AMBERT STOOD UP as Nancy walked towards him at the lobby. The big smile on her face seemed genuine as they shook hands. She seemed excited to meet him, and he remembered those genuine chuckles of her while they were talking on the phone earlier. She seemed to be a cheerful person, that it would be extremely far-out for somebody to think that she would be capable of mayhem. If she was an actress, she would probably be typecast as a loving and adorable aunt, ever protective to her nieces and nephews, one that would always be horrified even at the pettiest of crimes.Nancy was still in her office attire: dark blue blazer, white dress shirt and dark blue pants. He too was still in his office outfit, which was a two-piece suit. She was petite, probably standing at five feet two inches, and she had white complexion, slim figure and was bespectacled. And despite the glasses, he could still see her laughing eyes. He just hoped that it would still be laughing after their conversation. We need

“IS THAT LAYLA?” Nancy asked him while Ambert hesitated on what to tell the manager. “I called her up before I got here. I told her we’re meeting to talk about her.”“You should have asked my permission first,” he told her, stopping himself from gritting his teeth.“Ambert, my dear,” she said, a wry smile shaping on her lips. “You invited me to talk about her without her permission.”I was doing her a favor, he wanted to tell Nancy.But could you really do someone a favor without that someone asking for a favor? What if the favor you thought you were doing for them turned out to be harmful? What if because Nancy thought that he was meddling, instead of stopping, she would hasten her plan of harming Layla? He wanted to wipe imaginary dirt on his forehead. What had he done? He felt an urge to purse his lips. But he didn’t want to show Nancy that he was being affected negatively. And when you really think about it, now that Nancy knew that he knew about it, she would think twice befor

LAYLA LOOKED AT Ambert abruptly with wide eyes. “W-what..? How?”“It was the first day of me meddling in your life,” he said, shaping a small apologetic smile on his lips.He waited for her to say something but she didn’t—she probably was too shocked her tongue had a nervous breakdown and collapsed. He pointed to the glass of water beside her. She looked at it, grabbed it and drank it. “You were there?” she asked afterwards. “Was it you who called him on the cell phone?”“No,” he said.A little disappointment crossed her face. Disappointed that he wasn’t her hero? “I thought… Where were you then?”“In my office, working.”“You said it was your first day of…”“Yeah,” he interrupted her. “A private detective was working in my behalf.”“Oh,” she quipped. “A private detective… I only hear of them in the movies…”“They exist in real life,” he said. “The detective I hired was following you that day. He saw everything.”“Was he the one who called that man?”He nodded. “He got his number fro

“DO YOU WANT me to get out, ma’am?” the woman asked Layla.The woman was sitting on a chair near the door, which was closed at that time. She was wearing a white blouse with purple collar and a purple skirt and black shoes, which Layla surmised was a uniform. Layla looked around, Ambert had vanished, but she could see that she still was in his hotel, in his suite specifically, and that this woman in front of her, was employee here. What this woman was doing in the room with her butt naked, she still had no idea. Layla jerked and suddenly looked at herself when she remembered that indeed she was naked at that moment. But no, she wasn’t naked. She still was wearing the clothes she had when she rushed to this hotel, except for her shoes which were on the floor near the bed.She still was in bed, alright, but now that her lightheadedness was slowly disappearing, she now was starting to have a strong inkling that the kissing scene with Ambert which she happily—and hungrily—indulged with wa

LAYLA CHANGED HER mind before she could reject Ambert’s friend request on Facebook—but she also didn’t accept it. She still wanted to reject it but she decided she could do it later. Rejecting it now would be completely rude—like, what she had just realized a few moments ago, didn’t Ambert just help change Nancy’s antagonistic mind towards her? It would be so villainous of her to do things right now that would offend him. She put hg earphone down on the bedside table and lay down on the bed, turning her back on the phone to lessen the temptation of picking it up again.Where is your heart? Ambert, and Anika, would probably ask her.It had been broken, shattered and I had put it into a trash bin, she probably would answer. And she covered the trash bin so she wouldn’t hear just in case it started beating again.She looked at her clock, it said 2:40 AM. She closed her eyes, she could still catch some sleep. Fortunately, Ambert didn’t text her again, but she probably was only able to sle