AN: I realise im one day late and I'm repenting my sins by giving you guys a bigger chapter. Love, peace.
(wattpad isn't letting me put the character banner so I'll let you know this way. this is VIENNA's POV guys)
Kyst's arm around me tightened. The air trickled with tension but neither of us said anything since Miller Jones hadn't noticed us yet.
I always wondered why I was so attracted to Kyst even though I hated the majority of the rich population. Kyst was also a CEO, filthy rich, handsome than sin with narcissistic qualities. Grade A amongst the men I'd sworn to never date after Bernard.
But as Miller slowly walked past the entrance, nodding his head at the various influential people in the backyard, realisation slowly seeped into my bones.
While Miller Jones was a big, bulky man, he wasn't really the kind of man that I'd ever be able to trust. Miller Jones was tall and muscular in a different way than Kyst. While Kyst was leaner and had a svelte body, Miller Jones was buff. In the thirteen months that I'd worked with the man, I'd never seen him smile, let alone laugh.
He wasn't impertinent but he was on the border of being arrogant and just ignorant. Sometimes, it felt as if he was too busy fighting his own demons, while the other days he was just straight up conceited, rejecting other ideas and not taking opinions into consideration. That was what always threw me off about him.
On the other hand, while Kyst was also stern, he was way friendlier with his employees and respected them just as much as he did the other board members. Kyst gave me a sense of protection and safety, the humble kind, not the dangerous one, where I'd always have to be worried about someone following me to my place when I didn't want them to.
Miller did that once. It was a few weeks after me asking him to suck his own dick after having drank alcohol worth hundreds of dollars. I'd gotten late at work and so the buses were extremely crowded and I had to get a taxi to get home. I had just stepped out when Miller parked his car right behind the taxi, got out and told me he wanted to talk to me. Needless to say, I'd been pissed and way too tired and might have yelled at him to screw off.
He hadn't buzzed from his place but apparently Jenny had heard me yelling at someone and she'd come out before shooing Miller off and threatening him that she'd sue him for trespassing if she ever saw him again. I'd been thankful and relieved for her on my side. Only a month or two later, I had quit the job and that was when Jenny told me that that hadn't been the last time Miller had followed me home.
She had said to me that maybe he really needed to talk to me about something and maybe I knew deep in my gut that something was wrong but I had been a coward and chalked it up to him just being a persistent, over-bearing lover.
It seemed, nothing had changed much after all. I was still a coward and so I grabbed Kyst's arm and whirled around, stalking towards the pink counter. Grabbing a raspberry cupcake in one hand, I whisked a flute of champagne, swallowing the cupcake in one go, drinking the champagne right after, breathing heavily.
I wasn't a stress eater but seeing Miller Jones again somehow redid my organs and my habits. As I was reaching out to get another cupcake, Kyst's arm wrapped around my wrist and he pulled me behind him. I stumbled on my feet and he sighed before reaching beneath me and picking me up in his arms, bridal style, before he jogged into his mansion, ignoring the stares from his guests.
"What are you doing?" I whisper-yelled, awkwardly waving at one of the employees from the office who had raised a suspicious brow in our direction.
When he didn't bother replying, I looked around, realising he'd just entered his mansion and into a room. Except, it wasn't a room. It was a pantry. Rows of cabinets stacked upon one another on the opposite side of the door as he shut it with his leg, placed me down and pushed me towards the cabinets.
"What are you doing?" he snapped, grabbing the jacket that had been hanging off his shoulders and throwing it on the ground.
"Me?" I asked, confused. "What did I do? You were the one that stiffened the moment I asked you about lying."
"You don't get to accuse me of stiffening when you yourself were staring funny at Miller from the moment he entered." His voice lowered in intensity and he took a step further, causing me to stumble backwards. "What was that, darling? Did you just realise you're in love with him?"
I stared at him. Like really stared at him. At his high cheekbones that could cut stones and his chiseled jaw. The hoop hanging off his left ear and how his ocean eyes stared at me with so much ferocity. Did he actually think I was staring at Miller because I was in love with him when in reality I was actually realising why I could never be in love with a man like that?
"This is ridiculous," I scoffed, pushing past him to get out.
He grabbed me by the elbow and slammed me against the cabinets as his chest brushed against mine. He was so close I could smell his fresh citrus-y smell on him but there was also something else. Me. I could smell myself on him from when he had hugged me earlier or pulled me against him.
That knowledge alone drove me delirious and then Kyst was towering over me, both his hands on either sides of my head as he looked down. "What is ridiculous?" he taunted. "Is it ridiculous that you looked at him like he stole the moon and the stars for you? Or is it ridiculous that you ignored me when I called you because you were too busy gawking the life out of my friend, your ex-boss, who as you claim is in love with you? Oh, or you think it's ridiculous that you had to run away from him and stress eat because he wouldn't spare you a single glance?"
I couldn't do much than just stare at him and realise how obsessively possessive he got over something as trivial as me just looking at my ex-boss. And he had called me? Why hadn't I realised that? "Kyst that's not—"
"No, you know what? You go ahead and ogle your ex-boss and I'll go and hook myself up with one of my highschool friends that I've invited," he spoke with a calm that I knew he didn't feel. He was assuming things on his own but before I could even tell him that it wasn't like what he was thinking, he was already backing away from me and slamming the door shut behind him, leaving only the pungent smell of his perfume and regret thick in the air.
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"Vienna Bell." A deep, masculine voice from behind me uttered and my hold on my champagne tightened as I turned around, getting punched in the face with my ex-boss's chest as the smell cedarwood and bergamont surrounded in the air.
I took a step back, sneakily risking a glance at Sully and Savannah standing by the snacks' counter, engrossed in a deep conversation with Kyst, their brows furrowed as Sully pointed his finger haphazardly at Kyst's chest and Sav smacked his bicep with her purse.
I pursed my lips when Miller cleared his throat and turned to look at him, plastering a fake smile. "Miller Jones."
He raised a brow and I raised mine right back before he conceded. "I'd heard rumours about you working for Kyst Archer but I didn't think you guys were that close."
I only smiled, not knowing how the fuck I was supposed to reply to the conniving way in which he adressed mine and Kyst's relationship. Miller Jones had a lethal beauty, the one where the smirks were sexier than the smiles and the words were more dangerous than the knifes. "I'm just his assistant slash secretary."
"Which brings me to my point. I need to talk to you." I stilled. That was exactly what he had told me after he'd followed me home and then continued to for few weeks before he altogether stopped.
"No." My word was final. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and it was not only because he had feelings for me but also because my parents had always favoured him when I worked for him and I recognised some of the people at the party as my dad's friends who could tattle onto him about seeing me near Miller and then my dad would be on my ass to get close to him again like he did when I was still his assistant.
"Ms. Bell." My eyes snapped to his at the tinge of vulnerability in his tone and I widened my eyes. "Please." Men like Miller Jones didn't beg. They always got what they wanted with a snap of their fingers so that fact that he uttered the golden words just now had me stopping in my tracks, my drink suspended in the air.
"Wha—"
"Vienna!" a younger, feminine voice called from behind me and I turned around, startled to see Lily approaching me. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen her the entire evening and had been about to ask Kyst about her when he tucked me under his arm and took me to the pantry. My heart ached at the memory but I shoved it away and plastered a small smile as Lily gasped for breath. "I've been looking for you. I need you help. . . ." Her words trailed off when she looked over my shoulder at the man behind me.
Miller was staring at her, no, he was glaring at her. Lily looked at the two of us, her lips parting open and her breathing suddenly sloppier. "Lily?" Miller muttered, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.
Her eyes widened in surprised before some unknown emotion clouded her eyes and she intertwined her arm in mine before pulling me into the mansion with her. I looked back once and saw Miller's gaze dead set on Lily, a sadistic smile grazing the corners of his lips.
When we ended up in their house's kitchen, Lily opened the backdoor and rolled the trolly with the three-tier cake out, asking me for help. She didn't speak even a word as we rolled the cake out and even as the music echoed from the speakers and everyone gathered around the cake, she remained queit.
"Is everything okay?" I nudged her shoulder, because it was extremely unlikely for her to remain queit, especially with so many people around when she absolutely loved mingling with them.
"What?" she muttered distractedly before giving me a small smile. "I'm fine," she said, looking at something.
I followed her gaze and found her staring at Miller Jones, a flute of champagne in his hand as he talked with someone besides him but surprisingly his attention remained only and only on Lily, a dangerous smirk lifting his lips as he tipped his champagne in her direction. If I expected Lily to break eye-contact with him or cower away, then she proved me wrong as she raised her middle finger, pretending to adjust her necklace while flipping him off.
I watched the interaction in amusement. "Do you know him?" When her inquisitive eyes met mine in raw confusion, I cocked my head in his direction. "Miller Jones."
"Miller Jones?" she asked as if I'd grown two heads. "He's not—"
"Hey, Lily," she was cut off when her brother called her to cut the cake with him and she bumped her hip with mine before running off to where her parents and Kyst were. His eyes slowly turned to mine and he held my gaze hostage for a second before looking away. My heart stung with rejection but I still clapped my hands as he closed his eyes and wished for something before blowing the candles off.
I wished for you to be mine. The memory of his words from the night of his birthday slammed into me with full force. As if reliving the same memory, as soon as he blew the candles, his eyes met mine and I gulped audibly. I hated the distance between us and I hated even more how he was looking at me, seeing me but not talking to me.
It'd been over an hour since the pantry incident and he'd full on ignored my existence since except for the eye-contact we'd made just now. When I told Sully and Sav about what happened, they'd told me they would teach him a lesson about communication and that had been when Miller had ambushed me earlier.
Which reminded me that I still needed to talk to Miller and since Kyst was busy celebrating with his family, I could find Miller and have a quick talk with him before finding Kyst and ending this stupid ignoring game.
After a few minutes of looking around, when I finally saw Miller, he had a phone between his ear and his shoulder as he seemed to yell at someone through it while typing furiously on his other phone. As if sensing my presence, he lifted his head, his brows furrowed in annoyance. "You said you wanted to talk—"
"Later," he snapped, cutting me off. I didn't know how I hadn't realised this earlier but he seemed to have an English accent whenever he spoke certain words which was extremely weird because as far as I had known, he'd been born and raised in the States. Right? It didn't matter though because before I could get any other word out, he was already walking away and rounding one of the corners to get to the front yard of the house, most probably to be able to talk peacefully on the phone.
Sighing, I whirled around and gasped as my forehead came in contact with a hard chest. His smell wrapped around me like a noose before his arm wrapped around my waist to keep me from falling. Even though it'd only been an hour of not having any contact with him, the mere touch of his chest against mine and his hand on my bare back caused goosebumps to erupt everywhere on my skin.
My hands flew to his chest to balance myself when he revealed his other hand, holding a piece of cake. My cheeks flushed when he brought it to my lips and I parted them open, taking the piece in. Rising on my tiptoes, I wound my arms around his neck but without a single word, he retracted his arms from my waist, turned around and left. Just like that. He left.
This was the exact moment that I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Kyst had never, and I mean never ignored me, let alone shove his face away from mine or refuse me initiating a kiss. He was amongst the handful of people that had always seen me and so this silent treatment cut deeper and harsher.
Kyst had grown on me. His remarks, the crude comments, the sinister smirks, the filthy smiles, even his bland, disgusting black coffee and so seeing him turn away from me hurt like a bitch.
But what hurt more? It was the way he didn't look in my eyes even once. Hadn't I been obvious enough for him to know that he was the only man my heart beat for? Or that he was the only one I trusted with my life?
I watched as he stalked towards a tall, blonde female. She was taller than me, her heels inches high and her red dress sexier and meant for seduction. As soon as Kyst reached her, she wrapped her arms around him and laughed innately as if she'd known him for years.
A vision of red and violence swam past my eyes and I clenched my jaw so tight, I was grateful my teeth didn't fall off. I hated that she could touch him and laugh with him. I hated that he looked in her eyes and nodded at whatever she was saying, an easy-going grin on his face. I fisted my palms by my side so as to not punch the blondie in the face and then kiss him crazy to stake my claim.
What? A girl could be possessive too.
"Woah, easy there, tiger." An arm wrapped around my shoulder and the familiar scent of woodsy, cirtrusy perfume engulfed me.
With a smile, I turned around, coming face-to-face with Mr. Archer, or as he'd warned me to call him multiple times - Trevor. "Hey. I've been trying to find you and Emma for a while now. Where have you guys been?"
"Oh?" he raised a brow before shrugging. "Just attending to guests because my idiot of a son doesn't give a flying fuck." I held in a smile at the way he described Kyst and softly shook my head.
In the past week, I'd seen Kyst's mom and dad multiple times over dinner or when they'd come to their company and we'd grown close, especially me and Trevor. Maybe it was because of the fact that my father had never really been a father-figure in my life that I had grown more attached to him but Trevor never looked down at me or belittle me just because I wasn't at their level. Instead, he showed me the type of fatherly love that I never had and continuously defended his best friend, my father, saying it'd been hard on him too back then.
"Who's the blonde girl?" I stinkingly eyed the girl hanging off Kyst's arm and the only reason I wasn't already ripping her hair off was because Trevor's arm was around me.
"That's Claudia Jeffery, a ghost from the past." A sly smirk took over his features and he lowered his voice to a whisper as if telling me a secret. "I hated that girl even when she was a little girl so I walked in on them on purpose when they were going to get intimate. Kyst still bitches about it once a while but it was totally worth it when I threw the gold digger out of my house."
"Why is she here then?" I tapped my foot against the ground, my arms folded across my chest. "And wait, did you just say that they dated?"
Trevor raised a sassy brow at me, the corner of his lips twitching. "Oh? What's that I hear?" He then made a show of cupping his ear and tilting his head. "Jealous much?"
"What!?" I scoffed, unfolding my arms and letting them fall to the side. "Absolutely not. And of that blonde witch? Oh, spare me." Even as I said that with an indifference I didn't feel, my legs itched with the burn to stride over there and slap the witch's arms off my boyfriend. Was this how Kyst felt when I deliberately provoked him and went out with Jonah and made him jealous? Had Kyst had enough of my antics and decided he didn't have the energy to deal with an attention seeker like me?
"It's okay to get jealous when you're in love."
I choked on air, coughing violently as Trevor patted my back. "Who says we're in love? No one ever said anything about love. We're just dating, mind you."
"That's what I said when my friends asked me about love when I was dating Emma. Years later, look where that got me." He smiled distantly before levelling me a soft gaze. "Incase you didn't get that, I meant it got me with two spawns of the devil himself and endless cuddles. And besides," he enunciated, removing his arm from my shoulder and folding it across his chest before leaning on one of the round tables scattered across the backyard. "He only has eyes for you even though he's laughing with the witch."
"Oh no, that's not possible." I shook my head, my shoulder length hair moving in motion with the shake. "We kind of had a fight and he's pissed at me."
"Then, what are you waiting for?" he playfully glared at me before nudging my shoulder with his. "Go apologize, kiss and make up. Quarrels in a relationship help you grow closer as long as you bow down when the time is right. If you pissed him off, go clean up your mess. And if you didn't and he's just PMSing, then just stay here and wait for him to stop pretending he doesn't care about you."
I mulled over his words even after Emma came over, kissed me on the cheek and took Trevor with her, saying they needed to get a drink and meet with some more people. I knew I had pissed him off and I definitely needed to apologize to him about making him jealous on purpose but he also didn't have to be a raging asshole and ignore me the same day he asked me to be his girlfriend, right?
As I stood there, by the table alone, suddenly a symphony of music blared from the speakers. It was loud at first but within the next few minutes, it turned slower, more sensual. Trevor pulled Emma onto the middle of the backyard and put an arm around her as they swayed in rhythm, whispering to each other. Soon after, Uncle Junha and Aunty Liya joined them, followed by Sully and Sav.
Jenny, who stood near one of the snacks' counters caught my eye and tipped her chin at the middle of the yard where everyone was dancing, silently telling me to dance too. My eyes strayed forward to find Claudia extending her hand in Kyst's direction, obviously asking him to dance and my blood roared with the intention to hurt.
Oh fuck no. With meaningful strides, I headed in Kyst's direction and stopped only when I'd squeezed myself between him and the blonde witch. I grabbed his hands from behind and placed them on my hips, pulling him forward so his front was to my back.
Smiling sweetly at Claudia, I snapped, "I'll dance with my boyfriend. Thanks for boring him to death while I was busy doing important work." The important work being thinking of ways to get out of murder after I'd buried this gold digger six feet under.
"What?" she wheezed. Dear God, even her voice sounded as fake as her boobs and her nails and the ten pounds of makeup on her face. Had I just found her beautiful a while ago? "You bitch—" she raised her arm, probably to slap me but in an instant, Kyst's arm was around her wrist as he pushed her back.
"Get out of my property," he commanded, his voice lethal sharp, like the one he used in his board meetings to tame the stupid members that dared go against him. "I knew I should've never invited your sorry ass when you texted me to meet up. Now leave and don't show me your face. Ever."
By the time she huffed and turned around, I was already breathing hard. I didn't think of my actions as I turned around, held his arm in mine and pulled him to dance with me.
His arms rested around my waist and I wrapped mine around his neck. "Jealousy looks good on you, girlfriend." The bastard smirked.
"Don't talk to me. I'm mad at you right now."
"Oh you're mad at me? You were the one chatting with Miller when Sully and Savannah schooled me about how my behaviour was animal-like when I walked out on you. You were still the one searching for and staring at him when I was cutting the cake and was hoping to fuck that you'd come and stand by me. But no. You were too busy cozying upto your ex-boss."
"So what?" I jutted my chin out, my lips trembling at the fact that his attention in fact had been on me, like his father had said. "You go and cozy up with your ex-girlfriend? If I hadn't barged in, you would've even danced with her, wouldn't you?"
"Baby, I hate fucking dancing. The only reason I am right now is because I get to have you close to me and I can keep touching you with your attention on me and me only," he breathed, spinning me around so my back was against his front as he wrapped his arms around me from behind, swaying his hips with mine.
"My attention has only ever been on you, Kyst." He spun me outwards before bringing me back in and dipped me backwards before hauling me to my feet and pulling me closer, brushing his chest against mine.
"Mine too," he whispered, his eyes latching onto my lips for a moment. I licked my lips shyly and his eyes darkened before he leaned forward.
Before he could capture my lips in his, a figure loomed over my back, the scent of bergamot and cedarwood evading my senses. Kyst stopped moving, causing me to halt too and he raised a tentative brow at Miller.
"A word." Miller's voice was tight with nerves.
I turned around to face him. "Not now—"
"Not you," he claimed in a disinterested tone as his attention solely remained on the man besides me, who had his arm wrapped around me in a possessive grip. "Now!"
Kyst smirked at Miller, clearly enjoying himself at Miller's expense before placing a chaste kiss on my forehead and muttering, "I'll be right back." When I nodded, he raised a brow at Miller and nodded. "Follow me." And then both of them disappeared into the mansion.
Ugh why did everyone keep interrupting me and Kyst all day today?
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AYYO PEOPLE what's going on????
And before you ask, YES. to anything you're wondering about Lily and Miller rn, IT'S A YES. just wait until this book is over and y'all are gonna have a field trip with their story lmao
also, tell me what you guys thought about their FIRST FIGHT??? ooooo it was so exciting to write Vienna's jealousy. did u guys like it?
follow me on Instagram @ fantasizer16 because I tend to put up sneak peeks on there hours before uploading there so it's always a good serotonin honestly
thanks for reading
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