As soon as I heard his feet stomping, I escaped through the door.

It never happened, I told myself. I was never there.

Chapter Four

Christian

Iwould have stayed longer under the coolness of the shower if Fiona hadn’t been so diligent at her job.

I slipped out of the shower, dried myself, and wore a robe. Switching on the hair dryer, I dried my hair, and soon it was back to its proper shape, nice and sleek.

Strangely, I had overslept and had not realized the alarm ringing until I received a phone call from Fiona asking me to let her into the house.

My head felt lighter than ever, and my muscles were taut, though I had missed a few days at the gym.

“Would you like tea or coffee?” She asked as soon as I joined her in the living room.

“Tea will do this morning.”

“I have options-”

“Yunnan.”

“What?” She blinked.

“Yunnan. Have you never heard of it before?” I wondered.

Her innocent hazel eyes gazed at me with interest.

“It’s a kind of black tea. It’s pretty good. It’s right in the first cabinet.”

“Oh, okay.” She dropped her iPad and briskly walked towards the kitchen.

Funnily enough, I found her behavior cute.

“Is there any special procedure?” She soon returned to ask, still lost in her innocence.

“No. You can brew it with cold or hot water, but I prefer hot water.” I responded.

She shook her head in affirmation and returned to the kitchen.

“Be careful not to burn your tongue. I think it’s rather too hot.” She winced when I sipped.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“How does it taste?” She queried.

“Just fine. Didn’t you make a cup for yourself?”

“No, I-”

“You are entitled to have a cup of tea.” I let her know.

“Hm.” She gave a nod.

“Shall we leave?”

“Sure.”

Grabbing her purse and my jacket, she led the way, and Liam was already outside waiting for us.

*****

“We can be sure the project will skyrocket with these changes.” Mason was saying when Fiona walked in.

“Sorry to interrupt your conversation, Mr. Carr, but your attention is needed.” She looked somewhat perplexed.

“By whom?”

“Your mother.”

I sighed.

“She wants you to answer her call.” She continued. Glancing at my phone, I saw about seven missed calls from her.

“Alright. Thank you.”

“I’ll leave you be,” Mason said, preparing to leave.

“Fiona, please give the flash drive I gave to you earlier to the President.”

“Sure.” She said, exiting the room.

“I’ll see what I can put in place and get back to you,” Mason said as he followed her.

Then I was left alone. I contemplated picking up my mom’s calls or not. To think of it, I didn’t know what she wanted to say, but I had the palpable feeling that it would be to my detriment.

My mom was a conservative woman, and she was prone to doing things that she thought were best but, to me, was pretty biased. She and Allison often had conflicts regarding many things, but we managed to avoid such conflicts when we could.

My father, on the other hand, was a man who had an unrepentant attitude towards any course that would promote or contribute favorably to his business. So, I tried to veer away from such things, especially since I became CEO.

My mom’s call came in and broke my thoughts. This time, I answered.

“Have you now taken your own mother to be unimportant?” Her cool but authoritative voice could be heard from the other end.

“It’s not so; I was in the middle of a business meeting.”

“Well, I still don’t like to feel left out. You can answer the call when your father isn’t there, can’t you?”