جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 120

The car slowed down in front of the villa, long enough for Rina and Zayn to alight. She looked surprised to find him following closely behind since he had mentioned that he had to be on his flight back as soon as possible. But he stood by the door, hitting the passcode.“Did you get it?”Rina nodded.“You can change it whenever you want so you can feel safe.” He pushed the door open and sauntered in, with Rina’s feet whispering on the wooden floor behind. Zayn didn’t stop, flipping on the lights and heading into the kitchen. He pulled open the refrigerator and got out a bottle of water. There was nothing edible in there since they’d had no idea Rina was going to be living there.“Aren’t you supposed to be on your way?” Rina suddenly asked as she sauntered to the kitchen, leaning on the door frame. “Earlier, when you said you had to be on your flight back, it sounded really urgent.”“It is urgent,” he answered shrugging, then slid the bottle of water onto the countertop next to him, pr

Her eyes fell open when a ringing in the distance disturbed her sleep. For a minute, she looked around the huge room, wondering where the sound was coming from. Her gaze fell on her phone on the floor. It must have fallen off her hands when she slept off clutching onto it. Sighing, she retrieved it just as soon as it stopped ringing. She was just about to go back to sleep when it rang a second time.Rina wondered who it was calling her that early, then checked the time on the small alarm clock on the nightstand. She sat up at once when she realized it was noon already, receiving the call at once.“Joel?”“Fuck!” Joel sighed in relief the second he heard her voice. He had been so worried about her since he heard on the news early that morning that her cottage had been attacked by her anti-fans, and that no one knew her whereabouts. He had driven there that morning but met some men working who refused him entrance into the cottage, even though he told them he was her boss. They seemed t

Rina’s first stop was at Kayla’s office in her father’s company. She pulled over in front of the building, checking her rearview mirror to confirm Igor was right behind her, though conspicuously, before alighting the car. Planting a condescending smile on her face, she made a fuss with locking the doors of her car, so the beep sound alerted everyone around. The doorman tried telling her parking wasn’t allowed there, right in front of the building, but Rina tilted her head at him and said in a sweet voice, “Oh, I won’t be long. I just want to see my best friend, Kayla. You know us together, don’t you?”The doorman in fact did, because Rina used to go there a lot when she still thought Kayla was her friend. Some of their evenings were spent in Kayla’s office, specifically on the white couch, talking about funny instances they had encountered during a shoot. It was much fun when they worked the same set, as they relived the stories, their laughter carrying across the room, and their care

After ignoring the disdainful remarks of some of the designers at the fashion house, of course, with Joel trying to do damage control as much as his abilities permitted, the day finally came to an end and Rina could leave the building. It was a myriad of activities and emotions going on all at once that it was hard to focus on one thing at a time. But maybe that was what Rina needed.She walked through the hallways, moving from the media department downstairs to her office on the second floor, carrying her head high even though she heard the whispers of some of the people she met on the way. Joel addressed the designers and the rest of the employees after lunch, telling them that Rina was a part of the company and they needed to accord her the respect she deserved, irrespective of what they’d heard about her.But opinions had already been formed and one of the hardest things to do was to reshape an already formed ideology about someone. It was going to take something mind-blowing and

“What is the update?” Rina asked, after laughing at his rather weird but true joke. She grabbed her cup of ice tea and nibbled on her straw. “Did you hear back from any of the agencies?”“Actually, I did,” he answered, grabbing his phone like he didn’t read the mail over and over again, the contents ingrained in his being. He had to, because he didn’t like the tone of the message. And his thoughts were confirmed before he reached the end of the mail. Phone in hand, he hit on the mail icon, and tapped the starred message, looking back at Rina.“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked, angling her head. It was apparent on his face, distress lines appearing on his forehead. “Come on. Get it out.”“Okay,” he sighed. “One of the agencies we reached out to was actually excited to have our mail. At first, they responded with so much fervor that I thought we already had this in our pockets. They wanted to know when you would be able to come over for a meeting to get your schedule and pay rate sorted o