chapter 5

Emily.

"Are you thinking about traditional or modern?" I ask the soon to be bride infront of me who looks nervous as hell. I can't help, but chuckle at her and to tell her relax herself.

Sarah, is one of my recent clients. Well recent as in three months ago, today we are deciding on the wedding cakes and foods that she wants to serve her family and guests before I send her off with my other workers for the cake testing and other food testing.

"What do you think?" She asks.

I stare at her for a moment before opening my mouth to answer her and only to get cut off by my office door opening to reveal a sheepish looking, Jasmine.

"I'm sorry I'm late," She apologizes.

I nod my head at her and gesture for her to take a seat on the couch opposite of the room and to wait for me to finish with my current client.

I look back at Sarah and smile, apologizing for my bestfriend. I don't look at who walked in after Jasmine, but I feel his presence in the room. I decide on ignoring it and focusing on the person infront of me.

"Well, I would say-" My eyes glance down at the pages in front of me, before looking back at her. "Traditional. Only because you and your husband has decided on a traditional theme already, so why not stick with it?" I shrug.

She smiles, nodding her head. "That does make sense." She mumbles, looking down for a second before looking back up at me. "Yeah, let's do traditional!" She exclaims.

I smile back at her and write down notes that I think would be useful. I glance down at her hand where her ring is placed and my heart pinches.

I envy her and everybody else whose found someone worthy of their love and to settle down with. It must be nice.

"So is there anything else before I conclude our meeting." I look up her for an answer, but she just shakes her head and stands up to bid me goodbye and then she's on her way.

I plop back down on my chair and let out a heavy sigh, my hands cupping my head and rubbing circles against my temples to stop the upcoming headache.

"You need a break," A voice says.

Shocked at the sudden voice, my head quickly snaps up needing Jasmine's worried gaze. I actually had forgotten that she was seated here. I smile, waving the idea away. I am fine and I don't do breaks.

"Yeah, come on then." I gesture her and her friend over before speaking again, "I want to get this done quickly so I can go home early." I sigh.

"Oh?" She raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow up.

I nod my head and wait for her to get seated before explaining to her that Eliza and Richard are going to be calling.

I just hope that they aren't planning to fly up to visit again.

My son and I are always grateful for the surprises visits from them but it can get stressful. I'll admit that sometimes it's better seeing old faces that you recognize especially family but sometimes it's not great, at all.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts and focus on the present situation that Jasmine and her friend.

"Hi, my name is Emily Co-" I turn my head to the side, my eyes widen and I gasp at the person sitting next to Jasmine.

"Emily Collins." I fake smile at the familiar face hoping he doesn't lash out on me in front of Jasmine.

It'll just cause her curious mind to ask me questions. Questions that I really don't have answers to, never have and never will.

Unfortunately for me, I can tell that he has already recognized me by the way his blue eyes narrow at me rather accusingly.

I gulp and I look away from him. My heart beat exhilarates and my breathing feels like it's becoming shorter.

I look away because I don't want to relive through old memories that are stored at the back of my mind. There are kept there because they are horrible memories that I can't digest.

I have never, in all these years that it had been a wedding planner, never have I come face to face with somebody from my past like this.

Especially somebody so close to home. Someone that I was close to and someone that I spent my free time with, someone who I used to call my friend.

My eyes move over to Jasmine and I can telling the cogs inside of her head are turning. I shuffle uncomfortablely in my seat.

"Can we start?" I ask.

The two of them don't respond to me right away. It takes minutes for them to get out of their trance before their both nodding their heads.

"Okay," I mumble. "Well let's start off by telling me your name and then tell me about these friends of yours and what their like, we can go from there." I instruct.

"This is Co-" Jasmine starts, but the dirty blonded haired man that sits beside her, stops her.

"She knows my name." He snaps.

My eyes widen at his statement and quickly move over to his blue ones. "I-uh, I don't." I stutter, my voice shaky and unsure.

"Don't fucking play that game with me!" He growls.

"What are you talking about?" My eyes narrow at him.

He laughs, an evil sounding laugh that has me frowning. "You're a fucking coward, do you know that?" His voice laced in venom, hisses at me.

I stare at him shocked and unsure of what to say. Does he really want to have this conversation now and in here, infront of Jasmine who looks taken back. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

He sends me a glare and opens his mouth to talk, but I don't give him another chance to speak. I stand up , "I think it's time you leave." I point towards the door, glaring down at him.

His glare hardens for a minute, before he pushes his body away from the chair and takes long strides towards the door, leaving without another word.

I let out a breath of air that I've been holding in since the last few minutes when my eyes landed on him.

My eyes close and I take deep breaths to calm myself down before I explode, I slump myself back down in my chair while I try relaxing myself.

"Jasmine, tell your friend that I won't be doing any sort of business with him or his friends. I don't tolerate disrespectful behavior." I state.

I don't need to lift my head up to look at her because I'm one hundred percent sure that her face is red from either embarrassment or confusion . . . maybe both.

I hear a chair scraping against the tiles before I hear her heels clicking against the floor towards the doorway and when it's stops without the door opening, I lift my head up to look at her.

She sends me an apologetic smile, her eyes betraying her by holding a mixture of feelings and one of them being anger, I look away.

"I'll see you today, yeah?" She breaks the silence.

I look back at her for a moment, I nod my head. "Yeah," I mumble, looking down at the papers on my desk while I try holding back my tears that threatened to escape.

When she leaves, I let out another breath that I'd been holding in and instantly crowd myself with work so that I don't have time to think about what happened just now or about my past.

The only two questions that did ring through my mind about the whole situation is, how the hell does Jasmine know him? And which one of his friends were getting married?

I decide that I would ask Jasmine later on because I know that she's going to dump a ton of questions on me aswell.

But do I really want to know about people from my past?

I sigh, dropping the pen that my fingers clutched onto tightly just as my secretary walks in, without knocking. I send her a look before rubbing my temples to ease away the upcoming headache that I feel.

"Miss.Collins, it's just after five. I'll be leaving, but I just wanted to inform you that, Mr.Henderson asked for you to be home early. Something about cooking." She informs.

I nod my head to let her know I've heard her and wave her off after bidding her a goodbye. Another sign leaves me an hour later when I notice the time.

"Hello, Emily." A voice says from behind me.

I squeal, jumping back in shock. My hand reaches up to my chest to soothe my rapidly beating heart. I turn around to glare at the culprit who found it funny to scare me.

"Ah, I see you're still easily scared." He states, smiling and looking at me smugly.

I roll my eyes. "What do you want?" I ask, folding my arms and leaning against the side of my car. I raise an eyebrow and stare down him down. "I don't appreciate how you spoke to me earlier. . ." I mutter.

He shrugs, looking around for a few seconds before looking back at me. He stares at me intently, almost like his looking for something as his eyes search my face.

The two of us stare at each other and the tense silence between us keeps growing and increasing by each passing second.

"What happened to being bestfriends?" He askes breaking the tense silence.

My heart beat picks up again. I bite my lip to keep the sob inside and look away from him, not wanting him to see the tears in my eyes that want to fall. I shrug my shoulders, my lips trembling and my eyes burning.

I stay silent, too afraid to speak because I know I'll break down if I do talk and I'm not sure how to answer his question either.

He was one of my bestfriends and he was an amazing one, of course. He knew that I loved him as a brother but I had to leave. I couldn't stay, he knew that.

Even if he was my bestfriend at the time, it wasn't enough because I was far too gone to even think about what others would go through if I had left.

I honestly didn't even think they would care if I skipped town because I used to be a nobody to everybody.

People only ever spoke to me because of my status and wealth so that doesn't count. My friends were only friends with me because I was pretty and I had been friends with the populars.

It was ridiculous.

Not all of it though because I did have some good friends, like the one standing in front of me with sadness lacing his handsome features.

He definitely was a good friend. He was always there for me through everything, good and bad. He was there for me and he helped me.

"Why did you leave?" He moves forward to stand closer to me. His familiar perfume scent hitting me making me have nostalgia. "I can't believe this is where you've been hiding all these years."

The question makes me snap my teary eyes to his. "I had to." I mumble, shaking my head.

"You know I had to go away." I snap, the tears rolling down my face makes my vision blurry.

Frustrated at myself, I quickly swat away the tears while chuckling. "I'm sorry, it's just-you're here and, and I shouldn't have said that I didn't know you earlier. It's just that...they don't know." I whisper.

He gives me a sympathetic look but nods his head in understanding and before I know what's happening, I'm pulled into his arms and his hugging onto me tightly.

My tears fall out again and this time, I don't stop them. I let them run free as I tightly clutch onto his shirt, allowing myself to cry after a very long time.

I force myself to stop my childishness after a few minutes and pull away from him, apologizing for his shirt that has tears and make up stains on it. He waves it away, claiming he has more shirts.

"Don't tell anyone where I am, please." I plead after we decide its late and we both should call it a night.

His eyes narrow at me, "E-" He starts, his voice full of warning, but I cut him off.

"Listen," I start, glaring at him. "Nobody bothered about me for years, okay? And now that you've seen me, you'll go home and tell them and then all of a sudden everybody will be coming at me. I don't want that." I rush out.

"I looked for you, I-most of us did." He murmurs.

"Where are you staying?" I change the direction of the conversation, not wanting to discuss anything right now because right now my mind is too jumbled up.

"At some hotel," He shrugs.

"Come home with me," I blurt.

I don't realize what I've just said until the words are out in the open and my face probably looks horrified, but I quickly cover it up with a tight smile.

"Are you sure, I don't want to in-"

"Oh, nonsense." I wave him off.

And then I'm jumping into my car with him following behind me while we both make our way to my apartment building.

I know that I'm going to regret my decision when he sees Archer but I can't really do anything about it now, I guess. Plus if I didn't tell him I'm sure Jasmine would have informed him about Archer.

"What the fuck?" Is the first thing I hear when I enter through the door.

"Ooh, Uncle Alex." I hear Archers footsteps, "Money in the swear jar, please." His voice sweet and polite.

I smile and move out the way to allow my guest inside to view the chaos that might be about to take place in the apartment. I close the door behind him and start to move towards the living room where everybody is seated.

"Hey guys," I greet making three pairs of eyes to snap to mine and then move over to the person next to me.

Two pairs of eyes hold confusion and wonder which is both of the boys while one holds anger, confusion and worry and that is Jasmine.

"This is my friend, Connor." I gesture to the guy standing awkwardly behind me.

"Connor, this is my family." I gesture towards the three stunned faces that are frozen in place. All five of us make no movements while we awkwardly stand in silence.

That is until Archer decides to jump up and run over towards the tall man. Everyone's eyes watch him as he tugs onto Connors pants, making Connor down at him, smiling.

"I saw you on the magazines!" Archer exclaims.

I frown at the five year old. Magazines, what magazines? I look over at my friends, but they just shrug. Just as clueless as I am.

"Alright, Archer. Let's give the guy some space, could you go get ready for bed? Is that okay?" I crotch down to his level, smiling at him while shaking my hand into his hair.

He gives me a pout, hitting my hand away from his precious hair before noding his head and runs off down the long hall in the direction of his room.

Sighing, I stand back up and dust myself off before moving towards a vacant couch to plop myself down on. I finally allow myself to relax for a minute before facing the chaos.

"Have you guys had dinner yet?" I break the silence.

"Yeah," Alex mumbles, I notice how he gives Jasmine a look before standing up and walking towards the entrance with Jasmine following him a few seconds later.

"Goodnight." He says at the same time Jasmine says that we'll talk about this tomorrow.

I frown, but nod my head in agreement nonetheless. "I'll speak to you guys in the morning." I say.

I watch them nod back and leave the apartment with Connor awkwardly standing while his eyes scan around the living area.

"He looks like-" Connor starts to say after five minutes of silence but I cut him off.

"I know." I mutter, looking away.

He frowns. I can see the confusion washing through him. I stay silent, not wanting to explain to him. He starts walking towards the couch opposite of me and takes a seat.

"Is it?" He asks, leaning forward. He places elbows on his knees while searching my face, trying to notice an upcoming lie.

"Mommy!" Archer runs into the room, jumping onto me.

I place a soft and gentle kiss on his forehead and smile down at the grinning five year old. I look back at Connor who is looking intently at the child in my arms. I wait until he looks back up at me before speaking.

I send him a smile as I clutch tightly onto my son while standing up. He stands up aswell, almost knowing I'm knocking off the conversation.

"We'll talk tomorrow, let me show you to your room."