Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke #1)

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Sitting on the couch of the barley lit apartment, I let out a sigh as the rain began to pour heavily out side. I felt sick to my guts knowing that my ex boyfriend was possibly considering getting a lawsuit against me. When Shane came to see me I immediately knew it was going to be bad news but never would I have expected that the idea of going to court was going to come through, let alone Marcus considering taking action against me for that stupid article.

I guess I had to be thankful towards Lukas Webb, the one who had gotten the footage and Shane, who had showed me the conversation between the man who I thought I could share my life with and the man who's basically the closet thing to a devil in disguise; the odd thing with everything that was going on, the lines blurred between which man was the real devil and that was the scariest part of all of this.

Trailing my eyes to a photograph that sat upon the nearby coffee table, I picked it up in my hands and stared taking in the details of the photo of a younger Charlotte Matthews with man standing by her side. My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when I overheard Charlotte behind me.

"It was a beautiful day the night of my engagement with Josh."

"I could only imagine." I added with a shy smile smile, thanking Charlotte for the coffee she was giving me. Holding the shiny white cup in my hands, I sniffed the warm chocolaty air suddenly feeling the sensation sooth me.

"How long have you been with Josh?" I asked trying my hardest to avoid making any serious conversation with Charlotte.

"We've been engaged for three years now, hopefully soon there's a wedding on the table." Charlotte added with a chuckle as I looked down at the ground, still trying to wrap my head around the potential lawsuit.

"As much as I enjoy talking about my beloved Josh, I can't just sit here and allow one of my best students to just suffer here in silence when so much is going on. As an editor, I need to acknowledge how much this has affected you and yes I do admit I knew there was going to be some obstacles we all were going to face but honestly, I never imagined that this investigation was going to cause so much pain for you Scarlett and for that I am truly sorry."

"There's no need to apologise Charlotte, nobody could predict that things could get to a level like this so quickly and yeah there are quite a few things I need to deal with but I can't blame my problems on somebody who has taught me so much over the last year. I can't ever imagine that I would get an opportunity like this and for this to happen, I explain how happy that makes me to know that there are people like you willing to give me a chance to prove myself in this industry."

"I really am proud of you Scarlett, seeing how much you've come as a journalist makes me feel honored to be apart of your journey but I can't get past the fact that you've lost so much because of this investigation. Your reputation as a journalist is tarnished, people are giving you so much hate for the wrong reasons, you've lost your job at the autograph and worse, you lost the man you loved because of this investigation." She confessed as I just shook my head, putting the half drunk cup of coffee on the table before turning my attention back onto Charlotte.

"Charlotte, whatever happened between Marcus and I had nothing to do with you. As a member of this investigation, it was my duty to keep my private life and my professional life separate during the course of the investigation. What happened had nothing to do with the brilliant work you were doing with us Charlotte and as much as I didn't want any of this to happen, I wouldn't trade back the time if it meant never meeting you or working with the people that I worked with over the year." I said, settling myself down and remaining quiet for several moments, taking in everything that we spoke about.