Miss Taylor [GirlxGirl]

Two.

Arabella left the bar soon after Rosalie did, no longer finding the thought of drinking a soft drink, at a bar, alone, entertaining. She'd made the short walk to the hotel and greeted the men and women she'd grown to like over the years. When she'd opened the door to the penthouse suite she'd known her mother was awake. The woman sat in the large living room, multiple papers scattered across the couch and coffee table, and glasses perched on her nose as her dark green eyes looked intently at the tablet on her lap.

"Mom," Arabella called out, waiting for the response that she knew wasn't going to come before dropping all pretences and moving sit on the white couch opposite her mother.

"I thought we agreed you were either to go to that party or you weren't to go out at all," Katherine Matthews said emotionlessly. Despite her being used to her mother's scolding, Arabella still flinched. Her mother was a perfectly honed business woman, inside and outside of the office.

Arabella sighed, "Joseph McNally, he was the one hosting."

And that was how she avoided her mother's lecture that night. It was no secret that her mother had many issues and tiffs with multiple parents at Arabella's school. The career the woman had chosen made sure of it, but what was kept under the wraps was how Arabella got information about her parents' rivals for her mother, using the children of said parents to complete this little plan Katherine had come up with. Now if that were to come out, hell would break loose. Sure, it was manipulative and cunning and Arabella really shouldn't stand for being used in such a way, it was the closest her mother got to being proud of her, so the girl kept at it.

"I see," was Katherine's reply.

"Mom," Arabella started only to stop when her mother glared at her intensely. The girl silently cursed her father for the genes he'd passed onto her. "Mum, I need-"

Though before Arabella could finish her sentence Katherine had already interrupted, her own thoughts taking priority over whatever it was her daughter had been about to utter.

"Your father called, Jeanette and Stewart want to see you," The older woman muttered uninterestedly.

Richard Halcyon had always been a sore topic for her mother, Arabella knew this, and every one of her mother's friends- business associates- knew this also. He was considered a taboo topic at her mother's office. No one in the Halcyon industries building dared mention his name when her mother was around, though when the black witch disappeared around the corner the gossip would start. How could it not? The company was named after the man; he and her mother had founded it.

"I don't like Jeanette, or Stewart," muttered the petulant teenager. She felt a mild irritation at her father but didn't dare bring it up, knowing her mother would take this as a green light to rant about how Richard was a no-good-dirty-two-timing-man-whore.

"I can't blame you for not liking Jeanette, but Stewart is your brother," Katherine replied indifferently, looking around for a paper she couldn't quite remember that she'd brought with her. Arabella felt another lick of irritation this time more towards her mother. That thing called Stewart was not her brother; he was the spawn of a cheater and a slut. She often grew tired of people throwing around quotes like 'a half-brother is still a brother'. There was nothing that annoyed Arabella more than that.

"Does Jeanette not remember the last time I came over?" Arabella asked with mirth playing in her eyes. There was nothing funny about it at the time, but after Arabella had apologized and felt unbelievably guilty for months on end, the situation eventually became hilarious.

Katherine looked as if she was torn between scowling and smiling, "That was not an amusing event Arabella, given the circumstances. Though had it happened differently I'm sure Jeanette would have been running for the hills."