6. Eyes of Devil
Today is Monday.
And I don’t like Mondays.
But today is a different kind of Monday.
Because today, Pegasus Publications is going to upload my interview with Dakota Black. The teflon of tech-world.
Not that it matters to me, but the feeling of tingling tightness in my stomach tells me it’s not diarrhea. It’s butterflies. Excited butterflies, eagerly waiting to read the article.
Right at 9:01 AM, the post gets live on their cosmopolitan site.
My ass buzzes with nervousness that I never felt during exams as I open the article at the speed of light with the title..
Dakota Black, a man with the touch of Midas.
Below his picture in attached in a slick black suit that hugs him possessively. The man staring back at me has a chiseled jaw, with a nose as straight as an arrow that a perfect line can be drawn with. His broad shoulders appear broader and his green eyes, they look a bit darker as if they edited it.
Because I clearly remember his eyes staring at me, a shade of green that can be only found in the deep mines of emerald beds. A gaze so toxic that can cut through a bullet-proof glass with just a glance.
And I spent an hour with this man in his office. All alone. With his penetrative eyes going to the places I think I only imagined.
I scroll down and begin to read about him with an attention that I have never given to my textbooks. ‘Dakota Black, who stole headlines since 2020 and still stealing front pages of Forbes and Times, is now deemed to be the most wanted man in tech-hubs and ladies hub.’
Fucking nerve of this woman to write any duck-shit!
I skip the cheesy introduction and scroll to the question and answers. Surprisingly, she has written the exact word-to-word replies for what he said to me. It’s funny how I can hear his deep voice in my head as I read his answers.
A smile so unwanted and senseless conquers my lips. Every breath, frown, his gaze, even his smell, I can feel it all through the words.
But my smile instantly disappears like the smoke in thin air as I reach to the end of the column and see the name of the interviewer. Carina Martin, my editor.
My mood instantly messes up as if I licked a ripped banana. I throw my phone aside and lie on the bed half-heartedly. At least she could have been honest and given me a bit credit to scoop out answers for her. Sly fox!
The article already got a hundred above likes in just five minutes of its arouse. But then again, these were her questions and she paid me two hundred dollars, which I needed badly for my project. Oh, the project!
I stand up as my mind gets back to my assignment, which I have to submit today. It’s strange how serious I got for my studies since that event in my life.
I thought I lost everything. Not really though. Just my mind.
And I had lost my mind so badly.
Three years ago, I had a Britney Spears mental collapse, and I chopped off all of my hair. I just couldn’t bear to see those blue strands of hair on my head which kept on reminding me that I was treated as a replace of someone and then thrown away like a used condom, after cumming in it.
Sometimes, even now the nerves in my body stiffen when those whiskey brown eyes of the Devil flashes in my mind. The feel of his fingers on my body still send chills of trauma that I have been hiding in me.
So I chopped off the only thing he liked about me. My blue hair.
And that was not even the worst part. My parents freaked out badly after seeing me bald. My mother even cried looking at my new hairstyle and my twin brother, he is behaving like a possessive big brother since then.
They threw me into multiple therapies, kept a close eye on me and till now, don’t let me lock my room or stay alone longer than an hour. Damn! I miss my privacy.
I went from the most famous girl in the college, to the most infamous and unlucky girl. Some people even thought I had cancer, and my DMs flooded with sympathy messages. Goose fucks!
While in reality I just had a mental breakdown, but I think the results were not too bad. As now I focus on my studies and stay busy with my assignments that I barely get time to even chop my split ends.
The ends of my hair tickle my neck softly as I tie them back in a high ponytail, feeling happy how much they have grown despite my messed up head. I pick a white satin shirt and black pants to dress up in a casual, boring attire for the presentation.
I gather my stuff, the assignment, project files, and pen. I pick the black steel pen that Dakota gave me in his office. It has a beautiful ring of gold in the middle and is topped with a hook of silver carved with letters, Black.
It looks elegant and expensive, just like him.
I keep the pen on my table that prolly costs a king’s ransom, something I can only afford with a leg and an arm, and pick my phone to check its battery.
Suddenly I feel a thump of panic in my chest as I see sixteen missed calls in the past ten minutes from my editor, Carina Martin.
Shit! Why did I do other than keeping my phone on silent?
I call her back and she picks up on the first ring. “EMARA STONE!” Carina growls through the phone like an agitated Karen. “What the hell did you write?”
“I-I what? I don’t get it” My face has a confusion of thousand years of evolution, not understanding how one went from eating bananas to eating pussies.
“Are you plotting something against me by providing fake information? Coz I swear to the devil, I will not let you breathe peacefully.”
As if someone changed the track of my brains, I couldn’t follow the train of the words coming out of her. “What are you talking about? I didn’t give any fake information from my side.” I explain to her in a calm-shit-as-scared tone.
Is she talking about my book?
“Oh, really? Then why HighBar’s legal team is after my ass to sue me for an attempt to defame their client, Dakota Black. The one whose interview you took!”
Suddenly I feel myself being deported to Japan as the earth beneath me begins to quake. “What? I-I don’t understand why would they do that.” I read the article myself and it looked all fine to me. Despite being cringeworthy, it was exactly what he had disclosed.
“Oh, don’t pretend to be innocent now, Emara! They accused me of printing lies about Mr. Black being related to some illegal gang fights to damage his reputation and blacken his name with rumoured police cases.”
My mind scrambles to places, but I hold my nerves. “Wait.. Are you talking about that underground fight thing?” The last question I asked him.
“Yes. How did you even came up with that crap?” Her frustration growls at me.
“I-I didn’t. I-just-I-uh!” The cassette of my mouth gets stucks as I hear her agitated voice again. “I swear Emara, you are in so much trouble for doing this shit to me. Be ready with your lawyers coz I am not leaving you out.”
My nerves dances in terror and I walk in my room like a pendulum. “Please! I swear on Christ, he himself told me he loves violence and misses beating the shit out of people and his connection with those illegal fighting grounds. I didn’t add anything extra from my side, I swear.” I hate the fear making my voice unsteady.
“Don’t lie to me, girl! I played that tape-recorder thrice, checking every time and his answer was no where on the record.” Her voice rough like a sand paper, scraps through my ear.
“Because it’s battery died in the middle of the interview and I swear, I wrote word to word exactly what he said. Please, trust me. I have nothing against you.” My ragged heartbeats pound through my chest like bullets as every second passes with the blame on my name.
“You said he was your senior?” Carina says after a long silence, with a voice as sharp as an axe.
“Yes. But I-I don’t know why he would do that.” Oxygen lacks in my head and I feel breathless.
“I don’t know, Emara. You meet your senior, ask him what all this fuss is about. Get the truth out of his mouth, before I drag your ass in this prosecution swamp.” Her voice sounds like dark clouds of tornado, but that alone didn’t scare me.
“What about my book?” Sweat rolls down from my neck and I feel like I am on the verge of extinction while have a bath of sauna.
“You seriously think I would care about your book while my company is being eaten by his hungry legal vultures.” She barks like an unfriendly bitch that she is and my teeth clack shut as she says,
“Get me the proof he said about those underground fights, in written and signed by him. Or I will take you down with me, brutally.”