His Beautiful Addiction

''Wow, so it's true, you are back from the dead! '' Claire exclaimed with a smile when she saw him approach.

''Claire; '' Nicklaus called; ''It's been a while, how have you been? '' he sat down beside Tiana taking her hand.

''I should be asking you that, you just returned from the land of the dead! ''

They laughed at her joke and Nicklaus' eyes glanced at Leo; Claire remembered she had not introduced Leo yet;

''Oh, this is Leo, my boyfriend. '' She said with a smile. Tiana blushed seeing how shameless she was; she thought she would introduce him as her best friend and let Nicklaus fix the dots, but it seemed she was more shameless than she had thought.

''It's nice to meet you, Leo, I'm Nicklaus Howells; ''

Leo chuckled; ''do you need to introduce yourself, everyone knows you already. '' he said and they laughed.

They talked about random things and had dinner together before they decided to leave.

''Tiana, see you at work, there's a huge deal coming up, but I don't want to spoil the fun and tell you yet,''

''Ah, Claire, that's not fair, if you aren't going to tell me why bother letting me know about it, now, you're going to make me think about it all day. ''

''ah, I didn't know, okay, I take what I said back, pretend you didn't hear anything; ''

Tiana glared at her; ''Tsh, as if that's possible, just make sure you call me when you get home. ''

''Haha, okay I will, bye! '' They waved them goodbye and waited till they were out of the gates before they went in.

…

A smile was plastered on Leo's face as he drove to his house; he was reminiscing about what happened earlier that day. When Claire introduced him to Nicklaus, he had expected her to introduce him as just a friend, but she said he was her boyfriend, and she didn't even mince words. It made him so proud;

''what are you thinking about? '' Claire asked when she noticed that he was smiling sheepishly to himself.

''Ah, nothing, I was just thinking about today,''

''which part? Which part is so funny? ''

Leo glanced at her and cleared his throat; ''eh, nothing, forget it. ''

''tsh, '' she laughed and watched outside the window; she was happy. Everything was falling into place now.

Claire was jerked from her thoughts when her phone rang in her bag,

She took it out and the smile on her lips paled;

''who is it? '' Leo asked when he noticed that she was not picking her call;

''Um, it's my father; '' she swallowed; what did he want now?

Sighing, she swiped her phone and answered the call.

''Hello? ''

''Claire, how are you? '' when she heard his voice, she felt a bitter taste on her tongue. He had tried to be a better father but she could not forgive him because he killed her mom, none of his changes could bring her back, so it was no use.

''Good, is there a problem? '' they didn't have any father-daughter relationship for him to call at any time to ask how she was, if he had anything to say, he should as well get straight to the point.

There was a silence on the other end and she knew he felt bad with the way she had responded to him, but she was unfazed.

''Come home, we have an important dinner; there's someone I want you to meet. ''

''Who is it? ''

''A possible suitor, he's the CEO of Guildon Group and you know how much I have wanted an alliance… ''

Claire's hand gripped her phone hard as every other thing he said became blank in her mind, the only thing she could think about was 'how much I have wanted an alliance'.

Perhaps, did her father try to be better simply because he wanted to use her for a marriage alliance?

Even though she could not forgive him, the fact that he had been pretending all along just opened old wounds, rage-filled within her but she held herself back and quietly ended the call, putting the phone back into her bag.

''what did he say? '' Leo noticed her tone when she spoke and how she had abruptly ended the call and he wondered if something was wrong.

''Just the normal… he just wanted me to come to dinner, I didn't want to listen to him bicker. ''

She said with a strained smile;

Leo smiled and took her hand, kissing it. ''don't let him get to you too much, okay? ''

''Yeah, I won't. ''

Their car drove into the house and parked, after a few minutes, they were inside the house.

A black sedan was parked on the other side of the road and the person sitting inside was staring at a gun and listening to audio.

Her eyes flickered towards the house as she played with her gun.

She had come to shoot one of the two but who would have thought that she would be met with a juicer offer?

Hazel worked for Douglas and she knew a lot about hacking and radio transmitting, so she hacked into their car and listened to their discussion, she was just listening in passing as she waited for them to come back, but who would have thought that she would hear the conversation between Claire and her father, the president?

It seemed the father didn't know that Claire was seeing Leo. Leo was good looking, and wealthy, but Mr. President wouldn't want his daughter marrying someone whom he would not benefit from, and from the conversation it seemed that he had someone prepared for his little princess already.

If she sent their pictures to her father, what would be his reaction?

A wicked chuckle left Hazel's lips. Mr. President wouldn't let them be together. Leo was not what he wanted for his daughter, he wants an alliance, but sadly, Leo has none to offer.

He just has a good-paying job and a handsome face. Hazel laughed again.

Now, isn't this going to be fun to watch?