This Crazy Rich Boy

"You sound so serious," Gabriel says as he closes the door of his office. He even tries to smile.

Claire, on the other hand, has her arms on her ċhėst. She walks straight to the other side of the room, to the glass wall overlooking the city, as though trying to distance herself as far away from the door as possible, away from prying ears.

"What is this about?" he says.

She turns to him. "What happened to Jake?"

"What?"

"You know who Jake is, don't you? He was one of your top employees."

"Yes, yes, I know who he is," he says. "What about him?"

"Is it true you fired him because of me?"

"Where did you get that idea—"

"Please don't lie, Gabriel," she says. "Please tell me the truth. Did you fire Jake Magno because of me?"

"Wait, I'm not sure what you've heard but—"

"Why can't you just tell the truth, Gabriel Tan?" She's actually beet red in the face. "Did you fire that man just because I dated him?"

"Wha—"

"We're not in a real relationship, Mister Tan," she says. "I'm just an employee. A contractual one at that. So it should not bother you if I date other people, especially a good and honest guy like Jake."

"Hold it," Gabriel says. Now, it's his turn to turn red in the face. Obviously, Claire is taking the whole thing the wrong way. There's a tone in her voice that he couldn't quite put a finger on. There's something off about the whole thing. Does she think…

"So tell me once and for all, Mister Tan. Did you fire Jake Magno because you're….jealous?"

"What???"

A deluge of conflicting feelings choke Gabriel Tan. For one thing, Claire is really taking it the wrong way; she's so misinformed, she had no idea what kind of a monster Jake Magno is. Even now, Jake is such a pain in the ȧss, and Gabriel has been keeping it all under wraps just to protect her. For another, why would Claire immediately think that he's jealous?

"I'm not jealous, Claire," he says, trying hard to keep a straight face.

"Come on, Gabriel," she says, still on fire. "Just one date, and the next thing Jake knew, he's out of a job. Are you going to do that with every single person I date here? Why would you do that? Are we in a real relationship, Mister Gabriel Tan? Are we?"

"Well, we're, uhhh…" Jesus, Gabriel thinks, he just couldn't really answer this straight. He feels like the "Are we in a real relationship" question is loaded, and Claire is already high-strung as she is now—he might say the wrong thing and this entire arrangement could be off.

"We're not a real couple, right?" Claire continues. "I'm not even here as my real identity, but as Bella Xavier. Bella, the blonde. I dated Jake Magno as a persona that does not exist in real life. That should've been a mitigating factor and should've stopped you from firing that man. But no, you went out of your way to go on a power trip, like you always love doing. What will you do if I date another cute guy."

"Cute guy?" Gabriel's curiosity is piqued. "Is there another cute guy here?"

"Well," Claire stammers, trying to decide quickly who's the cutest guy next to Jake in the hierarchy of this office's most eligible bachelors. "There's, uhh, there's Kurt from Marketing."

"Jesus, Kurt?" Gabriel face-palms. "He's gay, Claire."

"Then what about, uhh, Oscar, from IT?"

"Oscar's married and has seven kids, Claire. I doubt he'd like to add you to his growing list of dependents."

"Then what about…Oh, blast it! What I'm trying to say is, what would you do if I date another guy here?"

"Then I'll fire his ȧss, too," he says, half-grinning.

"That's not fair!"

"Claire, I'm kidding. I didn't fire Jake because he dated you. And I won't fire anyone you would date. I know our boundaries. I know I have no personal ownership of you at all. At least while we're in this arrangement." Emphasis on "at least," because somehow, in the far future, Gabriel feels he might do his best to make Claire stay in her life. But now, he must not say it to avoid further complication.

"Then what happened to Jake?"

Gabriel sighs. He gazes intently into her eyes, and he could see how clueless Claire really is. She has no idea of what actually transpired on that night. Honestly, he would have wanted for Claire never to revisit that traumatic night. He would have wanted for things to remain as unspoken as they are. But Claire demands the truth, and she deserves nothing less.

"Do you remember the date, where you went?"

"Yes," she says. "Sort of. It was a steak house. I remember Jake being sweet and all and…"

"And?"

"And nothing else." Claire grimaces, trying to retrieve the memory. "But strangely, I don't remember it ending. As if the last thing I remember is Jake's face saying words, but that's it. Everything is mysteriously missing. The next thing I knew is I woke up and you were beside me in the bed. Remember?"

"There's a grave reason why it was so," he says. "Jake's not the sweet guy you think he is." Gabriel stops, trying to weigh his next words, composing them in his head so as not to shock her. But there seems to be no filtering this next revelation: "Jake drugged you and tried to **** you in his house."

Claire's pretty face knits in confusion. "You can't be serious. Jake? He can't…" Then she remembers finally. How Jake really was. How people called him "Jake the Snake." Wasn't it suspicious that on her supposed first day at work, Jake was already hard at the effort of asking her out on a dinner date? Seriously, what kind of person does that?

But on the other hand, what kind of girl says yes to such an invitation? Oops.

"He slipped something in your drink, a modified version of a notoriously powerful drug called 'la rocha' or 'roofies'. Modified because it knocked you out in mere seconds. I guess you were lucky because if he had somehow exceeded the highest possible dosage your body could absorb, you could have ended up paralyzed."

"Paralyzed? Like a vegetable?"

"Yes, the whole body. Paralyzed. For the rest of your life."

Gabriel fought within himself regarding saying these dastardly details, but in the end, his dėsɨrė for her to know the whole truth won.

"Paralyzed, for the rest of my life," Claire intones, reeling from the realization of what a close call that simple, otherwise harmless dinner date had been with the end of her life. Her life hasn't even started yet, and there she was, so stupidly allowing herself in harm's way. And worse, she had been living the past few days without any idea of what a close call to disaster that had been.

"Paralyzed," she mutters, and she feels an upward surge of sickness from her belly that she isn't able to stop.

She vomits her breakfast all over Gabriel Tan's impeccable carpet.