I always thought that expensive cars were supposed to be comfortable. I guess it wasn’t really the car that was making me uncomfortable, it was the icicle of a person beside me. I felt like melting into the seat, disappearing into refined leather, and upholstery. I was terrified that my shoes would scuff the glove compartment or nick the edge of the seatbelt, fraying it. “What is the matter, Miss Laurence?” he finally broke the silence. He didn’t listen to the radio or music, it was absolute silence, and on top of the car being expensive, it was a hybrid which meant I couldn’t even distract myself with the purr of the engine. This was probably the only time I cursed someone’s environmental awareness.“Nothing,” I tried to keep my voice light, but my fists were curling beneath the seat, tension rippling through them.“I do not appreciate liars, Miss Laurence, you would do well to remember that,”“Why does everything you say sound like a threat?” I quizzed him. The best way to distr

“YOU’RE ALIVE!” I don’t think there has ever been a day gone by since Tobias and I met that he hasn’t shouted something absurd. But I loved that about him.“No thanks to you,” I teased, it was the early morning, and there weren’t many customers at the restaurant it was more of a lunch and dinner venue anyways so I thought I’d pop by to make sure that Tobias hadn’t burnt the place down.He grinned at me, leaning against the counter, “You want to know something awesome?”“When have I ever been anyone to say no to awesomeness,” I chided and his smile just widened.“I passed the LNAT, I’m officially going to go to law school, get that degree and kick some ass like you.”“That’s amazing!” I gushed genuinely proud of him, this had been his dream forever, “But what do you mean like me, I’m not a lawyer.”“Yeah, but your really great at breaking boundaries, you know women in business, must be hard.”“Then what are you worried about?” the concern was fragrant in my voice, as his face fell dipp

It was needless to say I was the pettiest person out there. After my revelation and psychoanalysis of Mr Emerson how it was his own guilt pushing him to do absolutely absurd things. I had marched myself into my office, and half slammed the door.I couldn’t commit to a full slam because you know it’s glass, and I don’t want to shatter something. Especially when that something, is the only thing separating our two offices.I was playing the silent game, I wasn't going to talk to him until he got his shit together and realised what an awful idea it was to test me like that. I’m a corporate assistant not part of MI-5, for goodness sake. I shouldn’t be worrying about being tailed. I was shuffling through the papers left on my desk, some needed me to enter data into the unified cloud server that was fortified and held most of the clients’ information. Though, Mr Emerson was extra safe with more sensitive pieces of data. Paper always was safer than anything electrical. It would be terribly

“Where have you been?” he had his serious voice on. Who am I kidding? His voice was always stern, that low drawl that demanded to be respected.“I was having lunch, you know that meal you have in the middle of the day so you can not die. You might not have heard of it because you are a robot. Don’t really need food, just oil.”“You are not as amusing as you think Miss Laurence,” he spoke without a hint of a smile.“And I don’t trust you to be the connoisseur of humour,” I quipped, sitting myself in the chair opposite him because I was so tired of standing. His eyes followed my every movement in that analysing and scrutinising way that I had become all too familiar with.“No, but I am the connoisseur of punctuality something that you lack, entirely,” “What? It was lunch break, you’ve worked me to the bone you can at least let me eat, surely?”“Your lunch break is an allocated 45 minutes, you took 51 minutes, that’s 6 minutes I should dock off of your pay,”I stared at him dumbfounded,

We were in a quiet room, off to the side, one I hadn’t even noticed, It seemed that Kendal Groves knew a lot of things people didn’t. I had seen the looks int he womens eyes as they followed her and I. There were looks of contempt, of pity but there was an overwhelming amount of awe.She had the whole business world wrapped around her fingers.The betrayer, some called her.A bewitcher that had two powerful men fall at her feet.She was everything I wasn’t and that wasn’t a bad thing, I think I would hate myself if I ended up like that. So consumed by the game, that it was all my identity was.I wanted a quiet life after all of this was over, escape with some guy who was just as crazy as I was, drop off of the map, well that was only what part of me wanted. The other half of me wanted to stay here, start my own business one day, do what I was good at.Leading.Though it was Kendal thatwas leading me through her maze, not knowing that I already knew the path to the exit.“Do you want a