Burnt Sienna (Hemlock Grove // Roman Godfrey AU)

Dormant Volcano

When I walked in Roman's room, he was nowhere to be found. I looked at his desk. A whole mess. "If I'm playing assistant today, I guess I could start by cleaning up the workspace." I thought.

I stacked the files he had sprawled all over the place neatly in one corner, when I accidentally dropped one. While picking it up, I read the content inside. It seemed to be a portfolio of a 30 year old woman named Maria Stauffner. Everything seemed to be normal- she was an entrepreneur, well established, lots of experience. But something about this woman seemed off. Like there was more than the file was saying about her. My thought was interrupted by a fake cough.

"You actually came?"

"We agreed on it, didn't we?"

"What do you have there?"

"Oh, just a file I dropped. Do you know her?"

"Know who?"

"Maria Stauffner?"

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Where else. I told you I accidentally dropped the file."

"Who told you to read it? Or to even stack the files?"

"Rom-Mr. Godfrey, I was just cleaning up."

"Did I ask you to?" Roman said clenching his teeth.

"No, no you didn't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

"Well you fucking read it. You've already ticked me off. Get out."

"Are you seriously kicking me out for accidentally reading something, even after I apologized?"

"Get out."

Tears brimmed to my eyes, as I ran out of not only Roman's office but the White Tower. I started my car and drove home. Roman Godfrey made me mad. He made me mad because sometimes he was the sweetest being, like what a perfect boyfriend would be like. And he cared and he was gentle and nice. And then most of the time, he was this raging bull, and he knew nothing else but to be a brat and lash out at people unnecessarily. He was a dormant volcano. That summed him up well. I hated this side of him so much.

But this also sealed my doubts on Maria Stauffner. There was definitely something about her

I stopped crying. It wasn't because I was sad. I knew Roman was like that. It was because I was angry at myself for letting Roman do whatever he wanted with me. Instead, I decided to go home and fortunately I found Peter.

"Hey, I thought you had fun?" Peter said as he embraced me.

I hugged him back and held him tight. "Forget your friend."

"He did this, didn't he. Bastard. Always making you sad."

"Peter, I dont want to talk about him."

"I understand. I'll teach him a lesson later. What else is on your mind?"

"Okay, yeah," I said, as I pulled away from Peter and wiped my tears. "So there's this woman named maria stauffner."

"Maria Stauffner? Never heard of her." Peter said as he got me a glass of water.

"I feel like she has her own secrets and Mr. Godfrey knows something," I said.

"You only call him 'Mr. Godfrey' outside your work setting if you're being playful or downright mad. He really fucked up didn't he?"

"Besides the point," I told Peter, taking the glass and drinking the water.

Peter didn't bring up anything about Roman anymore. Instead, he told me we should go to Destiny's. I nodded.

"That's good. Maybe she can help."

The drive to Destiny's was short. It felt good to feel Destiny's loving hug. "Been a while," she said.

"Sure has," I said back.

"I smell blood?"

"Blood substitute," I corrected.

"What did you two do?" she asked laughing. But I wasn't laughing. I wasn't smiling. I stayed silent and Peter shook his head at Destiny.

"Alright then. Next question- what brings you here?"

"Maria Stauffner," Peter answered for me.

"Hmm, can't say I've heard of that one before," Destiny said.

I spoke up. "I saw her name on a file at the white tower. It mentioned her as an entrepreneur and all that but i have a gut feeling that there's something up."

"yeah, I can sense that," peter said. "Gut feelings are almost never wrong, yours especially."

Destiny pulled out her laptop. "Sometimes the net does the job just fine," she winked and looked up everything she could about this woman. Peter and I sat on either side and all three of us looked at the screen. After two hours of digging through useless articles of how wonderful of a businesswoman Maria was, we found traces.

"Seems like she has contacts in places with a huge gypsy population. Can't be a coincidence. Wait wait,"said Destiny as she furrowed her eyebrows and analyzed the information in front of her. "What is she comes here?"

"Well, from what she said, Roman doesn't mind." Peter said.

"What does that dimwit know anyway?" Destiny scoffed. "Swear he'll end up making all of us suffer one day"

"That's nothing new," I said under my breath.

Peter and I went home soon after and I couldn't stop twisting and turning on my bed. I couldn't sleep at all. Roman suddenly flipping out on me hurt me more than I showed. I wish I could mentally erase all last night and all this morning from my head. Roman is so good with charms and I fall for it every time. I hated myself for that. I also was disturbed by what he was hiding about Maria Stauffner. Whatever it was, it was serious. 

Author's Note: Guess blissful wishes don't last forever and Roman isn't the sweetest boy after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Whoops 🙊