Chapter 30: Chapter 30

~ RACHEL’S POV

I wake up to the beeping noise of my phone. I groan turning around and laying on my stomach with a pillow covering my head. I lift myself up, the pillow tumbled over. My eyes squint as the sun shin through the curtains making me groan and lay my head back on to the bed. I slowly turn over to my back, my arm reaching to rest over my eyes.

I hear another beep which makes me groan harder. This is the tenth time my phone has beeped. Without opening my eye, I reach for the phone which I keep on the side table. I pick up the phone and see eight notifications from Instagram and two messages from Rebecca. I open Rebecca’s messages, she sent me two pictures, which looks like a screenshot from Instagram. The first picture is of me in the bar holding a bottle of beer and it was captioned "Rachel Moranzino gets drunk with her coworkers"

I scoff rolling my eyes. They just had to say that. Scrolling to the second picture, it a photo of me smiling at Alexander. Its caption is; 'Does Richie know about this guy?'

I grunt rolling my eyes again. They’ve got to be kidding me right now, these paparazzi are so jobless, I mean how unearth will someone decide to just leave their home to snap random pictures of people? And why will they decide to follow someone everywhere they do to?

Christ! These people are so annoying and to top everything up, they crop Richie out of the picture. Why the hell did they crop Richie out of the picture!

I wave off their annoying thoughts from my head and I text Rebecca back before checking my Instagram notifications. I’m not surprised to see so many random tags on photos of me in the bar. Someone even made a ticktock video of it which is titles 'Rachel Moranzino’s secretly date her coworker'

Oh my God! They can’t be serious right now, I cannot believe these paparazzi, why the hell are they faking this news? I’m not dating any of my coworkers nor did I get drunk and what’s that about me and Alexander? Why are they trying to make it look like I’m together with Alexander?

With a groan, I toss my phone away and slam back to sleep. I expected to see mine and Richie’s photos all over the internet but I didn’t expect the photos to be cropped and the captions to be like that. If Alex has a girlfriend I am sure she won’t be happy when she reads the captions of those pictures.

Turning around to lay on my stomach, I see a note sitting on Richie’s side of the bed. I reach my hand to grab it and as I did, I open it and read the:

'I wouldn’t wish for anything than waking up to see you sleeping. But you know how the world is screwed; duty called. There are some random tweets and pictures going on in the internet, you might want to ignore them and also, you don’t have to come to work today I’ve got everything taken care of. Enjoy your lovely day and I promise I will be back soon, just for you.'

I drop the note down. This man is good with his words, I could fall for him if my heart isn’t determined to hate him, though, he kinda changed my mood considering I don’t have to go to work.

I go back to sleep only to wake up to the sound of my ringtone. I decide not the respond to the call but when it rings for the second time. I grunt; I can’t just get enough sleep around. I reach over to pick it up. The name ‘designer’ flash across my screen.

I immediately sit up as a thrilling anticipation run through me. The person calling me is not my designer but the person I hired to make research on Richie’s drug dealer. I had his number saved as my designer so no one gets suspicious of anything.

"Hello?" I answer, my voice barely above a whisper because I just woke up. I clear my throat before I say "Rachel Green speaking."

"Good morning, Miss Green?" He says; his voice is profound and I can tell he’s about to give me the best news I can ever hope for.

"You have any information?" I ask, impatiently

"Indeed I do, Miss Green. The drug supplier has been found. He is a Chinese citizen and is known by the name of Lai Shenyang. He does illegal possession of firearms too."

This is great, I knew he was going to give me something good.

"Do you have any evidence for his involvement or something like that?" I ask. I can’t mention Richie’s name on the phone, that’s the policy.

"I do but sadly, the proof I have with me isn’t enough. I need more evidence to get the job done."

"Okay, what are you going to do to get the evidence?"

"That will be your job, Miss. I need the receipt of his transaction with him. All signatures are meant to be there and also, if you can get the original copy it will be good."

Oh, screw shit! Now I have to do to work. "Okay, I will try and get it today," I say sighing. This is great, just when I am happy that I will stay home, something had to come up.

"Thank you so much, Silas," I say. I am about to end the call when he begins to speak.

"You’re welcome but do not mention my name or your name ever again. It’s against the rules." He tells me

"Oh sorry," I say before ending the call. Silas is Rebecca’s friend, he runs all this tracking team and stuffs like that. He is very professional when doing business with him. I plan to make him my main tracker because he’s good at his job and he’s trustworthy.

I roll out of bed and head into the bathroom to take a shower. By the time I start to take a shower, I think of what to tell Richie when I get to the office. I consider telling him that didn’t see his note but I find it very hard to believe. I don’t think Richie will believe that. Maybe I should just tell him that I miss him. That sounds much better, though It’s will kill me to say that but I have no choice.

Once I was done taking a shower, I wore a pencil brown skirt that almost reached my knee, and a white button-up shirt. I used the stretcher to straighten my hair, I applied mascara, lipstick, a touch of eyeliner, and eyeshadow. I stomped on my heels and head out of the room.

"Yes, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m on my way already." I say through the phone. I am on call with Rebecca. I told her what Silas said and what I plan to do. She needs to know every single update regarding this matter, after all she’s the one that got me in contact with Silas.

I reach my hand to open the car door when the driver stops me. "May I?" He inquires

I nod and he opens the door. Once I enter the car and settle down, he turns around and enters the drivers seat.

"Where to ma'am?" He asks starting the Royce.

"Work." I respond.

I have just finished talking to Rebecca when the car pulled over. I stepped out of car and into the building, lucky for me there aren’t paparazzi’s around.

Walking into my cabin, I see Richie pulling out some files from the cabinet. "Rach." He says, surprised

"What are you doing here?" He walks towards me.

"I- umm.." I begin to think of what to say. I know I have planned what to tell Richie when he asks me this question but now that I am here, I cannot remember what it is. I take a moment before I respond "Duty calls." I say, smiling. I mentally facepalmed myself. Now that have spoken I just recalled what I planned to tell him.

"Didn’t you read my note?" He asks

"I read it but I just wanted to come. Home is boring." I tell him as I begin to walk past him. Richie holds my hand and pulls him towards him. His chest is against my back.

"You came here to work?" His finger touch my neck, and my hair as it was moves away nearly giving me the chills. "Or you came here because you miss me." He whispered in my ear.

"Work obviously," I say

"Lies!" His voice sounds husky. His finger trails from the sides of my head and down to my neck, out to my shoulders, and down to my hands. He holds my hands gently yet firmly, put them in front of me, and pauses. "I know you came for me so just say it."

I sigh as I decide to give in and say what he wants "Yes, I came for you, I miss you." My words were emotionless and each word came out with its own eye roll.

Richie didn’t say a word as he kisses my shoulder, and runs his lips on my skin towards my ear, but doesn't quite make it that far. I tilt my head and after his deep breath out he bites me gently. It doesn't hurt, it only makes me want more. I close my eyes and suck in the air.

There is something this man does to me that I always lose my mind when I’m around him.

Richie turns me around, and we are facing each other. He stares into my eyes, smirks, and leans towards my shoulder. He trails hot kisses against my skin and I suck in air with pleasure.

"How badly do you miss me, Rach?" He whisper in affection and desire with each kiss he trailed down my neck to my collarbone.

"Very bad" I found myself saying. The feel of his lips against my skin encircle my head and I couldn’t think of anything else. It was almost like he is worshiping every inch of my body his lips touches.

His slow careful kisses turn my skin into a very sweet fire. But it didn’t get quite far as a knock was heard on the door. Richie ignores the knock as he continues his gentle assault. I so much hate how my body responds to his touch.

Again the person behind the door knocks and with a groan Richie kisses the tip of my nose before he calls out "Come one."

The door opens and Margret, one of his employees walks into the room. "What do you want now Margret?" Richie screech. It’s so clear that he’s pissed off by her sudden arrival.

"Sir, you need to come with me. This is urgent." She says

"Everything is urgent to you but go ahead I will come in a minute."

She nods "Okay sir."

Richie waits until Margret walks out of the cabin before he leans and kisses me on my left cheek. "You hear the woman, it’s urgent and I got to go."

Before I could say a word he kisses me on my right cheek "Don’t go anywhere, I will be back soon." He says and walks out of the cabin

As Richie steps out. I take a moment to recover myself. I don’t waste time thinking of the romance scene I fell for earlier because if I do, I will eventually waste my time overthinking things.

I went to check the cabinet hoping I will find the receipt in no time. Richie just stepped out so there is a possibility that he’s coming back now. I search the first parts of the cabinet but didn’t find anything. Searching the second part of the cabinet I hear the door open.

My heart stops and I begin wack my brain for an excuse for my actions. I didn’t get the time to think as Richie speaks almost immediately "Rach, we have to leave."

I turn my gaze to him, surprised by what he said: "Why?" I ask

"I don’t have to explain, let’s go." He clasp my hand and as we walk out of the cabin, I had a glance at the news channel. The headlines of the news made my heart stop momentarily. My eyes widen as shock lace through me. The headlines say Richie Moranzino has been found guilty of selling illegal drugs and weapons to the state.

How is this possible? How did this news get leaked? I am supposed to do that. I am supposed to be the one behind this sabotage. My brain isn’t thinking straight and my heart begins to beat faster and faster.

The moment we step outside the building, flashlights screamed at our eyes as we were surrounded by paparazzi.

"Richie Moranzino, care to tell us about the news!"

"Richie Moranzino over here!"

"Are you a drug dealer?"

"Is the news true?"

"Richie Moranzino please talk to us."

Many questions rammed around as they continued taking pictures of Richie and me. Richie’s hand held onto my waist tightly as his bodyguard stood side by side with us. We finally got into the car but still, the journalist and paparazzi rush to us and they continue to ask their questions.

I have no idea what is going on right now as my brain is not functioning. I still can’t bring myself to believe what I just saw, it’s almost impossible for that to happen, no outsider knows about that but for me.

I planned to bring that news to the world but I guess someone is ahead of me. But who? Who could have done this? Does Richie have any more enemies than me?