[01] Spending Another Christmas with the Hot Emo Delinquent?

His mind is yelling at him to sleep and his eyes are screaming to close that it almost hurts to blink and to have open it yet again. "To Heathrow, sir?" his chauffeur for his stay quips. Well, considering the way that he literally dragged Nathan into the car, he damn well would know he had a flight to catch.

He feels a sense of panic by the mere thought of going to Heathrow right now.

Going across the Atlantic back and forth is beginning to suck out his energy.

He takes a big bite of his sandwich and dare not to think about what happened earlier. He knows he would end up either being confused and doubtful, or angry with himself. "I think I'm going to extend my stay," he finally says.

"I have something to...search here," he adds after an afterthought.

* * *

I can't quite register what the hell I'm typing out right now. Hell, I might write about Flaviana's addiction to plastic surgery in a very rude manner or how ridiculously big her boobs are and still not care about me. The words are bouncing off of me.

It's too good to be true. There is no way that Nathan Bradley could be here.

The hell was he doing here?!

Okay stop it Charlotte. You're being way paranoid right now. Even if he is here, even if the man you saw today is Nathan, he might have a great life right now with a hot supermodel girlfriend or something.

I still can't figure out why I suck at cheering myself up.

When my mind starts to drift off, thinking about Nathan, I yank myself back to work. I finally decided that Nathan is in California right now and there is no reason at all for him to be in London. I think.

* * *

"Goddammit," Nathan sighs, making everyone in the room jumps. "I leave you for 1 hour and the office is already a mess," he says, cocking an eyebrow towards Alicia Jennings - a petite 24 years old friend of his since college, with strikingly brilliant green eyes - thoughtfully and she blushes.

"How was I suppose to know that you're coming back!" she replies but Nathan have a feeling that it didn't come out quite right. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be in a flight back home today?" a colleague, Ryan Moreno says. He was a built man with black eyes and black hair.

"If I didn't know any better I would say you guys are trying to get rid of me," Nathan mutters under his breath, taking off his cufflinks and rolling up his sleeves. This wasn't his initial plan after studying his ass off to get into college (and after he did get into one, he studied his ass off to pass every semester. If this keeps up he'll need a new ass, he thought at one...very drunk point or another).

In fact, he was supposed to go traveling for fun. Just to relax for a bit.

Until his father barked at him for being unresponsible and asked him, "Nathan, do you really want to eat sand for the rest of your life?! I don't care what you do, open up a damn office or crap but I am not going to pay for any of your expenses if you fucking travel."

And open up a damn office he did.

Only it was harder than he thought. But when he did overcame those problems, he was up and running. Part of him wanted to rub it in his father's face. But that's the closest thing to suicide that he'll ever get to.

Jack Brien, the quirky friend of his is his partner...who reminded him of a dog. Always jumping around and whining but for some reason everyone loves being around him anyway. He's the one who stride into his office confidently one day and announce, "Nate! I think we should open our office in another country."

Shuffling the papers irritatedly, Nathan looked up towards him. "What are you rambling on now, Jack?" Nathan sighed. "You do realize that we have a huge staff here and we could barely even handle them," Nathan chuckled, turning to his laptop.

"That's the HR fault. Not ours."

Nathan stopped what he was doing and stared suspiciously at his friend. He broke under the pressure and finally blurted out, "Nathan, there's at least like 10 hot chicks with sexy accent coming on to me at a bar one night when I was there. Can't you just start small there like we did here?"

And Nathan feared that Jack was being serious.

"Plus more income and everyone would be able to pay off their bills!"

Jack stupid reason aside, Nathan is tempted to expand the company months before Jack burst into his office. So this year, he took a risk. He opened an office in the heart of the city of London with a relatively small staff.

"I told you you'll love this place," Jack enthuses out of no where. Nathan is brought out of his thoughts as he searches the room for the sign of an athletic-build, 28-something guy with spiky brown hair.

Seriously you won't even believe that he is 28. Jack is bent over a copier, banging it like there is no tomorrow. "Yes please, destroy office supplies, that would really help to get it working," he heard one of their senior marketing exec., Lydia Jones' voice scolding Jack without a drop of sarcasm missed.

"I'm staying here for a couple of days not because of your love for women with accents," Nathan snaps irritatedly, which bring sniggers from his co-workers who heard about Jack's earlier appeal. "Sight-seeing?" Alicia asks.

He shakes his head warily. "No. I think I saw someone I may know. But I haven't seen her for..."

He stops himself. He haven't realize it have been that long. "Around 8 to 9 years."

"I can try and help..." she says. "But it's not a promise. What's her name?"

"Charlotte Cassity," he replies without a haste. A flicker of recognition flashes in her eyes as she says, "Charlotte C...as in, the journalist for Mode Couture?"

"What the hell is Mode Couture?"

A friend of Alicia, Kristina looks at Nathan as if he is sprouting another head and that head is sprouting another. And Alicia just rolls her eyes as if to say "pfft, men."

Clicking open Google Image, Alicia types out 'Charlotte Cassity Mode Couture' in the search box. "It's a fashion magazine created for woman who loves fashion but can't really afford a thousand dollar skirt or anything. Charlotte here is a journalist who brings deserving designers into the spotlight and assemble the clothes they design into various kind of outfits...and voila."

Nathan almost laughs. Charlotte? He knows the fact that she wants to take up journalism, but he figures in some sort of a finance magazine or something. "Couldn't be her," he laughs. "Last time I met her--"

Alicia clicks on a picture and his words got stuck in his throat.

And all at once he seems to have forgotten how to breath.