After Effects

Chapter 32 • After Effects

I pulled the door open and looked expectantly at the woman before me. She stared back puzzled before bursting into a flurry of laughter. I chuckled along awkwardly as I watched her get the joke—whatever it was— out of her system. She wiped a stray tear and looked back to me.

"What?" I asked confused.

"What on earth did Riddian tell you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, throughout our entire twenty minutes together, all you've done is grant my every wish and adhere to every beck and call. Now I don't mind the special treatment but I am already being treated this way by my own assistants and I don't need anymore of this strictly professional business. I would much rather a friend if you don't mind," Jalessa smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. I looked at her to check for a hint of insincerity when I realized that there was none.

"Oh... well then great, I was getting a little tired of opening every door for you. My arms were getting sore and I kinda already have to do that so much for Riddian," I sighed, swinging the old arm.

Jalessa laughed and put her hands on her hips. "You call him by his first name? Is that why he makes you do that, cause if that's not the reason then you must've done something really bad for him to hate you so much," she mused.

"Huh?"

"Well he only turns people into his royal servant when they piss him off, so I was just wondering what you could have done."

"Wait what?" 

She noticed my confusion.

"Like when we were younger, I accidentally broke his favourite calculator and he made me serve him for an entire month through blackmail. I could've easily bought it back and so could he, but let's just say the guy has a problem with loosing things. He's a bit of a sentimental you see."

So that's what he thought me to be? His servant, I thought angrily, but then I was subconsciously biting my fingernails. He had a problem with —gulp— ah, loosing things? I suddenly remembered our first trip to the port. He had lost a couple of things there... a couple of important things.

Jalessa was suddenly curious.

"But seriously, what did you do to cause him to treat you this way? I know he can be a pain but I've heard bits and pieces of the situation and he's being an even bigger pain that normal-"

"I shot him," I interrupted causing her to stare. She then smirked.

"Wait, you're the Ms. Harrington from the retreat?"

"Katherine Harrington, billionaire shooter at your service," I groaned out making her laugh.

"Remind me not to mess with you," she replied looking around, "though we better get in there before Whitney comes out to have our heads. I've also learnt the hard way that she shouldn't be messed with either so come on."

I nodded and followed after her into the store.

It didn't take long for us to spot Whitney Remora since she had been the only costumer to have brought her own female models to try clothes on before she did herself. Her excuse was that she had, on way too many shopping trips before, tried on hundreds of clothes and ended up not buying a single thing, so to save herself the trouble, she decided to pay people to do it for her. Oh, and she had been very excited to see me. It had been all screams and hugs until she found out—which surprised me greatly— that I was working for her brother who wouldn't fire me because he wanted to get back at me... even though it was kinda my fault. Yeah it turned out that even after having been working for Riddian for some time now, he hadn't mentioned that small fact to his family and this of course made Whitney almost explode with rage.