Love's War

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Clarissa Castillo was running late for her ten o clock meeting with the team. She had come from a breakfast date with her boyfriend, Thomas and lost track of time just catching up. When she arrived at the conference room, she found everybody already seated.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I got caught up in my previous appointment.” She placed her laptop on the table and booted up her presentation. “Let’s begin.”

Being the head of the marketing department, her responsibilities were almost endless. She was in charge of making sure their products looked good to the general public. Since she minored in engineering, she also double checked installation and made sure they were safe to use.

She dismissed the team after two hours of heated discussion about their strategy then made her way back to her office. Her secretary greeted her and handed over her phones that she left charging.

“You have a couple of emails then Mr. Scott called and left a text message.”

“Thank you, Nina. I’ll be in my office.” Clary said, pushing open her door. She sat down behind her desk and booted up her computer. She saw that she had a few IM conversations that were ongoing and a few emails that she hadn’t read. Among those, there was a chat message from Katherine and a missed video call from Thomas.

KatCastillo: Clary, are you there?

                   Why aren’t you answering your phone?

                    Clary?

Seeing the seemingly urgent messages from Katherine, Clary immediately replied

ClaCastillo: Just got out of a meeting, what’s wrong?

She waited for a reply, but there was none, and assumed that Katherine was already at the track. She had another hour to kill before she was needed down at the track, so she decided to run over the monthly reports from the beginning of the year. In the middle of the January report, she got and incoming video call.

“Hey babe,” Thomas said, once his face came into focus.

“Hi,” Clary smiled, “isn’t it quite dangerous to be on a video call while driving?”

“Nah, my eyes are on the road anyway.” He replied, “Just wanted to know what you wanted from Enzo’s.”

“The Clary special, as usual.” She smiled, remembering the dish that Enzo, the owner of a quaint Italian cafe they usually frequented, named after her. It was a deep dish pizza with a few pieces of penne in the pizza itself.

“I actually knew that, but I wanted to double check in case you decided to try something new.”

“Never!”

Thomas chuckled, “Alright, I’ll see you in a few. You look busy. Bye, love you.”

“Love you too.” Then they disconnected.

After a couple of minutes, there was a knock on her door.

“Come in!” it was Nina.

“Mr. Scott is here now.” Then she pushed the door open wider to let Thomas in.

Clary stood up, straightening her blouse and walked towards Thomas to set down the paper bags in his arms before pulling him into a hug.

“I’m not being narcissistic or anything, but I’d say you missed me in the few hours that I haven’t seen you.” He said with a teasing tone.

“It’s not my fault you were gone for two weeks!” she argued, placing a kiss on his lips.

“Alright, alright.” He chuckled then began taking out containers from the bag.

They met in Harvard, Thomas being Chris’s dorm mate. Chris wanted the whole college experience, so their parents agreed to let him stay at a dorm whereas Clary stayed at their apartment just outside campus. Thomas was his roommate from his second year of pre-med.  When Clary studied there the next year, she met Thomas during one of their dorm parties. Coming out of a bad relationship, she had sworn off men for a while. Thomas had taken an interest in her and found out she was the sister that Chris had told him about. After a discussion with Chris, he got the go signal and began courting her. For him, she wasn’t hard to love. She cared so much for other people that she forgot about herself so many times. After nine months of courting, they became exclusive.

“Coffee, tea or soda?” she asked.

“Coke please. Thank you.”

She buzzed Nina to fetch their beverages then sat down to have her lunch. They finished with just enough time to head down and have a short talk with Katherine before the race started.

“Clary!” Katherine called, waving from where she stood beside a cherry red Ferrari that was being worked on by the crew.

Clary nudged Thomas and they made their way towards them.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” Thomas said, grinning at Blake who was seated in the driver’s side of the vehicle. “I haven’t seen you in a long while, Salvatore.”

“Distance makes the heart fonder, Scott.” Blake replied with a smirk, stepping out of the car.

“So poetic,” Katherine snickered, bumping into Blake with her shoulder.

“Only for you.” He winked, pacing an arm around her.

Clary and Thomas laughed at their affection. “Alright, that’s enough. What was it you were telling me earlier, Kat?” Clary asked.

Katherine glanced nervously at Blake then shook her head, “It was nothing, I was just wondering where you were.

Clary shot her a questioning look, but didn’t elaborate on it. Their attention was turned to the entrance where their father had just gone through with his entourage. It seemed as if the air around them thickened as they caught a glance of a fresh face that their father was in deep conversation with. He was with a man in his late fifties or early sixties and a tall man around his mid-twenties. They walked right past them to the stairs that led up the viewing deck without acknowledging the sisters.

“Who was that?” Blake asked, facing them.

“I have no idea. But he must be pretty special for dad not to bother stopping by.” Clary answered, her eyes still trained to the stairs.

Katherine kept her eyes downcast, but spoke up, “You two better head upstairs now. We’re about to start the engines and it gets quite bad down here.”

Clary stared intently at her sister. She had a feeling something was wrong; Katherine wasn’t stoic that morning. She was shaken from her reverie by Thomas who motioned with his head to head up.

AN : Hey! Here’s a new chapter for you. I wrote this to a couple of songs to keep me going namely: Pompeii by Bastille, Learn to Love Again by Lawson, Drunk by Ed Sheeran, Boomerang by The Summer Set, and Radio by He is We. These songs don’t have anything to do with the chapter but... yea. Check them out if you have time :) Word count: 1,064