The CEO and Her Driver

Chapter 38

I had never been much of a photo filter girl. I didn't use sparkle effects, or cat ears, or those filters that gave you anime eyes, or flowers in your hair. But there was one filter that I really liked. It made your images crisper, sharper. That is what the world suddenly felt like. 

It had sharpened around me. It was like my eyeballs had been dropped into Instagram, and someone had thrown a filter across everything I saw. Which suddenly made several things clear... 

One. I had just kissed Laurence Royal. 

Two. He looked just as surprised as I was. 

And three, my heart seemed to have stopped working, shattering into a million pieces over this terrible mistake I had made.

Laurence Royal stared back at me, his eyes in a daze, his face flushed. I shouldn't have been so quick to assume he was Tate. Laurence and Tate had a similar build, and in the dark light, their hair had a similar coloring. Laurence's back had been turned when I had blurted out my feelings, and I was running on eight cups of coffee and no sleep... this entire night was a dumpster fire of a bad idea.

I tried to say something. Say anything. But I was torn between rage and mortification. What did I just do?!? What just happened? Did I really just kiss Laurence Royal?

"How did you know it was me?" he asked.

I gasped, landing on a dominant emotion, growing angry. A phoenix rising from the ashes of embarrassment. "YOU TRICKED ME ON PURPOSE?!?" I hissed, my mind spinning madly. Laurence had looked just as shocked as I had a moment ago.

He shook his head. "What? No. How did you know it was me..." he trailed off, touching his own mask.

A whole set of information flooded my mind at once as I stared at him. His mask was an identical match to mine.

No... no, no, no, no. He's not... That's not possible. He's been trying to sabotage me for months! He can't—

"How did you know I was your secret admirer?" he finished, his voice a mere whisper on the wind.

"Why did you kiss me?" I asked, wiping my mouth angrily as if that would erase what had just happened.

"You said you liked me," Laurence said, confused, a wild blush filling his face.

I ignored his response for a moment. "You were the one who sent me Uggo? Why?"

"Uggo?" His brow furrowed.

"The butt ugly plant," I sputtered. "The plant thing cut in the shape of a heart!"

He winced. "You... named it Uggo?"

"So the terrible taste stretches further than just socks," I muttered quietly to myself, turning away. I groaned, wanting to scream. "What a disaster!"

He walked towards me until we stood a foot apart. "Can you catch me up Ms. Wint—"

I spun and glared at him. "Ohhhh we are wayyyy past you calling me Ms. Winters after that kiss you laid on me. WHAT WAS THAT?!? Do you just kiss anyone you come across in a hedge maze?!?"

"No—"

"Then what the hell was that?!?" I shouted, far past sane tone levels of conversation.

He ran his fingers through his hair, sending strands up in wild directions. "I like you! I thought my letters made that clear. I thought the... plant gift that you apparently hated made that clear." An angry blush took his face another shade darker as he swore and turned away, covering his mouth, trying to keep me from seeing the newest set of emotions that crossed his features. "I thought me taking care of those articles about your past made that clear."