Alana watched the negotiation being discussed by Karla against the gallery owner and admired at how professional and sophisticated Karla was.

The event had finished an hour ago, her team had managed to sell all the art pieces downstairs. To celebrate, Jake and Pam had discussed going out for drinks. However, Alana had to decline as Karla had asked her to help negotiate with the gallery owner about re-selling her painting to the guy in Armani. Her partners had left her with regret on their faces, however, Alana had encouraged them to go out and enjoy in her place. She had bid them adieu an hour ago.

Upon discovering that Alana was the painter of the piece he cherished, the gallery owner was honoured to meet the famous anonymous artist. He chided himself for not recognising her sooner and commented how it was such a small world that she should be the one to have curated this event. After receiving the praise, Alana had introduced him to Karla and her boss and explained the current predicament.

Because the gallery owner cherished the painting, he initially refused to sell it. Alana no longer held any legal binding to the painting and so she couldn't help them. However, Karla was famous for being tenacious. She would not leave until her boss got what he wanted. And so, she had begun negotiating with the gallery owner.

It has been twenty minutes, since Alana left the main office to the vending machine selling coffee. She had excused herself from listening to their tireless negotiation. She took her time to go and get that coffee. Alana was exhausted, for the last eighteen hours since morning she'd been up and down with attention to detail, trying to organise this whole event. Placing the art pieces in the correct order. Driving to and fro, from her office to this gallery. And finally, this whole evening.

She felt her muscles aching and being in heels for the past three hours had burned out her soles. She missed her Vans, terribly.

Because there was no one else in the building but security and the party in the main office, Alana decided she couldn't handle it anymore and got rid of her heels. She was walking back to the main gallery office, barefoot, with coffee on one hand and heels dangling in the other, when she stopped suddenly...

Standing outside the main office, his tall masculine form leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and his fingers playing with the vial of his necklace, was the guy—who's name she should learn fast, since "guy in Armani" was growing old.

"Coffee?" Alana announced her presence as she stood in front of him, the arm— in which her strapped heels weren't dangling from—reached out to hand him a plastic cup of coffee.

His eyes opened in slits and stared down at her. As he studied her with those intense golden eyes, they lingered briefly on her bare feet. A small ghostlike crinkle cracked his frown. A hint of a smile flashed briefly on his eyes. Although his face remained expressionless, he seemed to be amused by the fact she had ditched her heels.

"No." He replied to her initial request.

Not even a thank you for offering.

Alana shrugged and brought the cup to her lips, thinking one more cup wouldn't kill her after this long night she had. Although she would later regret it—since caffeine could keep her up all night. She decided she will be fine, she had the whole weekend free to recuperate from the long weekday she had.

As she was mindlessly drinking her coffee, too tired to notice the fact that his watchful eyes were drilling holes through her. His form suddenly invaded her space as he took a step toward her. Alana watched the whole scene, transfixed, as if in slow motion, as he simply grabbed the half-finished cup in her hands.

The brief skin contact zapped an electricity through her skin and initiated a slow burning fire that trembled throughout her body. Her heart throbbed incessantly, butterflies fluttering wildly in her stomach. The heat encasing her all over was felt mostly on her cheeks and ears.

He had simply snatched the cup from her hands and downed the remaining coffee as if he was taking a shot. All the while his eyes never left her gaze. This simple action shouldn't have flustered her so much and yet Alana felt as if she was malfunctioning both physically and mentally.

No one, in the past twenty-one years of her life, has affected as much as this guy whose name she didn't even know yet. She had just met the man barely four hours ago and already she was picturing herself naked under his bed...doing all sorts of illicit activities. The heat in her cheeks increased as she pictured it.

Alana forcefully backed a step, realising where her thoughts were headed. Of course, she had no one to blame but herself. She had depraved herself from the opposite sex for this long. And because of this, her body was now reacting so violently against this enigma of such an attractive man.

Alana licked her dry lips before swallowing deeply. When she looked up to face him, there was a stunned expression on his face. Another difference from the glaring mask that was his usual expression. His eyes were glazed over, the golden colour intense as he watched her lips as if in a transfixed frozen spell.

Alana inhaled sharply, that look in his face was something else entirely...and yet there was something familiar about it. She couldn't distinguish it yet, exactly where she'd witnessed it before. But the strong feeling of deja vu was constant the more she was in his company.

She cleared her throat loudly and looked away quickly, frowning to herself.

"Um...any luck in there?" She cocked her head toward the main office, where Karla and the owner of the gallery were still in deep discussion.

He shrugged. "He's still adamant on keeping it...despite the price I'm offering."

"You know...If you want the painting so much, I can repaint it for you." Alana offered randomly. She quickly reprimanded herself for offering such a ridiculous thing. She blamed her flustered and muddled mind.

"The original had many mistakes..." she tried to look for the excuse why she was offering this. "...The woman in the painting wasn't even meant to look like that—"

He frowned as he moved closer toward her, his eyebrows quirking up in question.

"Um..." Alana began sweating under his looming gaze. Her heart in her throat as she stuttered. "...W-well...more beautiful than that, more colourful—"

"Hmm..." He cut her off, the gold in his eyes intensifying. "...On mercenary ground you're absolutely right...although the painting is a likeness—she is more beautiful than that painting." He agreed nodding and then realising her words, he looked again with his famous frown.

"How would you know what she looks like?" He asked her asked accusingly.

Alana was about to reply him that she had seen her in dreams when she realised something.

"Wait...why do you speak of the painting as if the woman actually exists? It is just a painting based on an imagination, after all." She questioned with a suspicious frown replacing her neutral expression.

He paled suddenly and this time the frown was directed to himself. He looked on the floor deeply as if he was racking for an excuse.

"You said earlier... that a viewer can feel a connection with a painting...I connect her with someone I used to know, a long time ago." He told her looking at her, however, this time without that intimidating scowl on his face.

Alana believed him instantly. She didn't know why but the words he spoke were the most sentimental she had ever heard.

What would you know? There was someone in his heart. The man was capable of feelings.

***

"You're probably wondering, how I came to be Secretary for such a wealthy man..." Karla spoke to her.

They stood outside the gallery in the parking lot, specifically outside a black Bentley Mulsaane in which said "wealthy man" was sitting at the back, in his lap her art piece now wrapped securely. It was an hour after Karla had successful won over the gallery owner into finally selling her painting.

When she had asked Karla what price she settled with gallery owner, Alana had almost fainted when her friend casually said, £300,000. That price was six times the total amount she had received from all her "other worldly beings" collection. If she had known that her painting would be so precious to someone willing to buy it for that ridiculous amount, Alana wouldn't have sold it in the first place.

Alana had wondered, exactly the identity of the guy in Armani? And how her friend had ended up working for him. Karla then explained to her that he owned several businesses and owned some lands around the world. Basically, why she could have easily negotiated to a million pounds if the gallery owner hadn't easily relented.

A million pounds?!

"Yes." Alana withdrew from her reverie and replied to Karla's initial question of how she had come to know such a wealthy man.

"He saved me..." Karla told her. "...I was in the lowest point of my life...he housed me and gave me a job. He's been my rock this far and I owe him my life."

"Owe him your life? Karla, why does it sound like you're saying you made a deal with a devil." Alana laughed jokingly.

However, Karla didn't seem to enjoy the joke as she blinked in shock at Alana's statement for a while. Then Karla's eyes crinkled in a knowing secretive smile before she said, "You just don't understand love, Alana."

"I may have yet to experience it, but just a reminder that you preached to me four years ago the same philosophy and yet you're not with Finn anymore." Alana reminded her.

Karla flinched once again at the mention of Finn. Her expression was as if she ate something bitter.

"Finn was just a trial run, a first love that should have never happened...My boss is...he's different, I feel safer with him, stronger and challenged. I always want to prove myself worthy of him. He deserves that much from me at least." Karla told Alana with an adamant determination.

Alana frowned,very much confused by Karla's words. She felt it right then there, the way her friend's face changed whenever she mentioned Finn. And this high appraisal for her boss who's name she didn't even know. Karla was hiding something...and Alana felt that something was very important.

"Prove yourself?" She asked Karla. "Karla if a man doesn't see and appreciate you a as woman you already are, then I say he doesn't deserve you."

"I feel opposite with, Lylas. I feel like I'm the one who doesn't deserve him."

"Lylas? Is that his name?" Alana asked, feeling a sort of accomplishment for finally getting a name out of tonight strange and yet thrilling encounter.

Karla looked at the car, a guilt expression blanking her face when she bit her lips. Alana looked inside the car and saw the ice-like coldness emitting from Karla's boss. The glower on his eyes was deadly and Alana felt a sudden nervousness.

"I shouldn't have slipped...you weren't supposed to know his name." Karla muttered as she returned her gaze to Alana.

Alana's eyes bulged, suddenly frightened. "Why?"

"Only a few know his real name...I'm going to pay for that?"

"Karla are you in trouble." Alana couldn't pinpoint it what is was exactly. However, she felt so worried for Karla. The way she spoke was different from the vibrant liveliness she had depicted earlier. Whether it was the three years of maturing and growing apart, however Alana felt the distance from Karla. Although she was standing in right next her, Karla had the look of another world about her.

Karla laughed suddenly, startling Alana out of her reverie. "I'm not in trouble...I'm just not going receive my bonus for this month that's all."

"Just because you revealed his name to me? Why? Is he some sort of spy agent or something?" Alana laughed nervously, her eyes darting to man in question in the car. He was simply leaning back in his seat, with his eyes closed and one of his hand tight on her painting. The other hand played with the vial pendant neckless around his neck.

Karla shook her head. "Here..." Karla suddenly handed Alana a business card. "...listen we are not staying for long in London—"

"You're not staying?" Alana asked feeling like she was losing Karla all over again.

"I can't stay in London, Holland is home to me now. His main base company is in Holland, it's there where I usually work."

Alana looked at the business card Karla had given her. The words "Salyl" were written on it, with such intricate calligraphy design. Simply and yet so elegant, it made her want to know the artist immediately. On the back of the card were contact details and a mobile number for the secretary of the CEO of Salyl.

It took a while of wondering why the company was called this ways until she realised 'Salyl' was spelt 'Lylas' backward. How fitting.

"Call me, okay," Karla implored Alana. "...we can have a fun day like old times, I want to see you before I leave."

She then hugged Alana tightly before getting into the passenger seat of the Mulsanne and telling the driver their next location. Alana watched, still transfixed by the whole ordeal as the car pulled away from the driveway. Karla waved goodbye at her and at the back, her boss, Lylas, had his eyes still tautly closed. His posture was indifferent and uncaring to the artist of the painting he held—as if for dear life—in his right hand.

Alana squeezed the business card tightly, feeling a shadow of disappointment enter her heart. She recalled the intense encounter she had with him earlier outside the gallery office.

Was she the only one that felt it? The palpable spark between them. That feeling of familiarity, as if the universe had meant for her to meet him at that right moment. Maybe she was going over her head and overthinking something that wasn't meant to be. Because that man in that car regarded her indifferently.

She would never meet him again. Alana resolved she should be happy to be free from exerting feelings where they weren't meant to be. Thinking back to Karla's words and the appraisal she had for him, Alana knew her friend was deeply in love with her boss. If it was this way, then Alana should wish her friend all the luck with him. She shouldn't be feeling the disappointment that she was feeling now.

Alana sighed as she shoved the business card deep in her purse and then walked back to where her fiat 500 was parked.