The CEO's Assistant

"You stupid brat!" Martin's deep infuriated voice, echoed in the almost empty manor, his anger was clearly visible as his now conscious son sat shamefully on the long couch in front of the man. Martin started pacing, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "I told you not to do anything stupid, I had managed to keep your relationship from Joan for more than nine years and you had to go and do something like try and chase Arianna around at a public event? Are you insane or just stupid?"

"I would have had her if it wasn't for that stupid... damn Liam!" Julien threw the cold ice pack at the ground in anger. His father swiftly turned to look wide eyed at him, he gave the old man a rather puzzled looked in return.

"You know who it was? You know who the man was that came to the bitch's rescue?" This was perfect, he just assumed his son wouldn't know, but perhaps there was still some hope left for the useless boy. "Well boy, spit it out, who was it?" Martin was eager to know, with any luck he'd be able to threaten the guy into leaving Paris, perhaps pay him off.

"It was that arrogant bastard from the Clair family!" Julien stood up kicking furniture, the anger radiating off him.

"Did you just say, Clair family?" Martin grabbed his son, slightly lowering his gaze to meet Julien's.

"Yeah, so what?" He shrugged Martin's hands off his shoulders as he walked over to his desk and picked up the old picture of Arianna. "If it wasn't for that arrogant f.u.c.kwit, you'd be mine again."

"Oh this is perfect!" Martin almost burst with excitement, as an evil grin spread across his face. "But we have to be careful on how we do this. After all we did pick her side." The old man started to rub his chin, intensely thinking about his next move.

"W...what are you talking about?! How can this be perfect?!" Julien pushed stacks of paperwork, stationary and a glass of whiskey onto the floor, in such anger. "I've just lost Arianna, to an untouchable, heartless monster and you think this is perfect! Have you lost your-" Julien was interrupted by the hard slap, received from his father.

"You fool!" Martin's deep voice echoed in the large study. "You're so angry you can't even think clearly. Who is Arianna?"

"What are you talking about?" Julien was confused, his father knew exactly who she was. "She's Joan's adopted daughter, the next heir to Richard's Fashion."

"Exactly! And who is Liam Clair?" Martin was getting frustrated with having to spell it out to his son, he rubbed his temple as he wondered what did he do in his past life to end up now with a son this stupid.

"The only son, eldest child to William Clair and the heir Aimer La Mode, which is..." suddenly Julien realised what his father was talking about. "which is RF's biggest rival." The rivalry between the companies was famous all over Europe and it was common knowledge amongst Parisian high class how much the two CEOs hated each other. While no-one actually knew why, there were many rumors about it, but the most popular was the fact that William's wife Camille was Joan's best friend until she married him and it was rumored that Joan hated William for forcing Camille to choose between them.

"Now you understand?" Julien nodded with a devilish grin. Of course he understood, he'd even thought about this when he first saw Liam in the hallway. "Good, now we have to be careful, Liam Clair is still untouchable to people like us. We picked Joan's side, so William isn't going to believe us if we go over there and tell him his son is sleeping with the enemy, we need concrete proof."

"What about Joan? Wouldn't it be safer for us, if we went to Joan with this information, she's able to control her daughter?"

"No, I have a feeling Joan knows about them." Martin paced around the office, concocting a plan.

~ ~ ~

4:31AM June 8th, Liam hadn't slept all night, he couldn't get Arianna's voice out of his head '...but I understand what kind of relationship we must have... Mr. Clair.' He stared down at the gold diamond ring, he'd once given Chloe and didn't understand, he never felt like this even when he found out Chloe didn't love him, at that moment he was angry, but now his c.h.e.s.t ached, he was restless, always worrying about Arianna. He ran his fingers through his thick dirty blonde hair, is she okay?

Why didn't she seem okay?

Why can't they be together?

And why is he so desperate to have her?

He thought about the day he met her, on that day it was supposed to be his wedding day, he was supposed to have married another woman, but instead he spend it getting drunk with his sister, brother-in-law and a mysterious woman, who made his heart skip a beat, who didn't care about his status or wealth, who laughed at his jokes and could handle his sister, this beautiful woman was now sleeping down the hall and all he wanted was to protect her from all the pain she'd gone through.

Her pain. His eyes narrowed, he picked up his phone and called his assistant, Thomas Wright.

"Boss, what are you doing awake, do you have any idea what time it is?" A sleepy groan, came through the phone, followed by a long yawn.

"I don't care." Liam's cold voice replied indicating that he was wide awake and meant business. "I need you to find out everything you can about Julien Scott." Tom could hear the murderous intent in Liam's voice and knew exactly what this meant. Julien Scott, you won't live to see next winter.

"What'd he do to offend you?" Tom yawned, as he rubbed his eyes quietly getting out of bed, trying not to wake his wife.

"Not important. Do as I ask. Don't ask questions." Liam hung up before Tom started to interrogate him even more. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "Who is it?"

"Arianna..." her voice was shaky, he could tell she was nervous. "Can we talk?"