This Crazy Rich Boy

"Are you alright, Miss Claire?"

It's Dale, as always, asking her if there's anything she might need. Sometimes Claire wonders: How much does Gabriel pay Dale to take care of me? Because as things look, Dale must be excellently paid.

Dale's words yank her out of her reverie. "Oh, sorry. I think I'm too sleepy that I'm now fading."

Dale smiles. "Sir Miguel has left. Was your meeting with him to your satisfaction?"

"I'm not sure," she mutters, because truly she isn't sure. "It's the strangest meeting."

Dale looks at her, but decides it's not his place to pry. "Perhaps you would like me to accompany you to your suite, Ma'am?"

"Oh, I'm alright, Dale," she says, standing up. "I'm fine. I think I'll walk myself to the elevator now and retire."

"Good night, Miss Claire."

"Good night."

Even as Claire speaks, her mind is elsewhere. This is torture. Truly. In her heart is a mish-mash of feelings she doesn't fully understand. But what if she tries to approach this logically? What if she deconstruct all the elements of her current dilemma?

Upon entering her suite, she's surprised to find it clean and in excellent order. There's even a feast on the table. Claire makes a mental note of telling Lucille or Dale to stop putting so much food on her dining table—it's just so wasteful. Either they have a plan of making her hopelessly fat at the end of her tenure, or they're just trying to cook everything in the Residence's gigantic walk-in freezer, which had been sitting there ever since Gabriel repurposed the building into her own sole address. Claire shakes her head involuntarily, as she realizes these are the things she might miss when it's over. But then again, she had lived for a long time without anything, so it should not be a big deal to return to being nothing, a nobody.

Absent-mindedly, she picks up a piece of fruit—everything else will go to waste, she thinks, and she's almost tempted to say a silent prayer of apology to the turkey and cow and pig that had been slaughtered to be part of this standby feast—and tentatively bites into it as she recalls the evening's meeting. It was hardly a meeting but a confession, if unusual at that.

The turn of events these past few days is baffling. It's too much to take. With Gabriel seemingly occupied with his problem with Michelle, there seems no one Claire can turn to for guidance, and for answers to burning questions such as: Does she continue "working" as executive ȧssistant to Gabriel, especially now that Michelle might also set up office in the same building? How crazy is that? Good thing his engagement with Gabriel is fake; if it were genuine, Claire wouldn't know what to feel, knowing her sweetheart had been hoodwinked into signing a merger contract with the very woman he had vowed to take revenge on.

More and more, she's led into questioning the wisdom of Gabriel's plan. She should tell him or remind him that maybe it's high time he reconsidered, or at least change the direction of his plans. Michelle Alcantara, it turns out, is not someone to trifle with. She's smart and cunning, and possibly dangerous, and Gabriel, with his eccentricities and his temper, might be no match to that woman.

Maybe they should just admit it. Or perhaps Gabriel should just drop the news to Michelle one day that he and his supposedly new fiancée have broken up. Whether or not Claire would still be part of the plan from then on, she wouldn't make any presumptions—they'll cross the bridge, as they say, when they get there.

Meanwhile, as there are no new instructions from Gabriel, they'd just keep things as they are. Keep the status quo, so to speak. She'd go to the office, try to glean as much as possible from the company's corporate culture, which may help her when she finds a real job later on. She'd play things by ear, and change plans or adjust by the day. Looks like a solid plan, isn't it, Claire? She chews the apple, and is delighted to find it's still crunchy.

Now, how about Miguel, that crazy little brother? Oh, God. Truth be told, Claire is flattered. The words uttered by Miguel earlier that night had never been uttered to him by anyone, prince or pauper, tycoon or salaryman. No one. And it had to be Miguel. She doesn't know what to think. Of course, it's easy to get seduced by the fact of it. She can imagine another woman who would easily jump into the opportunity. This is different from the job offer Gabriel made to her, though. This is no job offer. There are real, and possibly painful and life-changing stakes here.

Miguel is not really bad-looking. He's the quintessential playboy—happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care dashing debonair. And that's both the awesome and bad parts. Awesome because she's also attracted to him, somehow. He looks almost exactly like Gabriel, for crying out loud! And in some ways, he looks prettier—that is, if real feelings will only be based on physical beauty, then she has no reason to have second thoughts about Miguel. Add to that is the fact that she wouldn't have to work a day in her life if Miguel's serious about spending his life with her. On top of all these things, Miguel has been nothing but nice to people—none of Gabriel's temper, tantrums, and sudden flashes of rage. Miguel seems truly alright.

On the other hand, no one can ever be sure of a person's feelings. And she's put here at a severe disadvantage. She has no experience. She's the Virgin Princess, as Gabriel would have it. Would she be able to glean if Miguel's simply manipulating her? Would she sense it if Miguel's just testing her, or just intends to "experience" her? Miguel can easily make her fall in love—he must know the right moves, what buŧŧons to push, and in no time she would be so dependent on him and desperately in love with him. And there's the rub—desperation makes a person unattractive, and when that happens, would Miguel still say he loves her and wants to spend his life with her?

Claire is deeply thinking and weighing the pros and cons of these possibilities that it is giving her a headache. And a heartache. She gazes longingly at the dining table, realizing she had not eaten anything since morning. Her stomach has begun to grumble. Oh, how does she respond to Miguel? How does she make sense of what she's feeling—she's frightened and excited and titillated and hopeful and full of despair all at the same time. All these thoughts and feelings fight for space in her head and heart that it's all driving her crazy. Is this the reason why people who are driven to the brink of despair almost always shoot themselves in the head or in the heart?

She's about to yank out the leg of the roasted turkey when the phone rings. She merely stares at it, thinking it must be Miguel. The phone rings and rings. After maybe the twentieth ring, the phone finally falls silent. Claire breathes a sigh of relief—this has been quite a long day. She's done with it. She doesn't want any more addition to her ongoing drama.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the phone line, Gabriel wonders what happened to Claire. After a few meetings with his most trusted ȧssociates, and getting a clear picture of what happened, Gabriel's mood has somehow lightened up. He has time to realize what a dɨċk he was toward Claire earlier in the day. He's sitting alone in his office, surrounded by things that make him remember Claire, and he's overcome with remorse. Claire has been nothing but nice to him. She has always tried to make him happy. So he calls her up in her penthouse suite—but strangely, no one's picking up. Either Claire is not there, which would be highly unlikely, given the hour (he doesn't want to actually check her GPS location at this time because, hey, give her a break and stop spying on her, will you, Gabriel?) or Claire's mad at him. Maybe he has pissed her off, having treated her like dirt soon after Michelle left the office.

Oh, Claire, Gabriel thinks as he puts down the phone. "I'm sorry," he mutters to the silence of his office, "but please hang on. We'll sort everything out. And hopefully, we'll get through this."