FOUR: Cigarette

Dove's POV

Dylan Miller. His honey-colored eyes bored into mine as he tilted his head a bit. Checking me out from head to toe later on. I forgot to mention; that Raining Blaze's lead vocalist is a flirt. I smirked as I waited for him to finish checking me out.

"Who are you pretty?" Dylan asked as he approached me. A seducing smile played on his face.

"The woman you were talking about earlier," I replied, the smirk still on my face.

"Dove Stanley?" He asked.

"Yes"

"Oh my God! Please give me the privilege to escort you to Charles's office myself!" He exclaimed completely forgetting his earlier plans of going for an evening walk. I chuckled.

"I thought you were going for an evening walk, Mr. Miller," I said. He shook his head.

"Oh! How could I?! Nothing is more important to me than helping a damsel in distress," he said dramatically. I let out small laughter.

"How sweet of you, Mr. Miller," I said.

"Please, call me Dylan," he corrected me.

"Sure"

"Come on, I will take you to Charles," he said and I nodded.

"See you around, Miss Cole," I winked at the receptionist who was fuming in anger.

Leaving fuming Layla Cole behind, me and Dylan proceeded to walk towards Charles' office. As I walked observing the interior of the building, the interior seemed fancier than I originally imagined. If anything the interior gave me vibes of one of those Wattpad CEO stories who have fancy companies and shit.

From the corner of my eyes, I can see Dylan has glanced at me for the hundredth time. So, I finally looked at him.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"What?" He asked.

"You keep glancing towards me. Is it something you want to say or ask?" I asked this time more specifically.

"Ah! No, sorry if that made you feel uncomfortable. I just didn't think Dove Stanley; the infamous lyricist would be so young and pretty," he admitted. I laughed.

"What were you expecting then? An old hag?" I chuckled. He laughed.

"Well, not exactly an 'old hag' but probably a woman in her 40s. No offence but you are so young. How are you so good at writing?" He asked. I shrugged.

"I don't know, writing just comes naturally to me," I replied rubbing the back of my neck. Okay- I'll be honest this one time. I'm a pretend narcissist, I don't want to be narcissistic but people around me pushed me to be one.

"Ah! A prodigy, I see," he replied rubbing his chin as he thought about something.

"If you don't mind me asking. Why are there no other staff members around here?" I asked.

"All employees have a half-day on Saturdays, except Layla. She stays overtime to get paid extra wages," he explained. I nodded.

"So, this is Charles's office. You know Dove, I don't know how Tristan and Vinter will react, I mean Tristan seemed cool with you being our new lyricist but Vinter isn't. Either way, I want you to know that I'm glad you are our new lyricist," He said. "I mean it's better than having an old hag."

I snickered at his remark, "I'm looking forward to working with you guys as well."

He knocked on the door of the office before opening it for me.

"I'm sorry in advance if Vinter behaves rudely," Dylan whispered to me. I grinned; I mean it is bound to happen.

"Charles! Just like you said! I have escorted this damsel here!" Dylan chimed as both of us finally entered Charles's office.

Charles was with two more people, who I of course recognised. But I still wasn't expecting to meet them this soon. Both the men turned around and my breath hitched.

I have only seen his face on screens. He doesn't even have to say a word, he took my breath with just a neutral stare he gave me. With his amethyst eyes, it felt like he wasn't looking at me but my soul. For once I felt like I'm an open book in front of someone I haven't even talked to.

*Thump... thump*

My heart is thumping so fast, that I can hear it beating. I am glad people in the room are standing a bit far away to hear my heartbeat this loud. A bit of surprise flashed through his eyes when he stared at me. I'm glad I'm not the only one in this trance, he felt it too. The soulmate bond between us.

He is wearing a three-piece suit- well weird choice to wear such fancy clothes indoors but then again, this man is called a 'fashion icon' so I'm not even going to make any comments. His hair color is dark ebony; his natural hair color. He has shoulder-length hair which is tied in a man bun.

While he kept spacing out staring at me, I smirked and diverted my attention toward the other men present in the room.

"Mr. Perez, so good to finally meet you," I greeted as I extended my hand towards the older man probably in his late 30s.

"Likewise, Miss Stanley," Charles said shaking my hand.

"Please drop the honorifics sir, I'm much younger than you," I said.

"Only if you call me Charles and not Mr. Perez. It makes me feel old," he said chuckling.

"Of course! Won't want my employer to feel any sort of discomfort around me!" I said.

"Smooth talker..." I heard Vinter mumble. He was loud enough as I'm sure everyone heard what he said. Tristan cleared his throat as he approached me.

"Hello, I'm Tristan Rios!" The sunshine of the group greeted with a huge smile. I mean who doesn't know this beautiful man?! He is always happy and cheerful like he sets the atmosphere in the group and their songs so right. The man with greenish-blue orbs and hair dyed silver-blonde. He always has a smile on, what a cheerful guy Tristan is.

"I know you, Mr. Rios. I mean who does not know you?! You guys, you are the talk of the hour," I said.

"Well, so are you, Miss Stanley! And that is exactly why Charles here wants to hire you, isn't that right?" Tristan said as he looked at Charles.

"Of course!" Charles exclaimed.

"And I'm against this," Vinter said.

"Vin, we have already talked about this, haven't we? It's for the benefit of our group. Moreover, you still get to produce music for us, isn't that enough?" Dylan said. Vinter glared at his best friend.

Dylan and Vinter have always been together since their debut. It sometimes felt like Dylan was more of Vinter's soulmate than me.

"No, it's not enough! She is stealing my position! I don't want to sing or produce songs that someone else wrote it. Especially not a narcissistic person like her!" He said. Oh! Yeah, talk about yourself.

"But, I'm still more of a genius writer than you are, don't you think Mr. Harris?" I asked as a sly smile appeared on my face. I can tell I was getting on his nerves. So, I diverted my attention toward Charles.

"I mean, I never really planned to work for any particular agency, I would rather be a freelancer. But, what can I say? Hope records are very different. This company intrigued me to work as a hired lyricist. But if you still have internal confusion going on, I don't mind walking out of that door," I told Charles.

"No! no internal confusions are going on! I emailed you with a very solid decision of hiring you! You are Raining Blaze's new lyricist!" Charles said as he glared at Vinter. I smiled sadistically at my said soulmate.

"This is fucked... I'm leaving," Vinter said as he walked out of the door in anger. Dylan sighed as he was about to go behind him but I stopped him.

"Hey, Dylan. Do you mind if I go search for him?" I asked. He stared at me in confusion.

"Sure... okay," he said. I smiled at him.

"I'm sorry for how Vinter behaved," Charles said rubbing his forehead. I chuckled.

"Don't worry, I was expecting it. I will go check up on him," I said as I gave one glance in the direction of Tristan who was oddly very quiet like he was trying to figure something out.

I left the room as I let my legs take me to where Vinter was, trusting my intuitions.

He was on the terrace, smoking obviously. I let out a small 'tsk', I hate this habit of his. I hate it when people smoke.

"You know you will ruin your pretty voice if you keep smoking too much," I said as the smell of burned tobacco hits my nostrils. I scrunched my nose keeping a distance from the man I was longing to see all this time.

"Shut up," he replied.

"Why are you here?" He asked.

"Ah! Well, you came up here angrily what if..."

"That's not what I asked. You and I both know what I'm asking about," he said as he threw the half-burned cigarette away and walked closer to me.

"I wanted to visit my lovely soulmate," I replied with a grin. His taller figure towered over me.

"You already knew I was your soulmate all these years, didn't you?" He asked. I raised my hand placing it on his cheek. But he pushed my hand away.

"I was searching for you like a mad man! Where were you all these years?!" He yelled at me.

"How long are you going to play the victim card, Vinter? It has become a habit of yours, don't you think? You have never seen me, but sure you had a bit of idea about my existence. 'Dove Stanley' is a famous name around here after all. Didn't it ever occur to you that this person might be your soulmate? If I didn't approach you first, you could have approached me instead, don't you think?" I asked.

"Could it be that you never wanted to find me cause you were scared that you will have lived your entire life with just one person?" I asked. His eyes widened for a brief moment.

"Stop playing mind games with me..."

"You are playing games with yourself, my love. It's all on you," I said.

"Now, to answer your question. I'm here because I want you to go back to your normal self. I want old you back, the one whose music had actual feelings in it. I am here to push you on the right path again," I said straightforwardly.

"You think your petty mind games will work on me?" He asked. I chuckled.

"Oh, baby! It is already working. You just threw your half-burned cigarette away. Tell me how often have you done that before?" I asked. He opened his mouth to say something in defense but nothing came out, I'm winning this little argument that we are having.

"I hate you," he said bitterly.

"I never said that I love you," even though I did. How could I not? I was destined to fall in love with him. But he doesn't need to know that.

I smiled as I placed my hand behind his head making him lean in, our foreheads touching as neither of us broke the eye contact.

"Listen, I am not here to love you or make you fall in love with me. I'm here to help you and that is it. You love me or hate me; I do not care about it. But, just to let you know I will be here for you to help you out..." I said. "Because I have always been a nice person."

"You are a narcissistic person, Dove. Nothing about you is nice," he said as he stepped away from me. I chuckled. I always hated hard-headed people, why does this one make an exception in everything.

"If that's how you put it, pretty boy. But it seems like your friends are already getting fond of me," I said.

"Because they can't see your cynical side. But I can see the demon inside you," Vinter said. "No person who can play mind games is good."

Saying this he left me there with my jumbled-up thoughts. Even though I saw this coming, I knew he was going to say things that will remind me of my past. I was prepared for this, but it's still hard. Hard to digest, hard to breathe and hard to process.

My past is a nightmare with the façade of fantasy and hell with the façade of a paradise.