lillian already walking towards the door.“Lillian,” she called her sister, almost in a whisper while hiding in the wooden partition that separated the living room from the dining area. Luckily, Lillian heard her and glanced at her while she continued walking.She signaled for her to stop, and she stopped. Then, she motioned her to come to her.“What?” Lillian asked her as she approached her. One of her sister’s eyebrows was raised, probably perplexed at her agitated appearance. “And why do you look so tense?”She pointed at the door. “Allan,” she said, still in a soft voice.“Allan?”“Allan’s at the door.”Lillian’s eyes widened. “Allan, your ex?” she asked in an alarmed and a bit loud voice. Layla was still was young, around fourteen, at the time of Layla’s relationship with him and she saw very little of Allan then. But in the last few years, he would pop up once in
THE LAST SENTENCE Yssa uttered pricked Layla’s ears like rusty needles. “He threatened to kill you?” she asked her. She felt her all her apprehensions uniting and slowly morphing into anger.“Yes, he did,” Yssa affirmed, her voice still sounding tense.“How?”“He told me that if I knew him, I’d give your number to him,” Yssa elaborated. “That was a threat, wasn’t it? And he said it while looking fiercely at me. And I knew him to be a bully and a violent person and… we know how he hurt you emotionally and physically.”Yes, everyone knows. “He went to the house earlier,” she informed Yssa.“What did he do?” Yssa, sounding alarmed, asked.“In fairness, he didn’t create any trouble,” she stated. “But again, he deceived me. Well, we lied to him first. Lillian told him that I was in a province.”“I would hide from him, too, if I were you,” Yssa declared. “How did he deceive you?”“We thought he had left,” Layla retorted. “But when my Uber arrived and I got out of the house, he was there, ne
WHEN ALLAN SCREAMED Layla’s name and raised his hand, as if wanting to throw the rock at their house, she decided that it was high time she put him in his proper place.She retreated from the broken window.“Call the police!” she told Lillian who was standing beside her mother beside the sofa in the living area, a few feet away from the windows. She ran to the door and got out, ignoring calls from her Lillian and her mother. But when she rushed to the door, she saw Allan already involved in a fisticuff with another man—her brother Cedric.All her blood rushed to her head. “Stop! Stop!” she screamed as she approached the two men fighting, scared that Allan had a knife with him and would use it against her brother, furious that Allan wouldn’t stop harassing her. She grabbed the shirt of Allan at the back and pulled him away from her brother, almost tearing it. He could stab all he wanted but spare her brother or any member of her family. Then, she pushed Allan away from her and towards