Realizing she might have offended famous families and wanting to cry, Valentina quickly said a prayer; Please Luca's parents, wherever you are, protect me well for protecting your baby, Amen. Finished praying, Valentina shook herself out of her dark thoughts.
She quickly finished cleaning Luca up and squatted in front of him while looking him in the eyes.
"Luca, there are three options. I can take you to your parent's room if you remember the door number."
Seeing him shake his head, Valentina continued. "I do not have my phone on me so I can take you to the front desk and they can help find your parents or I can take you to where my phone is, and you can use it to call them if you know the number. What would you like to do?"
"Use your phone." Luca quietly replied. After hesitating for a moment, he held his hands out as if he wanted her to carry him.
Feeling sorry for the poor baby, Valentina mentally said a prayer for her arms and lifted him up. When a child wants to be carried, the duty of an adult is to carry them.
As she slowly walked the long path back to the room, Valentina chatted with Luca.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Green." Luca quickly responded.
"What's your favorite toy?"
"The computer." Was his quick reply.
"Ohhh? What do you like to do on the computer?" Valentina asked interested.
"Coding, Roblox, and Minecraft" Luca responded. Just like that, the two had a harmonious back and forth until Valentina reached the room.
Preparing herself to apologize for taking so long and bringing back a strange child, she entered the room.
The first thing she saw was that both Roman Grayson and Kaiser Grayson were standing and urgently speaking with people dressed in security uniforms.
When Valentina walked in while holding a young child tucked in her arms, everyone turned to look at her. From the two CEOs to the security people, from the director to the people sitting on the chairs. They all turned to stare at her.
A little embarrassed at the attention, Valentina hurried to explain.
"Uhm this little nugget, uh child here is Luca. I came across him being bullied by other children, so I intervened. He wants to use my phone to call his parents who are in the building. They should be here soon so I'm sorry for the trouble in advance." After Valentina explained it, she looked at everyone's face and continued to ask, "Also… is there something going on? Why is security here?" Valentina asked as she looked around in confusion.
There was a pause before Roman Grayson dashed towards her yelling "Luccaaaa my baby. My darling! Why did you go missing? Uncle has been so worried."
Afraid of the man running full speed at her, Valentina hurriedly stepped back but before Roman Grayson could hit her, Kaiser Grayson yanked him back by his collar stopping him dead in his tracks.
Valentina and Luca gave them identical confused looks.
What kind of rough play was this?
Kaiser Grayson kept counting down the minutes before he could go back to his house. He had been in meetings all day and had a business lunch at Blue Robin Lounge. Since he was already there, his brother had asked him to stay for dinner.
Roman mentioned he would be building relations and inspiring some of their artists and directors working on several large projects.
It wasn't a big deal to him. He had no more meetings for the day, so he just had his secretary bring his work as he stayed in one of the work suites.
Evening came and Roman asked him to come with him to visit the artists as it might would make a bigger impact. Although Roman was flighty and an airhead sometimes, he was a great CEO for Platinum Entertainment, and his ideas always brought results, so he went along.
As introductions were happening, he recognized the director Sarah Lee, and Rio, the youngest son of the Greiner family. All the other faces were new to him. Two of the women there were actresses and the rest were seasoned veterans in the industry. As he glanced over everyone, his gaze kept coming back to one of the actresses. It was also that girl who caught his attention as she kept her introduction short and boldly shared her goal of joining his company. After that, she didn't seem interested in joining in on the conversation happening with the Director or Roman. She simply sipped her drink while observing the room the way he was. When their gazes accidentally met, she cheekily winked at him while slightly raising her cup, then went back to looking around.
Throughout the conversation, she participated minimally without looking at either him or his brother. She just continued checking her watch and sipping her drink. The only time she spoke was to the Greiner boy before she left.
Moments after she left, security came to tell him that his son was missing from the room he was supposed to be in. A room Roman had left him in. Feeling a surge of anger, he restrained it as outsiders were with them. 10 minutes after security started their sweep, the girl, Valentina returned with his son in her arms.
After stopping his brother's charge at her he finally took a closer look at her. Tall for a woman, probably coming up to his shoulders, and shapely from what he could see from her loose clothing. She had jet black hair, so dark it reflected the light that was pushed back and fell to her waist in loose ringlets. Her heart-shaped face was beautiful with fox-shaped eyes a vibrant shade of green surrounded by long lashes, full brows, and full pink lips. Her forehead was slightly damp with sweat causing her baby hairs to stick and her face was flushed pink. He was someone who had been around wealthy daughters with access to the best beauty products and beautiful entertainers all his life, but he had to say that her face would be ranked among the top gorgeous faces he had ever seen.
She wore a simple white dress that stopped above her knee. It looked crumpled and damp by the neckline where his son was gripping it tightly. On one of her legs, there was an ugly purple bruise marring the smooth skin. It looked as if she had bumped it hard into something. Or someone had hit her.
He looked at this son again and saw that his face was swollen and flushed as if he had been crying. They both looked at him with identically confused expressions and he wanted to laugh as they tilted their heads to the side similarly.
"Miss Valentina, do you mind if I speak with you privately? I'd like to get more details on how you found my son." Although he was thankful that she brought Luca here, he couldn't rule out the fact that she might have plotted the whole thing with the help of others.
Seeing her nod in agreement, he turned and spoke to the director and her crew.
"I'm sorry to say that I have to leave as I need to speak with Miss Valentina. Since I don't know how long it would take and if she's okay with it, I will send her home."
"No. I'm not okay with it" Rio responded coldly.