Toxic Truth

2

LIAM

As soon as I stumble into the kitchen two eyes fall on me.

"You look like shit," my brother Amo points out.

"Why are you guys not in school?" I walk over to the coffee machine and pour myself some coffee because there isn't any time to catch up on sleep now.

"It's Saturday," my sister Isabella raises her eyebrows amusedly.

Fuck. It is Saturday. At the moment I can't remember anything except for last night and my will to take that woman again. I had barely gotten any sleep last night.

"Where were you?" Isabella narrows her eyes and Amo smirks knowingly which made Isa scrunch up her nose. "Never mind. Forget I asked that, I don't want to know."

Great. Now my little sister also knows why I have a separate apartment.

I never bring women home. At least the ones that I intend to only sleep with, which is why I bought a separate apartment nearby my house so that my siblings wouldn't know about my nights and I could come back incase of an emergency.

But now they know what I may be upto at nights when I'm not here, especially Amo who is a junior in high school, about to turn seventeen.

Choosing not to reply to that question, I ask one instead. "What are you guys upto today?"

Isabella rolls her eyes at my attempt on changing the topic but still answers, "I might go to Luna's house or she'll be here."

I nod and take a sip of my coffee. Amo had ignored my question, busy scrolling and tapping on his phone.

When I pull out my phone as well Isabella stands up and mumbles, "I'm going to study."

Amo rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath, "when are you not studying."

"At least I'm studying," she scoffs and throws him an accusatory look before sauntering away.

When she is out of the kitchen Amo turns his head my way with a grin. "Long night?"

"Fuck off," I scowl and walk out of the kitchen and upstairs to my room.

I take ten minutes to drink my coffee and check my emails before I get ready for work.

~~~~~

A knock sounds and my assistant, Dina walks into my office and sets up my coffee on the table before giving me updates on my meetings and the company.

After giving me the important details she places her tablet on the table and sits on the chair in front of me.

"Invading my private space without my permission as usual," I drawl and she rolls her eyes but still smiles.

"You know you can't stop me from walking in here anytime and sitting whenever I want to anymore," she gives me an overly sweet smile.

I shake my head and take a sip of my now second coffee.

Dina has been working for our company for years now and she has been my assistant for over a year, after my dad passed away and I became the boss of the company.

We started off as boss and assistant with no unnecessary topics to talk about but now we both saw each other as friends.

"Well the good thing is that our social media has been very active since our post on our website yesterday. A famous artist wore one of our designer's dress and there were photos taken of her with complete view of the dress. Her team allowed us to upload the pictures on our website. It's a great collaboration if you ask me." 

She takes a sip of her own coffee and stares at me expectantly, waiting for my response.

"Who is the designer she was wearing?"

"Sage."

I nod my head and she taps on the iPad before turning it and sliding it towards me.

"Here's the picture."

All my thoughts stop and fly out of the window the moment I set my eyes on the picture.

The picture of the same girl who's bed I was in last night.

I look at her familiar face. Her dark hair was tied in a ponytail. She was wearing a dark blue dress that had embroidery and jewels all over it, which was undoubtedly Sage's work.

She stands confidently as she poses and smiles into the camera, the same smile that drew me towards her last night.

"Zella," the name comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.

Dina furrows her brows and nods. "Yeah. Zella Walter. You know who she is?"

I don't say anything, still looking at the picture. Did she know who I was last night? Was she pretending like she didn't know me?

She didn't look like someone who had a plan last night.

Fuck my mind was going all over the place.

"What is she doing on the website?" I snap.

"I just told you she's the artist who wore our dress," Dino furrows her brows. She looks taken aback by my sudden change of mood.

"Take the picture off," I order, clearly not thinking through.

"What, why? Is something wrong?"

"No," I bite out and calm myself, forcing myself to think and use my mind.

Zella is an artist and she wore our dress on an event and I met her last night. This picture wasn't recent it was a bit old so us meeting at the club last night was probably a coincidence.

Last night happened and it was over. I had left before she woke up and she hadn't even asked for my number. If she had a plan she probably would've taken some measures.

I wasn't seeing her again.

I calm down and return the iPad to Dina. "Everything's fine, I just thought she was familiar. I was wrong."

"Are you sure that's all? Do you have any bad history with her?" Her eyes narrow and I shake my head.

"No bad history, God. Get out of my office now."

"All right I'll believe you, but your reaction is making me wary."

"It's nothing, I just didn't get much sleep last night."

Understatement of the fucking century.

She nods warily and gets up, obviously still doubtful about our previous exchange.

I wait for her to shut the door before opening my laptop and searching Zella Walter.

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New chapter 🤍

Thought I should give you guys Liam's POV 👀

If you're reading this, please vote <3