Chapter 5 - Chapter 5

'23 year old trillionaire girlfriend and next Houston Inc big CEO, Sarah Houston was seen with her father, Mr. Davis Houston at the VVIP party of Mr. John Hughes on a date with Mr. Harnes. Caught red handed cheating for the umpteenth time, Mrs. Melissa Hughes storms into the scene turning everything upside down. Discover more from the clip to play '

"Sarah you're on the news!" Elsa pointed out as she added more milk to her cornflakes.

"And what I'm I hearing? You? cheating? with Mr. Harnes?" mom asked taking a bite of her omelette.

"Mom you know it's not true! The media will never bring out the entire truth". I said rolling my eyes, remembering the "23 year old trillionaire girlfriend" I hated it when they called me that. Why couldn't they just refer to me as millionaire Sarah if necessary?

"So what's the entire truth?" Sonia asked

"Ms. Melissa mistook the business party as just one of Harnes' parties. She thought he was cheating on her again but after she found out he wasn't he apologized. Fini!"

'Ding' The bell rang out in our house.

"I'll get it" I said and picked up my phone then walked over to the door. There was no one outside but before I could turn away and leave, I spotted a huge bouquet of roses at the doorstep. 'Typical Arnold' I sighed and picked the roses up. I entered the dinning hall with the bouquet.

"Arnold?" Mom asked referring to the flowers.

"Probably" I answered and we ate in silence. Elsa got a text and froze. She looked pale when she looked up exchanging knowing looks with Mom then smiled at everyone at the table then blushing. She left for her room immediately. That was weird. Lisa left for the hall and Sonia packed and did the dishes. I picked my bouquet kissing mom goodbye . In my room, I walked lazily towards my bed and slammed my body on it. Sweet! I stayed like that for a while, just sprawled on my bed studying the chandelier above. I picked the roses and dipped my hand inside. Normally, Arnold placed this love message on a card in it for me. Sure enough I found one but it only had a phone number written on it. What was this supposed to mean? This could not be his phone number because I already had it. Or was it just an advertising card? If so they would've Indicated it was and more over this was handwritten in ink. Was this flower even from Arnold as I'm thinking in the first place?

I had to call the number to see. I decided to call Arnold and ask him about them but what if he didn't send them and asks who sent them? Should I dial Arnold's or the flower's numbers? Just then my phone rang. Sure enough it was Arnold.

"Hey"

"I watched the news!" he said in a plain and flat tone.

"Okay and?" I asked wanting to know his opinion about the issue.

"And you don't see nothing wrong with that?"he asked back.

"With what exactly?"

"With going on a date with a married man?"

"You actually think what the media said about me is true?" I asked almost shocked. If Arnold really did trusted me, he should first ask me about it before drawing conclusions.

He paused a bit before going on.

"I'm sorry, baby"

"Mrs. Melissa was simply mistaken and it was an official business sort of party. I wasn't on a date with nobody!" I explained.

"I love you!" he said but I didn't even say my usual ' and me you ' back. Then I decided to indirectly question him about the flowers.

"Why haven't you sent flowers yet, this time?" I asked.

"Baby the last time I did you complained about how many flowers you have all around you now. Even adding that some were dying due to lack of enough vases!" he said and kind of guilt tripping me.

"Okay" I said simply.

"Don't worry I'll ship our families historic vases over to you then send millions of flowers okay?" someone might actually think Arnold was joking by mentioning sending millions of flowers. The Arnold I knew would definitely do that , speaking from experience. I remembered once when we had just started dating and I randomly mentioned once that I loved cats but didn't have one. He promised to get me a million cats and true to his words, our house was turned into a world of cats with cities and towns. He brought in exactly 1,000,000 cats. It took the anger of dad for him to send them back to their place of origin! It was terrible!!!

"No don't worry, it's okay!" I said weakly.

"Anyways, I'll speak to you later okay?" I added.

"Okay, have a nice day babe. I lo...." he said and I ended the call.

So who sent the flowers? There was only one way to find out. Dialing the number on the card.

* * *

*Knock knock*

"Come in" I responded and Lisa came in to see me fidgeting with my phone with sweaty hands. She was all dressed up and looked ready to leave somewhere.

"Hey!" she greeted with a smile.

"Hey"

"Are you okay?" she asked

"Yeah. You look good" I complimented.

"I'm leaving" Lisa said with sadness in her eyes! But why would she want to leave? Was she not comfortable? Did someone offend her here? Did I spend too little time with her? Was she bored?

As these thoughts run through me, Lisa gently touched my hand and said, "My mom is not feeling well. Her husband just divorced her. I gotta be there for her" I nodded and pressed my lips in. I had let Sonia and Lisa - my two best friends to stay in this new house with us because the 27 million dollar house was too huge for only mom, Elsa, David and I to live in! Dad had refused to join us so he currently lived in the previous one.

"Hey I feel there's something off about you" Lisa pointed out again. I couldn't help but sigh.

"Someone sent me flowers and I don't know who" I opened up.

"And you don't have nothing to trace the person back?"

"I found this in the flowers" I showed her the card containing the phone number.

"Simply dial this!" she said shoving the card back into my head as though I hadn't already thought of that.

"Are you sure?" I asked still contemplating.

"Unless you don't wanna know who your Mr. Anonymous is"

"Mr? It could be a miss for all you know" I argued.

"Fine. Dial this thing already then gist me when I get home all the juicy stuff right? I'll see you tomorrow. Love you with all my life"

"Love you too" I said then dialed the numbers one every 2 seconds. Then finally, I pressed the dial button. 3 seconds. 5 seconds, 8.

"I knew you'd call" The almost recognizable voice said.

"Who's this?" I demanded

"Listen beyond what you hear"

I rolled my eyes. "See, I'm not ready for nonsense right now it's too early!" I said.

"Confident are we?" he said

"Harnes?" I guessed.

"Good guess"