Chapter Eight

Breaking news, tea drinkers! One of our cattiest friends in high places was at some posh pool party earlier when their beautiful host started freaking out. BH has always been known to be a cool customer, but our source says she was acting oddly that day. A green-eyed monster may be involved, along with the hired help from a certain hair salon with lots of A-listers in its clientele.

Posted by @SocietyFlavoredTea

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My, my, tonight is shaping up to be really exciting, tea drinkers. Catty Friend from our earlier post has an update. Apparently, things have gotten worse for BH and her long-time boyfriend...who may not be a billionaire for long. Now, yours truly won"t pretend to know much about high-risk business deals, but what"s pretty clear to me is how the loss of $2.8B is no small amount. Can Former Mr. Big Bucks ever recover from this? More importantly, will his beautiful girlfriend choose to stand by him, for better or for worse?

Posted by @SocietyFlavoredTea

VALERIAN STARED ATthe numbers on his screen in numb disbelief. After saying goodbye to the last of their guests, he had been about to drive Camelia home when he received a call from his lawyer. He had thought the latter was joking, but now that he and Camelia were in his office, there was no longer any way for him to deny the truth.

"I told you, didn"t I? I told you, I told you, but you wouldn"t listen! You never listened!"

Camelia was screaming and pacing back and forth like someone who had lost her mind. He had never seen her like this, but when Valerian tried to reach for her, she angrily pushed him away and gazed at the billionaire as if he were leprous.

This can"t be happening, Camelia thought in a panic. How can this man she was dating be a billionaire one moment and a pauper the next?

She saw him flinch out of the blue, and Camelia realized too late she had unconsciously spoken her thoughts out loud.

Fuck.

"Is that what you"re worried about?" Valerian asked quietly. "That I"m no longer rich enough for you?"

Camelia decided to ignore his words. He already knew the answer to it, anyway. It wasn"t like she had ever tried to hide how much she loved money. "How much do you need to turn things around?"

"Why?"

"Maybe I can borrow from Ignacio—-"

"Over my dead body."

"I know you don"t like him," Camelia said impatiently, "but if he"s our only way—-"

"Do you really think I was not aware that you were his mistress when you first came to me with your proposal?" Valerian demanded.

Camelia struggled to keep her face expressionless. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. When he put it that way, she could see now how foolish she had been, to assume that Valerian would never see through her lies.

"That"s all in the past," she said finally. "It"s different now—-"

"How is it different?" Valerian challenged. "That man will not give you anything without something in exchange—-"

"Then I"ll give him whatever he wants," Camelia cried out. "Can"t you see how serious this is—-"

"I"ll turn things around," Valerian gritted out. "All I ask of you is to wait—-"

"You"re asking me to wait for nothing!"

The way Valerian simply stared at her had Camelia glaring at him in bitter resentment. "Don"t you dare make me feel guilty over this!"

"You obviously do not trust me—-"

"And you"re obviously na?ve, for someone who"s supposed to be smarter than the rest of us," Camelia sneered. "Why would anyone trust you when you"ve always acted like it would be our privilege to work with you? You ignore everyone"s advice. You risk your life like you don"t give a shit about the consequences. No one trusts you! No one just had the guts to tell you since your dumb luck kept making you mo—-"

"Enough, Camelia."

The softness of his voice was always an indication of Valerian"s temper, but Camelia was too furious herself to give a damn.

"No, it"s not enough," she screamed. "I warned you for years and years—-"

"I said enough," Valerian exploded, and this time, Camelia finally did shut up, but it wasn"t to hear what he had to say.

"You"re right, Val. I"ve had enough of you and your stupid principles. I"ve had enough of you acting like you"re better than all of us. From now on, it"s over between us. Go look for your vilain petit canard," she suggested. "I"m sure she"ll still think you"re a catch even when you"re forced to sell off everything."

Numbness had spread throughout Valerian"s body as he watched his girlfriend of eight years walk out on him. Bitterness simmered deep inside of him at the realization of how big a fool he had been all these years. He had never been in love with Camelia, but he had been faithful to her because he had valued her loyalty.

But he was wrong about her, obviously, and one day he would make her pay for turning her back on him.

One day.

But for now, he had work to do.

Valerian spent the next hour making calls, none of which lasted less than a minute. News didn"t just have wings in their world. It spread like a fucking virus, more so when billions of dollars were involved.

Everything Camelia had thrown at him earlier was the truth. He had never made the effort to play nice with anyone, and he had never given a fuck about other people"s feelings. He had taken a lot of risks that could have blown up in his face, and he would"ve had no one to blame but himself.

It was just fucking ironic that what was now being labeled as this century"s greatest financial nightmare had nothing to do with his high-risk approach to investment.

Two years ago, he had won a bidding war that crowned Rossfield Inc. as the exclusive supplier of oil for the Arabian kingdom of Risto. Everyone had applauded the victory, and it was one of the few times when his entire board was in full support of his decision to take out a massive loan for the venture.

Now, it was the opposite, with everyone on their high horse as they labeled the loan as Valerian"s most unforgivable act of gross negligence. His business rivals had been granting interviews left and right, saying that Valerian had it coming for being an arrogant SOB who never listened to reason. Economists wanting to make a name for themselves had also been working hard, producing short-length videos that deliberately twisted the truth for the sake of going viral.

Everyone was acting as if Valerian should"ve been able to see the future and predict the assassination of Emir Sheikh Aminullah, and that anarchy would sweep over the once-peaceful streets of his kingdom.

Valerian had never been much of a drinker, and he hadn"t much respect either for people who took to the bottle to escape their problems. But just this once, the temptation to take the easy way out overtook him.

His chest started to tighten painfully as a familiar sickening sense of restlessness started buzzing in his mind.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Camelia had a wine bar installed at the corner of his office a few years ago, insisting that it was necessary to impress any guests they had who loved to drink. Tonight was Valerian"s first time to use it for himself, and a few sips were all it took to dull his senses.

Fuck.

He threw the glass away, and he watched it smash into pieces against the wall. Even though he hadn"t done anything stupid yet, it still disgusted him that he had sunk so low as to do—-

(what his mother did)

—-what others did.

Never again.

Monty was the only driver on duty when Valerian got to the basement parking of his building, and the graveness of the older man"s expression wasn"t lost on him.

Valerian waited until he was in the backseat before addressing the big fucking elephant in the room—-or in this case, his limo.

"You"ve heard about what happened."

"I did, sir. And we both know there was no way you could"ve seen it coming."

"The whole world begs to differ."

"You know what the whole world loves more than an underdog? It"s seeing great men like you fall. It makes them feel better about being mediocre."

A ghost of a smile touched Valerian"s lips at the contempt in Monty"s voice. "People keep telling me I should hold back with my words. I should"ve let them know that it"s their "sweet" dear Monty who taught me all about social etiquette and manners."

"Sure you can," Monty said with a grin, "but no one"s gonna believe you."

"You"re probably right."

Monty glanced at his passenger over his shoulder. "You sure you okay? You shouldn"t be alone right now."

"I won"t be. Heather"s looking after Silver."

Monty nodded in approval. "Good. She"s a lot smarter than you are. Be sure to listen to whatever she has to say."

"I will."

Monty winced upon hearing those words. That"s not good. It was his first time to see Valerian less than sober, and he had no idea what the young man could get up to when drunk.

Valerian firmly rejected Monty"s invitation to walk him up to his apartment. "You"re worrying for nothing. I"m not stumbling or swaying, am I?"

"Guess not," Monty was forced to acknowledge gloomily even though he still wasn"t convinced Valerian didn"t need any assistance. The man could still walk a straight line, sure. But was his mind capable of thinking just as well?

Valerian struggled to remember his code to unlock the door.

Damn.

His mind remained blank, and he rang the doorbell instead.

The front door opened later, and the fog inside his head thickened. Was he imagining things? Or was he really staring at her?

"Mr. R-Rossfield?"

Everything around him was starting to spin, but it wasn"t enough to keep him from recognizing that voice. He would know it anywhere since that voice belonged to her.

"Valerian," he rasped out. "You can call me that now."

After all, his girlfriend - no, wait, Camelia wasn"t that anymore, was she?

Camelia was his ex, and since his ex had already given him away—-

So be it then.

Valerian cupped her face and covered her mouth with his.

What this girl wants, I"ll give it.

His tongue stroked in to have its first taste.

"What do you think you"re doing?"

The unmistakable sound of Heather"s voice snapped him back to his senses. He shoved her away without thinking, and the world spun even faster as he turned around to leave.

Fuck.

It was Valerian"s last thought before everything went black.